And, unfortunately, he's not that interesting. If he weren't running for president, I would have chucked the book after Indonesia. Black, white, black, white...whine, whine...yawn.

This man has no acomplishments to justify anyone voting for him.

I would not have had any intention of reading this book or any by Barack Obama as I viewed him with both distaste and a bit of fear feeding into the slanderous campaign being run against him and being a die-hard Republican. So why did I read this book? Well my boss has his Kindle on a business trip and knowing I wanted a Kindle he lent me his to read one night. He had this book in his Kindle, so out of curiousity I started to read it. I can honestly say I was blown away and determined to read the rest of the book. I wanted to know more.

I finally purchased my Kindle(love it)and as soon as it came yesterday I ordered this book first and have been reading it since. My opinion has pretty much reversed on what I thought about this man, and I can say I am impressed and want to know more. I am not quite done with the book but decided to write this as a possible encouragement to someone who like me thinks ill of this man. Am I a total convert, not yet, but I will now listen more closely as to what he is saying and think long and hard about what to do in November. And those e-mails that were pure poison, I'll just delete them unread and make my own decision.

As the most progressive of our generation evolve toward a global race, Obama's search for his place in the world is a journey that many who sometimes feel caught between worlds can relate to. With the influence of multiple nationalities, lifestyles and mentalities, Barack explores social norms and mores across continents and cultures.

Working hard to make changes within a tight system of non-action in Chicago, the first few chapters of the book conjured a whole new world for me. To read about the condition of particular neighborhoods, the lack of infrastructure and the slow demise of neglected communities there was very interesting.

However, it's the last few chapters of the book in particular that resonated with me - as Barack travels to Kenya for the first time in search of his father. Here, we circle back to an idea that I like; We don't know where we are going unless we know where we come from. By tracing through the family tree, as close as possible to his origins, Baracks unveils the history he needs to propel him in to the future.

The revelation of his father's identity through the landscape and an array of good and bad narratives doesn't answer all his questions but it definitely intertwines him into the fabric of his past and with a present day community that is a part of his heritage. Trekking through the shanty towns in the outskirts of Nairobi, exposing himself to the harsh realities of lineage and strangely accepted customs, he tunes in to his surroundings and, as the story unfolds, there is a noticeable difference between the first few chapters of dissaray and the last ones of belonging. Some of the longing is satisfied.

Obama strives to complete that core circle of self-discovery, of race and inheritance, before he can move on to the outer rings of law and politics. In a world where families are rarely perfect, poverty pervades and we sometimes learn who we want to be by avoiding repeating other's mistakes, Obama makes himself kindly vulnerable in sharing the truths of his foundation and perhaps even the source of his strength.

In his new endeavours, whether he wants to carry the baton righteously forward or make amends for a path gone wrong, Barack Obama definitely carries the torch of a new era.

Sure, read it.

As the most progressive of our generation evolve toward a global race, Obama's depiction of searching for his place in the world is something that many who are susceptible to feeling stuck in the middle can relate to. With the influence of multiple nationalities, lifestyles and mentalities, Barack, as a side effect of his circumstances, explores the world of social norms and mores across continents and cultures.

The chapters in Chicago where he offers his organizing services and works hard to make changes within a tight system of non-action were new to me but it's the last few chapters in particular that resonate with me - as he travels to Kenya in search of an understanding of his deceased father.

We circle back to the idea that we don't know where we are going unless we know where we come from. By tracing through the family tree, as close as possible to his origins, I believe he finds the history he needs to inspire him forward. The revelation of his father's identity through the landscape and an array of good and bad narratives doesn't quite answer all his questions but it does intertwine him into the fabric of his past and a present day community that is a part of his heritage. Trekking through the shanty towns in the outskirts of the city, exposing himself to the harsh realities of lineage, he seems to get in tune with himself and, as the journey unfolds, there is a noticeable difference between the first few chapters and the last.

In Dreams From My Father, Obama strives to complete that core circle of self-discovery, of "Race and Inheritance" before he can move on to the outer rings of law and politics. He makes himself vulnerable by sharing the truths of his foundation in a world where families are rarely perfect, poverty pervades and we sometimes learn who we want to be by witnessing other's mistakes and through the process of elimination.

Whether he wants to carry the baton righteously forward or make amends for a path gone wrong, Barack Obama definitely carries the torch of a new era.

Sure, read it.

Politically me and Senator Obama are pretty closely aligned for the exception of Sen. Obama being a litle warmer to the idea of government sponsored solutions to our nation's most pressing problems. In this book you see that way of thinking exposed at key moments. Take for instance when he is helping some folks with housing, in which he fails to call out that government sponsored housing has been one of the most socially disastrous actions ever undertaken. His stories are still profoundly moving and show how they shape the man that we see today. It is a must read if you are planning on voting! It quickly and strongly explains some of the nonsense that conservatives will cling on to in order to undermine him.

Was educational as to Barack's life. Just started another one of his books, "The Audacity of Hope".

Barack Obama's autobiography or "coming of age" memoir of his childhood and young adulthood is a wonderful read--engrossing, inspiring--it reads like a novel in its intensity. The influences on the maturing of this young black/white man seem to make him a man of the future: one of multi-ethnicity, multicultures, at home all over the world with all nationalities of people as well as people in every economic and social group, knowing Christian and non-Christian religions, fluent in several languages and from all this, developing a gift for communication, inspiration and leadership. His strong values of honesty and compassion derive from direct experience while young and role modeling of strong elders. This is a book that people can enjoy, regardless of political affiliations and Obama comes across as a man people can't help but admire for strength, commitment, perception and the one characteristic of all humans--"hope."

...which I read before anyone began to take Obama's chances of being nominated for president seriously. Still, it had the tenor of a campaign biography -- careful, modest, strategic, and yes, evasive at times. The most any campaign biography ever provides is a sense of the subject's priorities; in other words, you won't find many clues to Obama's specific positions on world issues in the account of his childhood. You will, however, get a feeling of the man, and you will discover an American who has far wider experience of other cultures, and far greater optimism about a multi-cultural society, than any other politician on the scene. Those who proclaim that Obama lacks "experience" in foreign policy are dead wrong; the best foundation for foreign policy is a knowledge of the rest of the world.

