The official White House portrait. 2009.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

If you haven’t yet read President Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father, don’t miss it. It explains, I think, how Obama got so smart. As he grew from boy to man, Obama had to reconcile the many cultures that surrounded him – middle class white America in Hawaii, semi-poverty and Islam in Indonesia, urban African America in Chicago, rural Kenya, upper class Harvard.

To survive emotionally, this man had to think.

Dreams from My Father was published in 1995 and again in 2004. If you find an autographed copy of the orignal hardcover lying around, don’t lose it. It’s rare. It’s worth thousands.

I especially liked the Random House abridged audiobook version. Obama’s reading earned him the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.

Here’s the Amazon link to the book.

Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama, Three Rivers Press, 1995 and 2004.

© 2009 Barbara Falconer Newhall