Obama, Barack "A Promised Land"

Obama, Barack "A Promised Land" - 2020

There are books that are easy to describe. I liked the book, I didn't like the book. It was easy to read, it was difficult to read … Sometimes you need to inform your readers about your view on a certain subject.

I doubt that I have to do that. Whoever knows me, has heard that according to a test on facebook I am "very liberal, as far left as can be before heading into Stalin's backyard". That was at least ten years ago but nothing has changed.

Even though many people call President Obama a socialist, those people have no idea what a socialist ist. However, he has the well-being of his people in mind, I knew that much before I read the book. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do or say to convince people that he is a good guy. What I probably love most about him is that he admits where he was wrong and that he is not faultless (as opposed to another one who shall not be named).

I loved this book so much, I really didn't want to finish it. Barack Obama has such a great way of talking to the reader, it really is as if we were sitting opposite a friend. We could learn not just about his life but about presidents in general, what their tasks are and how difficult some of them are to be fulfilled. It was so interesting to hear about so many events from behind the scenes.

I have enjoyed everything I read by Barack Obama, he is such a smart, decent and nice guy, and am looking forward to part two of his memoirs.

The quote I love most:

"The truth is, I've never been a big believer in destiny. I worry that it encourages resignation in the down-and-out and complacency among the powerful. I suspect that God’s plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations; that in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to align ourselves with what we feel is right and construct some meaning out of our confusion, and with grace and nerve play at each moment the hand that we’re dealt."

From the back cover:

"A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making - from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy.

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.

Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.

A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective - the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of 'hope and change,' and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.

This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day."

I have seen quite a few reviews of the book and they were all positive. I suppose, those who dislike the guy will not read his biography anyway. One of my blogger friends wrote this "non-review" with many further quotes. Have a look, you won't regret it.

Her main point:

"Was President Obama perfect? No.
Do I believe he had the best interest of our nation at heart in his eight years in office and served admirably? Undoubtedly, yes."

I couldn't agree more.

Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Obama, Barack "Of Thee I Sing"

Obama, Barack "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters" - 2010

This is one of the cutest picture books I have seen. Every page adds a new example of a person who is an ideal for as all. There is Martin Luther King jr., Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, but also Helen Keller, Billie Holiday and many, many fabulous people who do their bit in order to make this world a better one.

Barack Obama wrote this for his daughters when they were little. It shows how much he loves not just his own children but people in general. He shows the compassionate president he would become (the book was written before he was elected). The world needs more people like him and those he quotes in this book.

The illustrations are also wonderful. On the first page you see Malia and Sasha with their Portuguese water dog, Bo, then, on every page they add another character who is the famous person he introduces as a child, they are smart, creative and inspriring, part of a family, never give up … And they then join in the group of children who watch the next person. Beautiful.

Loren Long, the illustrator, has also written some books of his own and they are just as beautifully illustrated as this one.

I think this is a great book, especially if you have young children and want to guide them on the right path. You can tell from the family Obama how important love is and how it can be given and what it does to the children.

It shows the kids how one person can change the world if they just pursue their ideas.

Definitely one of my favourite books of the year.

From the back cover:

"In this tender, beautiful letter to his daughters, former President Barack Obama has written a moving tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped his nation. From the artistry of Georgia O'Keeffe, to the courage of Jackie Robinson, to the patriotism of George Washington, Barack Obama sees the traits of these heroes within his own children and within all children.

Evocative illustrations by the award-winning artist Loren Long at once capture the personalities and achievements of these great Americans, and the innocence and promise of childhood.

This book celebrates the potential within all of us to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths."

Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Barack Obama Reading Lists

 

I once came across a blog post by one of the friends I have made through blogging
and was surprised I hadn't seen it before. Yes, President Obama has published a reading list. If there was anything I wouldn't love about him already, this surely would have to be it! He's a fellow readaholic.

