Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama

Barack Obama, the US Senator from Illinois, is at present hoping to get the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States. If he succeeds he would be the first African-American President. This book, first written twelve years ago when Obama was 33, is a biography exploring his upbringing as the son of a white American mother and black African father. As such it has a lot to say about race issues in America; not a new subject by any means, but a constantly evolving one. Obama mentions reading Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and Malcolm X on the same subject, but where this book has an obvious advantage over their work is that it has a contemporary outlook which is notably less bleak. Unusually though, it actually stands comparison for quality of writing – Obama's prose style is much like that of his engaging speeches, and he arranges the chapters of his life cleverly, intercutting past and present to show how he has drawn conclusions from his experiences. This is a fascinating book; a political memoir that, for once, is a pleasure to read.