I'm reviewing this book today because I found a story in the morning newspaper, telling how young Obama supporters on the internet are adding his middle name, Hussein, to their tags and even to the real names. Hey, I'm a young supporter at heart! Henceforth, call me Giordano Hussein Bruno!

This is a well-written and inspiring non-political account of an American's life like no other. We can be a better people.

This book is not a memoir or even Memoirs. It is a novel, a non-fictional true novel because life is a novel and even at times poetry, and Barack Obama is an absolutely perfect writer who captures the living texture of this life with gusto, taste and style. The book of course is a chase and search for the author's father by the author himself as far as far can be, including in the green hills of Africa. But it is also a lot more. It is the discovery of family roots growing in two different soils, continents or even universes. But Barack Obama is not psychotic nor schizophrenic, so he tells us the story of how he brought unity to himself without in any way negating the dual carriage way of his personality. He shows and even demonstrates how one cannot be anything in life if one does not build that personal unity from the patchwork of their lives. Some of his brothers, or sisters, or parents succeed with various methods. Some others fail or at least linger in unsuccessful attempts. Now, that is only the first element of the book that makes it an autobiography of sort. It is though and yet a lot more and I am going to give only a few examples. I like his "Home Squared" or even Home Power Three or Home Tripled, or whatever. I will insist on the power element because this approach of home gives power to the subject. This power comes from the ability of the subject to join the immediate home environment in which he or she lives to the original family home from which he or she comes, that is to say the parents' home that is in Obama's case double since he knew his father at first as coming from Kenya seen as his home and he discovers that he came from what this father called his Home Squared, that is to say the home base of his father's father. Obama's conception of a human being seems to be such a piled up pyramid made of many tiers, strata, layers, one on top of the other in the present, one deeper than the other into the past, and what about the future that gets its inspiration from this heap of potentials and possible realizations of one's dreams. This leads to a remark on authenticity that cannot be attached to one personal parameter connected to the outside world, including African-ness. Authenticity is attached to the contradictory unified patchwork that makes us what we are inside. I think Obama could easily reach beyond and add "at any discrete moment of one's life", no two moments even in close temporal succession being ever the same. We are ever changing and yet always the same, because we are what we see or even dream ourselves. The last point I will make is about his dynamic vision of the law. He knows the law can be seen as reflecting narrow-minded interests and greed. But he also knows that the law is a human creation that comes from the conversation between and among various individuals and circumstances reflecting the complex conflictive context of humanity at any moment in its history, a conversation that is aiming at creating balance and equilibrium even if in many cases it is biased and severely one-sided. But his phrase "a nation arguing with its conscience" is beautiful and worth sitting in any sacred corpus of canonical texts, including Goethe's Faust Second Part. It is, and should always be, a canon of American culture because we hold such truths to be self evident.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

A revelation of the struggles of blacks in general to find a place where the color of a person's skin makes no difference whatever in the way he is treated by the over all population no matter where he might be. Extremely well written.

I picked this book up because Obama most likely will be our next President. It seemed strange that this might happen and I had not yet read what was said to be his well received memoir. The book was published 13 years ago by someone whom Im sure never expected he would be a candidate for President. What politician with those ambitions would reveal so much about him self in a memoir? I wondered as I read along what my reaction might have been if I had picked this up in 1995. In presenting a review of the book one has a hard time separating Politian Obama from writer Obama. Obama is a good writer and he does a fairly good job of letting the reader into his thoughts and conflicts as he tries to search for an identify through his black father (and his extended family during visits to Kenya). Most of the book is a coming of age perspective on how Obama was raised by his white mother and grandparents in tolerant multi racial Hawaii and his search for his identity as a tolerant black man. You sense that Obama is observant of others, their views, cultures and belief systems. He seems interested in how various people establish their own value judgments. He makes observations much like a novelist and at one point I felt Obamas book read a bit like a Paul Theroux travel book without the sarcasm (Black Star Safari I think my recommendation of the book is contingent upon what you as a reader and voter want to know about Obamas background. What Obama offers up is more than you will get from any other politician. I doubt, however, that I would have finished the book if I had tried to read it in 1995. Although interesting, the narrative is not very compelling unless you read it through the prism of current events. (My three star review is based on reading this without the prism of current events.)

Quotes from this book. Talented? Eloquent? Complex? Inspiring? Come on people wake up before it is too late.

'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'
'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'
'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'
'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

Don't let other people tell you what's in Obama's autobiography. Just read it yourself. You may be surprised.

Whether you agree with him or not, Barack Obama is worth getting to know. You may find, as I did, Obama is thoughtful, self-critical, and honest about his personal journey, which has not been an easy one. Not only that, he's a heck of a writer.

Instead of relying on other people's opinions (including mine) via e-mails and blogs, think for yourself, and read the book. Get it from the library if you don't want to buy it.

Anyone interested in knowing more about a person that may be our next president would benefit from reading his own written material. I do not think he is qualified to be president but I wanted to know the facts and skip the rumors.

Im am scratching my head over this book and wonder what Obama is trying to proove here?

This book is written about:
the ability to recognize,
the butterfly at a caterpillar,
the bald eagle at an egg,
the Saint in a selfish person.

It's seldom longbreathed.
It's love, hope-up and trust in one.
It's the american dream for down-to-earth people.

This is a wonderful, detailed, and heartfelt trek through the life of Barack, including memories of his grandparents, his step-father, and mostly his beloved mom. He also explores repeatedly the impact of an absent father - something I have experienced first-hand and with startling intensity in my own daughter and my step children. He is a gifted writer, and listening to the audio edition (read by Barack himself) adds a stunningly personal dimension to the book. I read "The Audacity of Hope" first, and I wish I had read it second. This is a man with true depth of character. I love it! I love him! BARACK FOR PRESIDENT!