These are the lists I looked at in order to put them all together:
Barack Obama Shares Five of the Best Books He Read This Summer
Here Are All the Books You Should Read This Year, According to Barack Obama
86 Books Barack Obama Recommended During His Presidency
All of Obama's Reading Lists Combined
Facebook

I will try to update this list in the coming years.

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem "Coach Wooden and Me"
Abdurragib, Hanif "A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance"
- "There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension"
Achebe, Chinua "Things Fall Apart" (The African Trilogy #1)
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi "Americanah"
Akbar, Kaveh "Martyr!"
Akhtar, Ayad "Homeland Elegies"
Alam, Rumaan "Leave the World Behind"
Alderman, Naomi "The Power"
Alte, Jonathan "Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope"
Applebaum, Anne "Twilight of Democracy"Arsenault, Raymond "Arthur Ashe: A Life"
Ayers, William "A Kind And Just Parent"
Baldwin, James "The Fire Next Time"
Bartels, Larry "Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age"
Bauer, Shane "American Prison"
Beaton, Kate "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands"
Bennett, Brit "The Vanishing Half"
Blight, David W. "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom"
Blitzer, Jonathan"Everyone Who Is Gone Here"
Boo, Katherine "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity"
Bradley, Kaliane "The Ministry of Time"
Branch, Taylor "Parting the Waters"
Broom, Sarah M. "The Yellow House"
Bullwinkel, Rita "Headshot"
Caro, Robert A. "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York"
Carr, Nicholas "The Shallows"
Catton, Eleanor "Birnam Wood"
Chan, Jessamine "The School for Good Mothers"
Chang, Lan Samantha "The Family Chao"
Chen, Te-Ping "Land of Big Numbers"
Cep, Casey "Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee"
Chernow, Ron "Grant"
- "Washington: A Life"
Chiang, Ted "Exhalation"
Choi, Susan "Trust Exercise"
Cixin, Liu "The Three-Body Problem"
Coates, Ta-Nehisi "Between the World and Me"
Coll, Steve "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001"
Conrad, Joseph "Heart of Darkness"
Cornejo Villavicencio, Karla "The Undocumented Americans"
Cosby, S. A. "All the Sinners Bleed"
- "Razorblade Tears"
Dalrymple, William "The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company"
Deneen, Patrik "Why Liberalism Failed"
Desmond, Matthew "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City"
- "Poverty, by America"
Diaz, Hernan "Trust"
Diop, David "At Night All Blood is Black"
Doerr, Anthony "All the Light We Cannot See"
- "Cloud Cuckoo Land"
Du Bois, W. E. B. "The Souls of Black Folk"
Edugyan, Esi "Washington Black"
Egan, Jennifer "The Candy House"
Eggers, Dave "What Is the What"
Eig, Jonathan "King: A Life"
Elliott, Andrea "Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City"
Ellison, Ralph "Invisible Man"
Emerson, Ralph Waldo "Self-Reliance"
Evaristo, Bernardine "Girl, Woman, Other"
Everett, Percival "James"
Finnegan, William "Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life"
Fitzgerald, F. (Francis) Scott "The Great Gatsby"
Flanagan, Richard "The Narrow Road to the Deep North"
Flynn, Gillian "Gone Girl"
Franzen, Jonathan "Crossroads"
- "Freedom"
- "Purity"
Friedman, Thomas L. "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America"
Gandhi "Autobiography"
Ganz, John "When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s"
García Márquez, Gabriel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (Spanish: Cien años de soledad)
Gawande, Atul "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End"
