revealing

An apparently honest revelation of the man's background. While it's hard to say what kind of president he would make, he's a truly thoughtful and remarkably intelligent young man. I'll take a chance on him!

it's a good book I think

No swapping of this book; it's a keeper. How rare an experience is this, to read the writings of a younger Barak Obama and to be able to trace the development of his life and thought? I hope by the time many of you read this that he is the Presidential Nominee for the Democratic Party. If not, it would be the worst tragedy for these United States.

Okay: let me count the ways. I am inclined to gush, so I have reach for my German orderly genes to show the reasons behind my convictions.

The scenario could not be more perfect to bring our nation together. Here is the son of a brilliant and charismatic Kenyan come to the US...our newest state Hawaii. As a foreign student, he meets and marries the child of a most amazing couple, Barack's grandparents. These people are right out of GRAPES OF WRATH; that's how fundamentally American they are, and yes, I am going to use the "L" word. By some miracle, they are not narrow-minded or prejudiced; they accept people for who they are regardless of race, color or religion. Hello? Is this not what our Founding Fathers sort of prefigured or should have? They were not ready to give voting writes to those lesser folk like women and blacks and -- how could they even imagine -- Chinese? --- Mexicans --- Latts? However, they get major points for conceiving a brilliant master plan.

Barack, known so peculiarly to my eyes as Barry in the first part of this book , relates his early years living with his beyond intersting family:his grandmother Toto, his grandpa and, most important of all Anna, his mother. This lady not only married a black man in the 60's, she went on to marry an Indonesian man a few years later only to return to the US and earn a degree in Anthropology.

Obama's H.S. years in a private school in Hawaii exacerbated his growing identity crisis. He hung with some dicey kids, exhibited his own brand of adolescent rebellion and confusion, but due his mother's counsel to find his best self, he enrolled in Occidental college and exhibited his own brand of idiotic college behavior.

Just on the brink of visiting his Dad in Kenya, he received a phone call announcing the older Barack's death. This is only one of a series of epiphanies he experienced while living in NYC and starting his work as an organizer on Chicago's South side.

The honesty of this book is a direct echo of James Baldwin's NOTES OF A NATIVE SON. Indeed Obama talks about reading this work during his critical times. The honesty - so painful at times - is the same. So are the searching mind, the fearless facing of reality. Unlike Baldwin and many of his contemporaries, however, who went into self-imposed exile, Obama turned his face toward his native land. He realizes that the great American problem is played out in his existence and rightly realizes that he is poised perfectly to use that life for the universal good.

After reading the Audacity of Hope, this book is definitely on my list.

I learned a great deal about the character and soul of Barack Obama.

This is a surprisingly candid book and beautifully written, as well. It's a biography of Senator Obama's life which delves into his identity crisis as a young man due to being bi-racial and the effect of being a fatherless child. It is very heartwarming and gives the reader great insight into who Barack Obama is and about the people in his lives who were instrumental in helping to shape this wonderful man. Unfortunately, too many of his comments are being taken out of context and used against him by supporters of his political opponents, twisting his words and trying to present them as meaning something ominous and totally untrue. It's a book, as is "The Audacity of Hope", that I wish every registered voter would read before going to the polls in November.

Must read for anybody who is interested in living history. I really liked how he was able to meet with so many of his family in his Kenya visit. Good reading.