I have followed Obama's career since the keynote speech in 2004 when my mother and I spoke, almost in unison, saying that 'this wonderful man will be our first African American president'. Soon after followed the purchase and reading of all his books. Dreams From My Father, I re-read rather often. If Obama doesn't make it to the White House (And I pray he will) he has an easy option for an alternative career as an author. "Dreams From My Father is a masterful book, poetic in nature and detailing an incredible array of gifted and very special relatives that figured into Barack's life and DNA. Even if you aren't an Obama zealot as I am, you will love the rich detail of an extraordinary life beautifully written and well crafted. This book is worth several reads.

"Dreams from my Father" is a well-written and interesting memoir by the emotionally disturbed neurotic who just captured the Democratic nomination for president. Mr. Obama- whose therapeutic efforts at dealing with abandonment, self-esteem and identity issues involve writing books, running for public office and generally sticking it to Whitey- here reveals the detailed roots of his very obvious mental problems. Despite being debunked as self-serving fiction by the very people populating this narrative, this book nevertheless serves a valuable function as insight into Obama's imaginary personal mythology. What's important here isn't the literal truth of the events described but what this inventive tale that Obama has woven about himself actually tells us about the man. And what that story tells us about the Man Who Would Be King is that this country is on the verge of enthroning a delusional Black nationalist fanatic with a Messiah complex and daddy issues. Just as the world had no excuse for being unaware of Hitler's ambitions, since he had detailed them quite openly in "Mein Kampf", we are unable to plead ignorance of the fact that Obama should be in a psychiatrist's office, not the Oval Office. Don't say you haven't been warned, America.

As I mentioned, this is a well-written book with an engaging story. I find it hard to believe that it wasn't written without the help of a ghost-writer, since it seems to employ way too many slick novelistic tricks for a young, first-time author to have mastered, but since no attribution is given we'll have to give the devil his due. Obama is a sympathetic protagonist; one can well understand his anger and obsession with a horndog father who abandoned him. We feel his confusion and pain growing up without a clear racial identity. And we can see his frustration with a irresponsible mother whose sole purpose in life seems to have been to chase after dark-skinned men, whatever the consequences for her children. I think we can understand why Obama was driven to become a drug-abusing, emotionally fragile, half-crazed, Black nationalist SOB. The only problem is that he doesn't seem to have gotten over his problems at the time of this book's writing, and I am unaware that he has overcome them now that he's running for president.

Despite the fact that it was his mother and grandparents who raised him, Obama displays little love or sympathy towards them. Instead, throughout the book, Obama's attitude towards his White family (the only one he knew) seems to be one of dismissive scorn. He constantly cuts down his grandparents and derides them as clueless buffoons, i.e. the "typical White" people of recent political controversy. His mother he reduces to nothing more than a silly liberal girl with a bad case of jungle fever, which was probably true, but it's still a good example of the man's egotistical callousness that he could trash his own mother like that, especially when she did a darn sight more for him than the rutting dog who sired him. What's funny is that other accounts describe his relationship with his mother and grandparents as warm and close. Perhaps he threw them under the bus here to gain a little "street cred" in the Black community. Towards White people in general he has nothing but contempt. From around the age of 12 he began to identify himself as Black and see the world through a Black nationalist lens. One example of his madness is his admission that the presence of a White Santa Claus in a Sears catalogue drove him to rage. We are given no indication that his views have ever changed, especially since he attended a racist Black church up until a few weeks ago and only disavowed its pastor under political pressure. Far from being the post-racial candidate that idiotic college students see him as, Obama is utterly obsessed with the issue of race and the advancement of the people he sees as his own. However, Black people should take cold comfort in his racial and political loyalty; in an unending series of internal monologues redolent of JD from "Scrubs", Obama critically analyzes the character and motivation of everyone he comes across and almost invariably finds them- Black and White- pitiable in comparison to his Royal Superciliousness. Barack Obama is the Black Holden Caulfield- he's the only pure and righteous teenager in a world full of phonies.

Obama's famous trip to Kenya may have given him the satisfaction of knowing (half) his roots, but we have no evidence that it quieted the demons that disturb him. Even at the end of the book, Obama admits that he longs for "a time before Babel" when, presumably, there are no races, nations, or bad people, where cupcakes are plentiful and he can have his daddy back. Such sentiments are fine for poets and small children, but the man with his finger on the button needs to have his feet on the ground. Get over it already! Barack Obama reveals himself here to be an angry and arrogant 34 year old man who sees White people as the enemy, who is still pining over an absent daddy, and whose childhood scars seem to have left him with a juvenile desire to live in a fantasy world unrelated to realistic possibilities. Has he really changed that much in the intervening years? I'm not carrying water for McCain- I think they're both certifiable. As a wise man once said- "If Obama and McCain are the answer, then it must have been a pretty stupid question."

This is a novel based on the author himself. Interesting, but deceptive, of course..Not a pure auto-biography. A display of conceit..

Although the title says the book is about race, after reading it, I don't agree. The issues of race are there, because after all, he is bi-racial, but that is not what the book is about.

Any young man who never really got to know his father starts out with a disadvantage in the "search for who I am" department. His search was complicated by distance, culture, racism, family dynamics on an island, two continents and an archipelago, polygamy and more. It's no wonder that he came to a place where he just had to figure it out.

The book is divided into roughly three parts. The first covers his childhood growing up in Hawaii, Indonesia, back to Hawaii and school, the second encompasses his time as a organizer in Chicago, and the third is his first trip to Kenya where he met his father's family and learned his father's story from them.

This man may very well be our next president. It is not only a good read, but it will let you know just who he is. For that reason, I encourage everyone to buy it.

Even though it is related to very personal feelings of the author and reflections on his family and personal development, it has a great speed. It will instantly capture you!

This book was fabulous. He writes as wonderfully as he speaks, and when he related his childhood in Indonesia and his visit to Africa, it felt as if I were there. YES HE CAN!!!!