Goldstein, Amy "Janesville: An American Story"
Goldstein, Gordon "Lessons in Disaster"
Goodwin, Doris Kearns "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln"
Grann, David "The Wager"
Greene, Graham "The Power and the Glory"
 - "The Quiet American"
Groff, Lauren "Fates and Furies"
- "Florida"
- "Matrix"
Grossman, David "To the End of the Land" (Hebrew: אשה בורחת מבשורה/Isha Nimletet Mi'Bshora)
Gurnah, Abdulrazak "Afterlives"
Halberstam, David "Best and the Brightest"
Halliday, Lisa "Asymmetry"
Hamid, Mohsin "Exit West"
Hamilton, Alexander "The Federalist"
Harari, Yuval Noah "Sapiens. A Brief History of Mankind" (Hebrew: קיצור תולדות האנושות/Ḳizur Toldot Ha-Enoshut)
Harding, Paul "Tinkers"
Harris, Nathan "The Sweetness of Water"
Harrison, Tiffany Clarke "Blue Hour"
Haruf, Kent "Plainsong"
Hawkins, Paula "The Girl on the Train"
Herring, Chris "Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks"
Hong Kingston, Maxine "The Woman Warrior"
Iguodala, Andre "The Sixth Man"
Ishiguro, Kazuo "Klara and the Sun"
Jacques, Brian "Redwall" series
Jahren, Lab "Lab Girl"
Jeffers, Honrée Fanonne "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois"
Johnson, Denis "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden"
 - "The Laughing Monsters"
Johnson, Adam "The Orphan Master's Son"
Jones, Tayari "An American Marriage"
Just, Ward "Rodin’s Debutante"
Kahnemann, Daniel "Thinking, Fast and Slow"
Kaplan, Fred "Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer"
Keefe, Patrick Radden "Empire of Pain"
Klay, Phil "Missionaries"
- "Redeployment"
Klein, Ezra "Why We’re Polarized"
Kitamura, Katie "Intimacies"
Ko, Lisa "Memory Piece"
Kolbert, Elizabeth "The Sixth Extinction"
- "Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future"
Kolker, Robert "Hidden Valley Road"
Kumar, Amitava "Immigrant, Montana"
Labatut, Benjamin "When We Cease to Understand the World"
Lahiri, Jhumpa "The Lowland"
Land, Stephanie "Maid"
Landrieu, Mitch "In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History"
Larson, Erik "The Splendid and the Vile"
Le Carré, John "Silverview"
Lehane, Dennis "Small Mercies"
Leilani, Raven "Luster"
Leithauser, Brad "A Few Corrections"
Lerner, Ben "The Topeka School"
Lessing, Doris "The Golden Notebook"
Levitsky, Steven; Ziblatt, Daniel "How Democracies Die"
Lincoln, Abraham - The Collected Works
Luiselli, Valeria "Lost Children Archive"
Macdonald, Helen "H Is For Hawk"
Mailer, Norman "The Naked and the Dead"
Mandel, Emily St. John "The Glass Hotel"
- "Sea of Tranquility"
Mandela, Nelson "Long Walk to Freedom"
Mantel, Hilary "Wolf Hall"
Marra, Anthony "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena"
Matar, Hisham"The Return"
McBride, James "Deacon King Kong"
- "Five-Carat Soul"
McCullough, David "John Adams"
Melville, Herman "Moby Dick"
Mengestu, Dinaw "How to Read the Air"
Moore, Liz "Long Bright River"
- "The God of the Woods"
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia "Velvet Was the Night"
Moretti, Enrico "The New Geography of Jobs"
Morris, Edmund "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt"
Morrison, Toni - Collected Works (I read four of her novels)
Mounk, Yascha "The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure"
Murakami, Haruki "Men Without Women" (Japanese: 女のいない男たちOnna no inai otokotachi)
Naipaul, V.S. "A Bend in the River: His Great Novel of Africa"
- "A House for Mr Biswas"
Napolitano, Ann "Hello Beautiful"
Ngugi wa Thiong’o "A Grain of Wheat"
Nguyen, Eric "Things We Lost to the Water"
Niebuhr, Reinhold "Moral Man And Immoral Society"
Nnuro, DK "What Napoleon Could Not Do"
Obama, Michelle "Becoming"
 - "The Light We Carry"
Obreht, Téa "Inland"
