Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Bill Ayers sure can write a good book. Some great fiction mixed with some nice platitudes that everyone can project on to - like the candidate himself.

Barack Obama has written an insightful and powerful book of self-discovery that shaped him and his father's legacy. Obama's search for the truth about race and faith has revealed the powerful character of this great American leader. This book guides us to a further study of identity, class and race alongside Jeffery Leving's www.ourblackheritage.com.

I have rarely been so privileged to read a book such as DREAMS OF MY FATHER. Obama reveals his thought processes as he struggled to find his place in the larger sicial fabric. Were that all, this would not be so great a book. But, he describes his maturation in thinking as he interacted and learned from others. And, while personally growng, he was able to empathize with others from virtually all walks of life, to relate to them and to abstract the essence of their needs and being. Finally, he was able to integrate those observations into a larger vision of society and how to effect it in a positive way. All of this is written in the most compelling language. He is a great and poetic writer.

This man has a truly inspirational and amazing life and history. I devoured the book and came back for more. I've since recommended it to friends and family who have felt that they "don't really know the man".

Now that he's been elected, I hope everyone will seek out his books and get to know him a little better and let him touch your life as he's definitely touched mine.

It's hard to see how anyone could validly ask "Do you really know Barack Obama?" when this little book is readily available and so readable. In the Information Age we've got so many sources about most of our political candidates that ignorance is no longer an excuse in the voting booth (or elsewhere, if you opt for a mail-in ballot).

Barack's narrative is modest, self-disclosing and completely lacking in the hubris that has poisoned the administration in Washington for the last 8 years. In short, I found this book completely genuine and honest. It convinced me that "what you see is what you'll get" in President #44.

"No Drama Obama" is *so* cool under pressure, and sets such high standards for personal responsibility that I feel I know him. Those traits come through in this book. He raises the bar for all of us: Blacks, Whites, Democrats, Republicans, Men and Women, GLBTS's, and religious minorities. Isn't that what our great experiment in Democracy is supposed to be all about?

I read most of "Audacity of Hope". My interest waned when I realized Pres. Obama's policies were pretty much a carbon copy of my own. Dreams from My Father convinced me that I share his ultimate objectiives, values and worries as a father, husband and human being as well.

I am an unrepentant Progressive, concerned more about our grandchildren's futures than those of my own generation. If you are a hardcore social Darwinist who espouses economic "survival of the fittest" and "May the Devil take the Hindmost" this book is not for you.