When I watch shows like the McLaughlin Group (and the American Media in general), I'm struck by how little the literary stockjobbers actually know about Senator Obama. Worse yet, I'm appalled at the perceptions that are as put forth as fact. On the other hand, I'm convinced that Obama is a new type of politician, of equal stature with Washington, Lincoln, and both Roosevelts. If you don't vote for this guy, your loss.

This is a terrific book; a great story written in beautiful prose. It sheds light on the inner strife and conflicts that Barack Obama faced growing up as a black person in America. Obama wrote this book when he wasn't in the limelight, so there is an element of openness and candidness that makes the story very appealing. Obama's strength of character, charisma and ability to generate hope prevail in these pages; and these are the very same traits that have contributed to his astounding success in the presidential race. I could never fully comprehend why Obama is usually termed as a 'uniter'; this memoir proves that Obama has an ability to transcend barriers of race, class and religion.

Barack Obama must be the only person on the planet with a background like this: son of a free-spirited young woman who married a black student from Kenya while living in Hawaii with her parents, her father a World War II veteran seeking his fortune as a salesman and her mother a career woman who did not want to be called "Grandma." The family had come to Hawaii because Gramps (he didn't mind being called that) asked for a transfer when he learned the furniture company he worked for was opening a store there. And so their daughter happened to meet the first Barack Obama who happened to have gotten a scholarship to study at the University of Hawaii. It was not clear that their marriage was ever legal, as we learn later in the book that the senior Barack already had a wife in Kenya. The union did not last, but it left a legacy - a son, the young Barack Obama who tells us his story, a moving account of his journey toward reconciling the two parts of himself.

Clearly, he loved his mother, and she never stopped loving him or wanting the best for him, even while her idyllic dreams faded as the enigmatic Kenyan left her to study at Harvard, then go back to his other women in Kenya. She married an Indonesian student and took young Barack to live in Indomesia, where he learned to play with other kids of various shades of brown, and struggled with the poverty and corruption that seemed to permeate life there. Finally, his mother decided he had to go back to his grandparents in Hawaii, to better schools and better opportunities. Gramps called in all his favors and was able to get young Barack into the best school on the island. The author tells us that this first experience with affirmative action had nothing to do with being black. It had everything to do with grandparents who loved their grandson.

His life with "Toot" (his grandmother) and Gramps was a good one, but there were reminders that he was different from them in a way that at the same time that it didn't matter, it did matter. He relates the story of a man hassling his grandmother as she waited for a bus, and the shock he felt when Gramps, not meaning to, let it slip that the man was black. Full of contradictory feelings, Obama went to see an old black poet that Gramps liked to hang out with. The man explained (in his own poetic way) that a white man can be comfortable with a black man, but it is much harder for the opposite to happen. The chapter concludes with the words "and I knew for the first time that I was utterly alone."

In his aloneness, he goes to college in California, then moves to New York. He matter-of-factly tells us that the person who offered him a place to stay was not in his apartment when, suitcase in hand, fresh off the subway, he showed up and rang the doorbell. With no place to stay and not enough money for a hotel, the future Senator (future President?) SLEPT IN AN ALLEY! I was astounded to read this, and thought of my own daughter, who also went off with just a few bags and not much money to find her future in the Big Apple. I hope she never slept in an alley.

Unsatisfied with a professional suit-and-tie job, Obama gets it in his head that he wants to be a community organizer. He sends out resumes, he quits the good job, he goes down to his last dollar before taking a job offered by a scruffy white guy to work in some tough neighborhoods of Chicago.

His experiences with the poor people of Chicago are poignant and related with an honesty and refreshing lack of boasting. No, he didn't wipe out poverty and racism, and some of his efforts fell flat, but he learned a lot about himself as well as what life is like for poor people who feel powerless. And he had a few successes.

It's hard to say whether the first part of the book, with all those early experiences, was the best part, or the last part where he takes us along on his trip to Kenya, to try to reclaim the elusive father he never really knew. He has met his father only once, back in Hawaii at the fancy school where the other kids, learning his father was African, asked if his father ate people, and young Barack makes up stories to hide his feelings about not knowing his own father. And he endures the tortured worry when his father is invited to speak to the school children about Africa, and savors the vindication and relief when the kids actually enjoy the black man's tales about the faraway place called Kenya. His father teaches him to dance, then disappears from his life, except for a now and then letter.

The book shifts quickly into the Kenyan story, a little too abruptly. But I was soon lost in the tale of all the family, trying to keep straight who was related to who and how. It must have been a bit like that too for the author, who found his lost family in many ways not as he thought they'd be, but in other ways more wonderful than he expected. He traced the path his grandfather Onyango had taken, from Luo tribesman to wearing the white man's clothes and learning their ways. But the English colonialists left, and Jomo Kenyatta, of the Kikuyu tribe, led the country as the senior Barack, son of Onyango, returned with his Harvard education, to help build a country. He did not build any wealth for his family, as the author tells us of modest houses, shared beds, traveling by rickedy bus, and using outhouses. I loved the account of going on a safari and his description of the animals. His sister Auma did not want to go ("safaris are for the white tourists") and his insistance ("You're letting your prejudices keep you from enjoying your own country"). He shows love and concern for all his African family (an incredible collection of half-brothers and sisters with mutiple mothers), but Auma has a special place in his heart. She came to see him in America and had lived and studied in Germany. She too had some of the same ambivalence about heritage. No male chauvinist Luo ways for her!

The last chapters are also an abrupt shift. We fast-forward through the rest of Obama's life to the time he wrote the book. It's as if he wanted to tell us more, but ran out of space and just summarized the rest. I'm sure there is so much more to tell, and who knows if the years ahead will yield up an even more incredible story than this? Barack Obama seems to have finally laid to rest the ghost of his father and found his own authentic self. We are the richer that he chose to share his journey with us.