Odell, Jenny "How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy"
Ondaatje, Michael "Warlight"
O'Neill, Joseph "Netherland"
Orange, Tommy "There There"
Osnos, Evan "Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China"
Owusu, Nadia "Aftershocks"
Tedlow, Richard S. "Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American"
Park, Barbara "Junie B. Jones" series
Patchett, Ann "These Precious Days"
Payne, Keith "The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die"
Pelecanos, George "The Way Home"
Penn Warren, Robert "All the King's Men"
Perkins, Lynn Rae "Nuts to You"
Perry, Imani "South to America"
Price, Richard "Lush Life"
Radden Keefe, Patrick "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland"
Reeves, Richard "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It"
Rhodes, Ben "The World As It Is. Inside The Obama House"
Robinson, Kim Stanley "The Ministry for the Future"
Robinson, Marylinne "Gilead"
- "Jack"
- "Reading Genesis"
Rooney, Jim "A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney's Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule"
Rooney, Sally "Normal People"
Rosling, Hans "Factfulness"
Rowling, J.K. - Harry Potter series
Rundell, Katherine "Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms"
Rushdie, Salman "Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights"
Salter, James "All That Is"
Saunders, George "Liberation Day"
Schiff, Stacy "The Revoluitionary: Samuel Adams"
Sendak, Maurice "Where The Wild Things Are"
Serpell, Namwali "The Furrow"
Serrano, Shea "Basketball (and Other Things)"
Sides, Hampton "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook"
Smith, Adam "Wealth of Nations"
- "Theory of Moral Sentiments"
Smith, Clint "How the Word Is Passed"
Smith, Jean Edward "FDR"
Smith, Zadie "Feel Free"
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr "Cancer Ward" (Russian: Ра́ковый ко́рпус, Rákovy kórpus)
Stephenson, Neal "Seveneves"
Stevenson, Robert Louis "Treasure Island"
Steinbeck, John "In Dubious Battle"
 - "Of Mice and Men"
Strong Washburn, Kawai "Sharks in the Time of Saviors"
Strout, Elizabeth "Anything Is Possible"
Taylor, Cory "Dying: A Memoir"
Tegmark, Max "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence"
Terkel Studs "Working"
Thompson, Peter S. "Philosophy & Literature"
Tóibín, Colm "Nora Webster"
Tolentino, Jia "Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion"
Towles, Amor "A Gentleman in Moscow"
- "The Lincoln Highway"
Trethewey, Natasha "Memorial Drive"
Treuer, David "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present"
Verghese, Abraham "Cutting for Stone"
Wagner, Alex "Futureface: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging"
Walcott, Derek - Collected Poems
Waldmann, Adele "Help Wanted"
Walter, Jess "We Live in Water: Stories"
Walton, Dawnie "The Final Revival of Opal & Nev"
Wang, Quian Julie "Beautiful Country"
Ward, Jesmyn "Sing, Unburied"
Washington, Bryan "Lot: Stories"
Weir, Andy "Project Hail Mary"
Westover, Tara "Educated"
Whitehead, Colson "Harlem Shuffle"
- "The Nickel Boys"
- "Underground Railroad"
- "Harlem Shuffle" by Colson Whitehead
Wilkerson, Charmaine "Black Cake"
Wilkerson, Isabel "Caste"
- "The Warmth of Other Suns"
Wilkinson, Lauren "American Spy"
Williams, Zach "Beautiful Days"
Wilson, Antoine "Mouth to Mouth"
Woodfox, Albert "Solitary"
Woodrell, Daniel "The Bayou Trilogy"
Woodson, Jacqueline "Brown Girl Dreaming"
Yanagihara, Hanya "To Paradise"
Yong, Ed "An Immense World"
Zakaria, Fareed "The Post-American World"
Zauner, Michelle "Crying in H Mart"
Zhang, C Pam "How Much of These Hills is Gold"
Zuboff, Shoshana "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power"

