"... we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fan them, exploits them, and drives us further apart."
Excerpt from Dreams from My Father
Theme: Race, politics and the search for one's place
Background: Barack Obama, a junior U.S. senator from Illinois and a possible contender in the U.S. 2008 Presidential election, wrote Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance before the start of his political career. Obama studied for two years at Occidental College before transferring to Columbia University, graduating in 1983 with degrees in political science and international relations. He started law school at Harvard University in 1988, and in Feb. 1990 became the first African-American to be elected editor of the Harvard Law
Review.
Other novels: His second book, The Audacity of Hope, was published in October 2006 and remains at the top of the New York Times Best Seller List. He is currently co-writing a children's book with his wife Michelle for charity.
Summary: The novel is a memoir of Obama's childhood growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, and his subsequent journey to adulthood as he comes to terms with his race. Obama travels to California, New York City, Chicago and eventually to his father's homeland in Kenya to meet a family he has never known in the hopes of finding his place in the world.
Our take:
"Obama is a powerful storyteller who focuses on themes rather than exact details of his past. His words evoke feelings of hope, making the reader feel like anything is possible. It's an intimate invitation into the life of a very public person, and a must for every voting member of the United States."
Nicole Coleman, Senior Arts & Life Editor
"It was a great book that showed how a grassroots political movement can start, and how a soon-to-be presidential candidate developed his ideals."
Joe Colangelo, Assistant Sports Editor
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