I found it interesting to read Barack's amazing book on the new amazon kindle. A new politics is what Obama preaches-a new e-reader is what I was consuming it on. All in all-a very modern experience. I was deeply moved by this story-an honest personal account of Obama's coming to grips with his very identity. Once you have read this it should be no surprise as to why Barack has become such a beloved, inspirational and influential figure on the American (soon global) political stage. He cares. He listens. He owns up to his mistakes. He thinks. He feels. He has a rare vision and patience we all could benefit from. This story is heartbreaking at times as we follow a disoriented young Obama from Hawaii with his mixed racial parents and grandparents to the bleakest, most hopeless areas of urban Chicago. It is amid this hopelessness that Barack finds himself and proves that "Yes, we can!" is much more than an empty slogan; it is a call to action-a profound way of looking at life. His bottom up grass roots organizing is real, and if every person who will soon cast a vote in the upcoming election read this book-I think Obama would win the election unanimously. Obama is an impressive writer with a strong modern style. His old school blend of "take responsibility" mixed with compassion galore and a keen unique insight into the petty jealousies and racial stereotyping and prejudices serve him well. His inner conflict of being multi racial is such a tremendous metaphor for modern American society. An inspirational true story from a man who is destined to become a HUGE influence on modern times. We are indeed lucky to have Obama on the scene. The world can use this type of thinking to begin healing our petty, superficial differences. The world will be a better place if we all come together and pull in the same positive direction as Barack Obama. Barack's father would be beyond proud (although not at all surprised) at how Obama took his multi cultural, multi racial DNA and turned it into a very real and truly visionary platform to inspire tens upons tens of millions of people. And to think his journey has only just begun. Wow!! Can't wait to read The Audacity Of Hope...which I will beginDreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance the moment I hit send on this review. 5 Stars!!!!

I was moved in reading this. Obama writes this from a time before he was a politician. There is a freshness here, a willingness to be vulnerable, that not politician, even as honest a one as Obama, can fully approach. This felt like pure biography, a window into Obama's soul.

I came to understand who Obama is. He is truly a child of two continents, and multiple cultures. He is Kansas, and Hawaii, and Indonesia, and Kenya. And it isn't enough to say that he has the blood of those peoples, and has lived in those lands. He is also a mixture of those cultures, for all their familiarity and strangeness to Western eyes. He is the child of a father with multiple wives, and a great grandfather living in a mud home. He witnesses poverty in Indonesia and comes from a family line of poverty- not the easy poverty of the U.S., but the extreme form of the 2/3rds World. He takes parts of all his family, and weaves them into his own narrative, developing a commitment to justice and equality as a white American, and a black African.

This book felt personal to me. I grew up in a foreign culture, and lived in Hawaii. I went to Occidental College, and have a father with multiple wives, who had a wanderlust bigger than he could contain. Obama did all this, had all these experiences. He copied me- he just did it exactly ten years before I did. And so throughout the book, I kept on thinking of where I was when he writes. I'm being born in a foreign culture when Obama is living in Hawaii. As Obama begins his work for the poor in the South Side of Chicago, I am going to live in Hawaii with my family, beginning my own dreams. And, to a very small measure, my story becomes interwoven with Obama's.

Obama's family history is even more amazing. Towards the end of the book Obama's grandmother tells the story of their family. It begins with a genealogy, of who begat whom. Then we come to Opuyo, who traveled from a faraway land in Kenya to a land he didn't know. Opuyo sired Obama (first name), who was not the eldest brother, and therefore didn't have land or wealth. He ended up working for another, wealthier family. He worked so hard that the family became very impressed by him, and gave Obama their daughter in marriage.

Obama married others, and built up his lands, so that his son, Onyango, came from a family of means. But at this time the white man was entering the land that would be Kenya. Onyango alone of his village saw the potential of this new world, and left the land of his people's to work for the whites in other areas of Kenya, and in other African countries. Though he was often ostracised by his family, Onyango learned the white's ways, and was therefore the first of his village to understand modern life and technology, and used that to his advantage, gaining more wealth and lands. He took many wives, and one son was born Barack Hussein Obama, who had a son by the same name, who later went on to run for President of the United States.

Do these stories sound at all familiar? Consider. Barack Obama's grandma began her story with begats. She then told of Abraham, going to a land that was not his own. Abraham's grandson Jacob was not the eldest son, so he worked for his uncle Laban for many years, and eventually won the right to marry Laban's daughters. Jacob's son Joseph was often ostracised by his family, and went to the foreign land of the Egyptians to learn their ways, becoming a man of great wealth. The similarities are rather eerie.

Sometimes I sit and imagine how God might have appeared to Ipuyo, just as he did to Abraham, telling him to go to a new land. He would say that he would bless Ipuyo, if he is willing to take this risk and trust in the Lord, and one day his descendant, a descendant he would never meet, this descendant would become great in a faraway land that Ipuyo had never heard of. Or God might come to Obama (first name) when Obama had no work and no hope. God calls Obama to trust in him, and one day a descendant with his name, his great grandson, would rise to become the most powerful man in the world.

And this descendant would be a child of promise, who would obtain this position as long as he walked in humility and followed the ways of God, using his power to serve others, just as King David did. Obama's life, the lives that made him, are so steeped in Biblical parallel, that one almost expects the tear-filled conversion to Jesus Christ when Obama shares it half-way through the book.

This is the kind of window into who Obama is that this book provides. We see here that Obama truly comes from a more communal culture, a culture where family matters, and family means your uncles, aunts, grandparents, great grandparents, second cousins, and all the ancestors. This is who Obama is, and I would recommnd it to all who would seek to know who Obama is. Come November you may end up voting for him, or you may vote against him. I would counsel you not to make a decision either way until you have come to read this book.