I have not only not read many of the books on this list, only 32, I haven't heard of many of them. Time to go book-hunting.

Last ones added, reading list of  2024:
Abdurraqib, Hanif "There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension"
Akbar, Kaveh "Martyr!"
Blitzer, Jonathan"Everyone Who Is Gone Here"
Bradley, Kaliane "The Ministry of Time"
Bullwinkel, Rita "Headshot"
Everett, Percival "James"
Ganz, John "When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s"
Ko, Lisa "Memory Piece"
Moore, Liz "The God of the Woods"
Reeves, Richard "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It"
Robinson, Marilynne, "Reading Genesis"
Sides, Hampton "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook"
Waldmann, Adele "Help Wanted"
Williams, Zach "Beautiful Days"

Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Dionne jr. E.J.; Reid, Joy-Ann "We are the Change We Seek"

Dionne jr. E.J.; Reid, Joy-Ann "We are the Change We Seek. The Speeches of Barack Obama" - 2017

Barack Obama was a great president with hope for a better world. His speeches show that. The ones that are shown in this book are probably amongst his most important ones and they were all fantastic.

Many people should read this, especially those who hope that the present incumbent will be better. There is now way that is going to happen.

We need more people like him, this world would be a better place. And I am sure, even though he is not the president any more, that we'll hear more from hm and that he'll continue his work. He is a born leader and speaker and he can encourage people to work for their country and therefore for the world.

After "Dreams From My Father", "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama, "The World As It Is" by Ben Rhodes, "Promise Me, Dad" by Joe Biden and "Becoming" by Michelle Obama, this was the sixth book I read about the president. They were all great reads to get to know this man and his dream a little better.

From the back cover:

"'Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change we seek'

In his speeches as president, Barack Obama had the power to move people from all over the world as few leaders before him. We Are the Change We Seek is a collection of twenty-seven of Obama's greatest speeches, covering the issues most important to our time: war, inequality, race relations, gun violence and human rights. With brief introductory remarks explaining the context for each speech, this is a book to inform, illuminate and inspire, providing invaluable insight into a groundbreaking and era-defining presidency."

Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Rhodes, Ben "The World As It Is"

Rhodes, Ben "The World As It Is. Inside The Obama House" - 2018

A while ago, I bought three books that all related somehow to Barack Obama and his presidency:
"Promise Me, Dad" by Joe Biden, "Becoming" by Michelle Obama and this one by one of the most important staffers Barack Obama had in those days.

Ben Rhodes began his career in the White House as a speech writer in 2008, working for the presidential campaign.

He soon became even more important than that. As the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, he was the main contact with Cuba in the negations to reestablish diplomatic relations. He seems to have been one of the closest advisers the president had.

In the book we learn about all the success and the failures of the presidency, the problems they had with their opponents and their successor, all the lies we have heard so often. I always wondered how so many lies can be told about one single person and how many people are willing to believe it. Now I know.

But he also mentions their own problems, not just those caused by others. A very honest and thoughtful account of a decade of politics.

If you've enjoyed the TV series "West Wing", you will enjoy reading about the real place. Lots of details.

Ben Rhodes is a good writer which makes this book even more readable than many other non-fiction books.

He also wrote Obama's 2009 Cairo speech "A New Beginning" which I will be reading soon, as well, I hope (in his book "We are the Change We Seek").

What a shame this wonderful presidency had to come to an end. Better luck next time, I hope people will have learned from their mistakes.

From the back cover:

"This is a book about two people making the most important decisions in the world. One is Barack Obama. The other is Ben Rhodes.

The World As It Is tells the full story of what it means to work alongside a radical leader; of how idealism can confront reality and survive; of how the White House really functions; and of what it is to have a partnership, and ultimately a friendship, with a historic president.

