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The Code Shop - Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $7.89
Your Save: $ 7.06 ( 47% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.04960730092
EAN: 9781400082773
ISBN: 1400082773
Label: Three Rivers Press
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2004-08-10
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: 2004-08-10
Studio: Three Rivers Press
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: WORTH THE READ!
Comment: I finally finished Dreams From My Father last night. And while I confess I rarely leave reviews. I realized this morning how important these reviews are at helping me make decisions to buy a book or not... With that being said, I must whole-heartedly recommend this book. If you are at all interested in the nature and character of our 44th President - it is a must read!
I AM AN OBAMA FAN! I fully acknowledge that, but I think this book will even help the skeptics among us. By all indications we have done well America. We have elected a man, not a god certainly, but someone who is willing to be transparent, with real substance and a passion for people based on a very diverse background. All the way through the book that's what I kept thinking. He was the right choice for president.
Chicago seemed a real microcosm of the problems the President is now facing in the US. Somehow you gain a since that it was his practice run. The other thing I like about the book is that it takes a lot of the media sound bites we've heard over the past couple of years and puts them in perspective of the life of a real person, struggling to come to terms with identity and self - as we all are - if we are honest about it.
The surprising thing for me was that President Obama is also a gifted writer at that. I could hardly put the book down. I am no literary giant but I found it engaging, well paced and easy to read. My only regret is that I did not buy a hardcover copy. Because for me it's definitely a keeper, a book I want to add to my permanent library. So if I had to sum it up I would use words like: inspiring, informative, honest, a journey -that even caused me to do a little soul searching myself...
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Summary: A tale of hope
Comment: I decided to read this book to find more about the man the world has enthusiatically endorsed as its new leader. That may seem funny to US citizens but in a survey in Australia over 70 percent of people said they supported Senator Obama . With all its power and influence the US calls the shots certainly it does in Australia . When reading the book I thought at time Obama was concentrating on the US Black / White issue as he said he might in the introduction. But thinking more I believe the book is more about the human condition. It is great that he has had such experience in some many environments hawaii, Indonesia, Kenya, New York , Chicago to bring to the presidency. I felt empathy to all the people he described so well even thought I have not had his experience as a white middle class australian.
He writes as weel as his speeches and I truly hope HE CAN bring new hope to a trouble world.
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Summary: an astute and deeply personal account of growing up
Comment: A very candid and revealing look at the background and genesis of our new president. The pain (and painful honesty) of Barack Obama's life growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii are offset by his personal and astute observations of the racial terrain in America. As someone in both black and white worlds, he has a rare viewpoint of the ways of these two conflicting cultures.
This is an engaging memoir of confronting the past in the process of self-discovery, of growing up "fatherless" in a single parent world. Obama's struggle and coming to terms with his absent father and his candor of this as he travels to Kenya to find answers - this has been written up in compelling and eloquent language. Although this book was penned 14 years ago, it remains indispensable for the fundamental understanding of this man who is to now to lead this country.
I agree with the reviewer from Ankeny, Iowa about how the reader needs to be listening to the core messages in this text, regardless of political orientation. This is about a man who has overcome much in his pursuit of an absent father and the quest to reconcile with that absence. As such, it is about a courageous journey of self-discovery, one that inspires and encourages.
This text is Barack Obama defining himself in his earlier years; for his years in the political arena, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE is an engaging read that picks up the thread of his fascinating life. There are excerpts from this book at the end of the 2004 revised edition of DREAMS FROM MY FATHER. Highly recommended.
Parataxis
The Cloud Reckoner
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dreams of my Father & Jennifer Hudson
Comment: The item was received in a very short time; pleased with the condition it arrived in.
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Summary: Look Into A Great Man's Soul
Comment: Well, guess what? Barack Obama, our soon-to-be president, is human. In this beautiful autobiographical memoir, the author reveals himself in all his inner complexity, confusion, struggles, failures and successes. He recounts moving stories of his childhood; the one month he spent with his late father, at age ten; his confusion about his own identity; his ups and downs as a student, his Indonesian stepfather; his years as a community organizer in a decaying Chicago neighborhood; his pilgrimage to Kenya and meetings with relatives he'd never known. An unusual and varied life experience bringing together different worlds.
If you're looking for clearcut answers you won't find them here. What you will find is a glimpse into a man's soul, his complexity, his sense of community, his humanness. If at times I couldn't keep up with all the characters and their relationships, it didn't matter. The important part is the network of interconnections, the complexity itself. And the struggle to find one's place in this network, generation after generation.
I enjoyed this book immensely, couldn't put it down, and recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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