I loved this audio version of "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance"- so well written, poetic and he did an excellent job reading it! I think the word that comes to mind regarding Barack Obama, author and now presidential candidate, is that he is 'very reflective'. I find this trait particularly appealing. I can understand why he is seeking the story and ancestry from his father, since his father is the one that left him. We tend to question the mysteries and secrets in our lives. This childhood obstacle obviously made him stronger and he did a lovely job describing the people that were still there for him - his mother and his grandparents. I hated to have this book end. It touched me in many ways- surprised, amused and sad.. It is most insightful appreciating what it is like to be an African American. The book does a wonderful job, in my opinion, on giving an influential perspective to anyone who searches or is searching for answers when given up by a parent or parents and yearns to have a better understanding of their heritage. ...definitely would recommend this book

This has been a wonderful insight into one of our democratic candidates for the presidential election. Sen. Obama's writing style is wonderful and I have a much greater awareness of him. This is an excellent book for every one to read.

"I ceased to advertise my mothers race at the age of 12 or 13."-Obama writes, "Our rage at the white world needed no object...no independant confirmation; it could be switched on and off at our pleasure."

OBAMA sounds like A RACIST to me!

its a good thing for obama that "typical white people" dont read books; or this would of killed his chances long ago!

Is this the kind of stuff that MLK Jr would have said or did? No...he had every reason to be hateful towards "other races" that "oppressed" him; but he wasnt...he simply went out and created the change he wanted to see; he didnt blame anybody or go to a church that talked about hate and blame...what kind of god would that be that tought such things?


How come oprah left rev wrights church in less than two years....but obama has been there for over 20 yrs?

Gives an insight into the life and family of one of the most gifted politicians of our times.

enjoyed reading this first book by Obama. Moving story. Well written and gives further insight on an inspirational leader.

Obama's book is a must-read for those who want to know the Barack Obama, the man, his character and principles before he becomes our president!

A different view of the black experience. The story of a 'black' boy who is the exact opposite of OJ. This will be the culmination of the civil rights movement no matter how the election turns out.
Another chapter of "Roots". Another page in Black History.
An example of what can happen when a black child lives in a liberal atmosphere and when his father is wealthy.

It seemed to be in my best interest to find out something more than that Oprah seemed to think Senator Obama was a man of great importance. I found this book fascinating; a sensitive account of his tremendous drive to help people rather than sit behind a high paying desk job and living the life as such. Obama and Hillary seemed driven to help our country as youngsters. Open your mind and heart to Obama and read this book as well as others about our candidates.

This book demonstrates in compelling fashion not just the intellectual brillance of the man, but the depth of his character. He is truly unique. After reading this book, one cannot help but become a fervant supporter.

This coming-of-age story is masterly. Barack Hussein Obama controls his narrative and thereby presents the self he wants the rest of us to use as our personal point of departure for describing and judging him.

DREAMS FROM MY FATHER has been well and frequently reviewed. I shall simply add a thought or two derived from watching the Illinois Senator's autobiographies extend themselves into his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention and into the 2007 and 2008 Presidential campaigns. What insights into his race-consciousness, religion and patriotism emerge from comparing the text of DREAMS FROM MY FATHER with more recent events?

Senator Obama's father, Barack Obama, Senior, had called himself "Barry" when he came from Kenya to study in Hawaii. There he married Ann Dunham. With her parents Miss Dunham had moved there in 1959. Barry Junior, as he was taught to call himself, presents his white Kansas-reared mother and grandparents as, respectively, utterly detached from all structured religion or having once been lightly brushed by mainstream Protestant Christianity. The author speaks of himself from earliest years as notably introspective, detached from any passionate entanglements and severely analytical. Grandparents and mother raised him for all but four of his growing years, spent in Indonesia with his second, nominally Muslim, father figure, in this case his mother's second husband.

OBAMA AND RACE

Although genetically 1/2 American white and 1/2 Kenyan black, young Barry Obama (or "Bar" to the American grandfather who helped rear him) early chose to think himself as an American black. At his own request he stayed behind in Hawaii with his grandparents to complete his secondary schooling when his mother and half-sister returned without him to Indonesia. He grew up in a Hawaii accepting of races and mixed races. Only later did young Barry grasp that "I was supposed to have a live-in father" or "know that I needed a race" (p. 27) Later his mother taught Barry to be proud of his divorced father and his black lineage (51). A picture in LIFE magazine of a black man so ashamed of his color that he tried to peel off his skin made the youngster feel ambushed. A hidden horrible insight flashed upon him: personal enemies, racial bigots, were "out there" and "could reach me without anyone's knowledge, even my own" (51). Slowly, the boy decided that he must remain behind in Hawaii with white grandparents and raise himself "to be "a black man in America. (76)

OBAMA AND RELIGION

After college, Barack Obama did social organizing within a group of black churches in South Chicago. His upbringing had been un-religious, though his anthropologist mother was "spiritual." Being black in South Chicago opened doors all by itself: "my color had always been a sufficient criterion for community membership, enough of a cross to bear" (178).

If they were meeting him for the first time via telephone, some pastors were suspicious that he was a white Irishman named O'Bama (279). One day old Reverend Philips suggested that an obviously discouraged Obama's political goals for 50-odd black churches were failing for pulling black pastors away from "some of our more priestly concerns in favor of prophecy"(274). Those pastors might trust Barack more if they were sure that he was a man of faith, a member of a church -- any church.

And Rev. Philips and other black ministers converged in suggesting that Barack get to know Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ. Over a fair number of pages (274,280-287, 291-295)the author sketches Reverend Wright and his initial impact on the young black-conscious social worker.

In his follow-on book, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE (titled for a Wright sermon), Barack Obama briefly describes his conversion and baptism at Trinity United Church of Christ. He was now a Christian, having had no religion before. From his own words it seems that the only kind of Christian he would agree to be was a Black American Christian.

OBAMA AND PATRIOTISM

Patriotism is not a heavy theme in DREAMS FROM MY FATHER. Racism colors all aspects, Obama says, of multi-racial America. It is not easy to be black in America. When Junior was growing up, Obama Senior was back in Kenya, at times seeming about to carve a very prominent place for himself in national politics. But his inflexible adherence to principle lost him the patronage of President Jomo Kenyatta. Still, with input from his mother, young Barack phantasized about his father's greatness and came to the conclusion that, only if he could penetrate his dark, non-American father, could he ever understand himself. And to understand himself was at all times the driving crusade in the life of Barack Hussein Obama. "I had no idea who my real self was"(82).