A young writer and Washington outsider, Ben Rhodes was plucked from obscurity aged 29. Chosen for his original perspective and gift with language, his role was to help shape the nation’s hopes and sense of itself. For nearly ten years, Rhodes was at the centre of the Obama Administration - first as a speechwriter, then a policymaker, and finally a multi-purpose aide and close collaborator.

Rhodes puts us in the room at the most tense and poignant moments in recent history: starting every morning with Obama in the Daily Briefing; waiting out the bin Laden raid in the Situation Room; reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran; leading secret negotiations with the Cuban government; confronting the resurgence of nationalism that led to the election of Donald Trump.

This is the most vivid portrayal yet of Obama’s presidency. It is an essential record of the last decade. But it also shows us what it means to hold the pen, and to write the words that change our world."

Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Obama, Barack "The Audacity of Hope"

Obama, Barack "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" - 2006

I think definitely since I reviewed "Dreams from My Father" (or Hillary Clinton's "Living History"). everybody knows what party I would support if I lived in the USA. I loved that book and wanted to know more about Barack Obama, so I read his next one

I am often shocked when I hear some people talk about this president as if he was evil and only wanted the worst for his country when he has done so much for them and tries to help everyone. I also don't understand how people who have to work hard for their money don't support him and his party in their effort to cut tax reliefs for the rich people and make the life of the "little man" a little easier. Who does not want health insurance??? I live in a country where it has been the norm to have health insurance and help when you get unemployed. We believe in nobody gets left behind. Maybe that's why Barack Obama has so many supporters over here, he has the same goals as we do.

Anyway, back to the book. Whilst in "Dreams from My Father", the author talks about his childhood and first steps into adulthood, he now gives an account of his first steps as a politician. I found it very interesting to look behind the scenes with someone who has been a Senator, who knows all the ins and outs and the pros and cons of politics. Very interesting, I think everyone should read this book.

He quotes Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." I think we all should take that to heart.

From the back cover:

"The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a new kind of politics - a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward."

Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Obama, Barack "Dreams from My Father"

Obama, Barack "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" - 1995

I wanted to read this book for a long long time but that's what it is with books you buy and then you start borrowing more books from the library or get books from friends and your TBR pile gets longer and longer ...

But I finally did and I am happy I read this before a great President leaves his post. Might even be able to start "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" before that happens.

I have just been told on Facebook that this book is full of lies but all my research has shown that this is only stated by right wing newspapers. So, if anyone finds a reliable source, I'm happy to leave your comments up here but I will delete any insulting, name-calling posts. This is not a political blog, all I do is talk about the books I read. If you hate Barack Obama, I suggest you stop reading now and come back for the next book I review.

There is one thing to consider when reading this book. This memoir wasn't written by a president. It wasn't even written by a president-hopeful. It was written in 1995, a long time ago. He had just finished his law school and was starting in politics, so I believe he wanted a real book about his inheritence.

Another thing is for sure, Obama is a great author. His words flow of the page, you are there with him. I hope he will write more books in the future, I think we can learn a lot from him. He knows so much about race, politics, and culture in the USA, his experiences will be well worth many many more publishings. I thought it highly interesting to read how it feels to be treated as a "black" person. Personally, as a European, I am always surprised how someone who has one black grandparent or even great-great-grandparent is still considered black. Reminds me too much of the dark times of my country where we divided people into half-Jews, quarter-Jews etc. and none of them were considered human beings. And I think that's behind it, you're only a second class person if you are considered black. So sad.

But putting all that aside, If I hadn't liked him before, I surely would after reading this book. He comes across as a very amiable man, even though he does not hide his flaws and mentions a few times when he was wrong. Of course, this is an autobiography and anyone who writes that would like to be liked by people. But I doubt that he made up things just to be elected president one day. He seems very honest in his writings. And it is a great way to get to know someone better who is in the public all the time and who gets portrayed and trashed by so many different kind of people every day.

I wish him and his family a wonderful future after he will leave the White House. I have nothing but respect for all of them.

From the back cover:

"In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance."

Barack Obama received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.