A man I know suggested that all that is genetically American in the Senator is white, along with the vast bulk of his nurture. My acquaintance also opined that in turning his face away from his genetic and nurtured whiteness, Obama also deliberately turned his back on everything about him that came from America. He thought that this turning away from whiteness might perhaps explain some of the senator's apparent hang-up about wearing an American flag lapel pin -- an expression of solidarity to most Americans.

CONCLUSION: DREAMS FROM MY FATHER is a superior book from a superior communicator. The current junior senator from Illinois comes across as self-absorbed and self-conscious from his earliest years. But that sense of cool superiority to others which some think he now projects was, in this book, no more than an unusually developed sense of detachment, far from a studied aloofness which some now profess to find in the Presidential candidate. -OOO-

This is an extremely timely book for anyone who wants to know Barack Obama--who he is, where he came from, the forces that shaped him--all the things the Smear Machine doesn't want you to know at this time. Very readable & intriguing. Wonderfully well-written. Basically tells his life story from birth to the Illinois Senate race. Tells you where his head, heart, and passions lie.

I finished reading "Dreams From My Father" several days ago, but I am STILL trying to fully figure it out. I had really high expectations to begin with, from the several recommendations from friends, but I was really surprised by how honest and lyrical and well-written it was. I can only say that Barack Obama had NO clue he would ever be running for office when he wrote it.

It's an incredibly unsentimental book, but it's partly a love letter to his family. It begins with a romanticized view of the 30's, 40's and 50's, the small town America where his grandparents were raised in and that his mother was born into. Eventually, his grandparents, and his mother would move to Hawaii where young Stanley Ann would meet Barack Obama Sr., a charming student from Kenya; he would leave them when Barack was just two.

His father ends up being a tremendous disappointment to him, in the end but it is the absence and longing for him that forms the larger narrative of this book. Barack describes being disaffected and trying to figure out what it means to be African-American, despite having very few African-Americans in his life. Part of this journey is drug use and drinking (this is the part that he would probably have left out if he knew he would become a politician!), but eventually it would lead him to the very place he is at now: the desire to "bring change". He goes on to become a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago, for three formative years and, in the climax of the book, he visits Kenya for the first time, to become acquainted with the other half of his family and learn the true story of his father.

There's tons more to love about "Dreams", because he has such an interesting life. There is a fascinating account of his life as a child in Indonesia, where he lived for four years. There is his mother, Stanley Ann, who isn't a central figure the way his father was, but whose character and values are so much reflected in the person that Barack is today. And, of course, as the title suggests, this book is a meditation on race from the unique perspective of someone who belongs in both worlds.

Dreams was a joy to read and I highly recommend it, but more as a work of great literary worth. In other words, this isn't really the book you would read if you are trying to decide whether to vote for Barack Obama. That book is more "The Audacity of Hope" which is ALSO a wonderful book, and focuses mostly on his view of politics and policy and the actual "changes" that he wants to bring about. "Dreams" is more like a really, really honest look at Barack Obama, the man, rather than the politician or the candidate.

Of course, the man that emerges in this book is compassionate, and thoughtful, and wise, and self-aware and incredibly smart. And those are all the things we want in a president too.

Dreams of my father by Barack Obama

The right to vote is to be taken seriously and the election process of 2008 is and remains difficult for most of us. For me, basic questions are:

1. What qualities do I look for in a person to lead the United States?
2. Where do the people running for office come from?
3. When did these candidates do something memorable that would inspire my vote?
4. Why would I vote for any of the candidates running for office?
5. Who are the candidates?
6. How do these candidates plan to lead during the next four or eight years?

Hillary Clinton is a known quantity. We have seen her in action for eight years while she was in the White House. John McCain is another person that we are familiar with, but to answer these basic questions about Barack Obama, I decided to read two of his books: "Dreams from my father, a story of race and inheritance" and "The Audacity of Hope."

Through Dreams of my father we are introduced to a man raised by his mother, a white woman from Kansas who married a young African man from Kenya. The marriage takes place while they lived in Hawaii.

Barack Obama surfaces as a person who struggles to understand the separate worlds that shaped his personality and in a search for identity he travels to Chicago and gets a job working as a community organizer. His full journey to discovery is completed when he travels to Kenya where he meets his African relatives, including his brothers and sisters, and becomes aware of the truth about his father's life.

Chapter 14 was interesting because it shares the inspiration for the title of his book `The Audacity of Hope.' The phrase comes from a "sermon given by Reverend Wright who read a passage from the Book of Samuel, the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals had wept and shaken in prayer before her God and how the story inspires a memory of a painting titled Hope, depicting a harpist who has undergone much and yet still has the desire to share notes with the one string left intact on her instrument... she dares to hope, she has the audacity to make music and praise God."

Does the book reveal qualities befitting the next leader of the USA? Has he done something memorable and worthy? Does his past provide the courage to lead those that are different and have not lived his experiences? Will Obama be able to lead our nation through these troubled times? In all fairness, read the books and make your own judgment, let's hope we do what is right for our future as a democratic nation.

The book was rather tedious to read and frankly, you can speed read through many of the passages, but it revealed where Barack Obama comes from and how his character is shaped.

Dreams of my father by Barack Obama

The right to vote is to be taken seriously and the election process of 2008 is and remains difficult for most of us. For me, basic questions are:

1. What qualities do I look for in a person to lead the United States?
2. Where do the people running for office come from?
3. When did these candidates do something memorable that would inspire my vote?
4. Why would I vote for any of the candidates running for office?
5. Who are the candidates?
6. How do these candidates plan to lead during the next four or eight years?

Hillary Clinton is a known quantity. We have seen her in action for eight years while she was in the White House. John McCain is another person that we are familiar with, but to answer these basic questions about Barack Obama, I decided to read two of his books: "Dreams from my father, a story of race and inheritance" and "The Audacity of Hope."

Through Dreams of my father we are introduced to a man raised by his mother, a white woman from Kansas who married a young African man from Kenya. The marriage takes place while they lived in Hawaii.

Barack Obama surfaces as a person who struggles to understand the separate worlds that shaped his personality and in a search for identity he travels to Chicago and gets a job working as a community organizer. His full journey to discovery is completed when he travels to Kenya where he meets his African relatives, including his brothers and sisters, and becomes aware of the truth about his father's life.

Chapter 14 was interesting because it shares the inspiration for the title of his book `The Audacity of Hope.' The phrase comes from a "sermon given by Reverend Wright who read a passage from the Book of Samuel, the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals had wept and shaken in prayer before her God and how the story inspires a memory of a painting titled Hope, depicting a harpist who has undergone much and yet still has the desire to share notes with the one string left intact on her instrument... she dares to hope, she has the audacity to make music and praise God."

Does the book reveal qualities befitting the next leader of the USA? Has he done something memorable and worthy? Does his past provide the courage to lead those that are different and have not lived his experiences? Will Obama be able to lead our nation through these troubled times? In all fairness, read the books and make your own judgment, let's hope we do what is right for our future as a democratic nation.

Unlike most of the negative reviewers, I don't think you have to share Barack Obama's politics to like this book. This book is not a typical political memoir in which the author is the nearly flawless hero. Instead, Obama presents himself as a messed-up kid who became slightly less messed up over time. His father and grandfather were incapable of sticking with relationships, and for nearly all of his life his father was absent. I get the impression that his mother and grandparents were not quite strong enough to fill him with reverence.

He mentions the infamous Rev. Wright once or twice, but does not really discuss Wright's paranoid politics; perhaps he was unaware of Wright's craziness when he first wrote this book, or perhaps Wright was simply a little less crazy. What attracted him to Wright's church (at least according to this book) was the church's good works and his ability to bring the black lower classes and middle and upper classes together, much as Obama sought to do in his organizing work.

Do I think more or less of Obama as a potential president after reading this book? A little of both. He comes across as a bit unfocused, a bit too obsessed with his blackness, but kind of thoughtful too. I'm not sure he's tough enough, but I don't think he's a fervent radical or a fervent anything. If he does win the White House and fail in office, he will fail as an indecisive wimp rather than as a dime-store Trotsky.

This was one book you can definitely speed read, because there is a lot of fluff within the pages. Does it give you a lot of insight about Barack Obama? Not Really. You do begin to understand where Barack Obama's class warfare comes from especially between the African-American community and the White community. Barack Obama associates with characters that are pessimistic and angry. You also can't help but believe Obama is sucked into this world too.


In one chapter, he talks about change, but he never says what he wants to change, he just wants to change. This narrative of course remains the same. He still talks of change but no one can figure out what he wants to change. He even admits he doesn't know what he is talking about when he says, "There wasn't much detail in the idea."


In the chapter he talks of change was during Reagan's tenure. He talks of Reagan, his minions and his dirty deeds. He wants change during a time of great change for the better. Reagan was responsible for creating optimism after the inept Carter years. Obama talks about change in the mood of the country. This period was a very optimistic time in American history. Reagan was responsible for ending the cold war without firing a shot, lowering interest rates from double digits, and creating an unprecedented economic boom. He also won almost every state in the union. I don't get it. What is it that Obama wanted to change?


When Obama listens to the "The Audacity of Hope" speech, he sees himself in this world of pessimism and despair. But, Obama's world was nothing like that. Obama never lacked for anything. This is the dichotomy of Obama's world. He lived a life between the privileged and the middle class, and he went to the top universities, but he envisions himself in John Kerry's two America's where he is one of the have-nots scratching his way to the top.

God help us all if Obama becomes the next president.

This was a very interesting read. It was a nice way to learn more about Barak's background. It was also interesting to see racial interactions from a new unique story.

It was wonderful. The author brought me into the scene he was describing.
It was touching. I was brought to tears at times. It was a remarkable story. One that I am still savoring. I have the audio version of the book.

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

My husband says everyone should read this book and understand where our country is headed.

This story is a testament of the opportunities available to anyone living in the U.S. Doors seem to open for those who have applied themselves through learning and education. This was truly a testament of the resolve of the mother to make sure her son was well educated and devoted her time supplementing public education with home education.

The story revealed some of the positive and negative of the life of Barack Obama, his family history on three continents. It was a revealing insight to the struggles a young man faces not having a father in his life.

It is an amazing story.

The ordeal that many reviewers who subserviently brownnose Obama experience is confusing what "Dreams From My Father" accomplishes; Obama's 1995 book DOESN'T in any form come close to qualifying him as presidential material. Shame on the reviewers for abusing a book which tells his mediocre life story from childhood to 33 as the basis for endorsing him!!!! Because of the hype instigated by the liberal media for their favorite mulatto (liberal wet dream of theoretically having the first, sort-of "black" man installed as president), this book's selling aggressively, but in a just world, "Dreams From My Father" should've continued to be relegated to the obscurity it enjoyed before.

This book actively makes the case AGAINST Obama ever becoming president as it fails to present him and his unsatisfactory values in any decent light. I'm in the majority of the country--excluding the 35% of blindly worshipping Democrats who hype Obama due to the misconception they owe the black community for slavery by exalting Obama--which is mystified by the insincere sensationalism surrounding Obama. I picked up this book to investigate this empty suit, yet what I discovered was Obama's substanceless character and disappointment at his ideology and "values!!!!"

I contemptuously distrust that many of the fanatics giving 5-star reviews to Dreams From My Father have actually read the book (probably all Democrat operatives). The book is a disturbing confession of a racially mixed individual with so much emotional baggage that he's ideological, divisive, self-hating, race-hustling, and mistrustfu