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    Unavailable
    Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
    Unavailable
    Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
    Unavailable
    Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
    Audiobook (abridged)7 hours

    Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.

    Pictured in lefthand photograph on cover: Habiba Akumu Hussein and Barack Obama, Sr. (President Obama’s paternal grandmother and his father as a young boy). Pictured in righthand photograph on cover: Stanley Dunham and Ann Dunham (President Obama’s maternal grandfather and his mother as a young girl).

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 10, 2005
    ISBN9780739321010
    Unavailable
    Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

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    Reviews for Dreams from My Father

    4/5

    2,031 ratings128 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I think I read this around 2008 prior to the election. I remember it was very good about his early years. I enjoyed his writing and his life story.
    • 4/5
      Even without knowing the author, this is a very good story, especially in the first half. (The trip to Kenya is a bit overdrawn.) Knowing the author, I think it gives a good perspective on the origins of Obama's values and insecurities.
    • 5/5
      In the Preface to this 2004 edition of Obama's 1995 memoir, he admits to an "urge to cut the book fifty pages or so." Me, too. I wished the book was one hundred pages shorter, yet I wouldn't know what to leave out. Though the pace definitely slowed from the middle onwards, I appreciated the opportunity to read every word of it. Perhaps it seemed slow because of my sense of urgency to know everything I can find out about this enigmatic and charismatic new personality who looks to be the Democratic Party's next presidential nominee. Or maybe it's because I'm anxious to move onto Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope. Whatever the reason, I'm tempted to say the book is just too long, but there is not a single word I could wish I hadn't read. Obama is a skilled and graceful writer. I look forward to the other books that will surely sprout from his pen in the coming years. (July 2008)
    • 2/5
      Disappointed.
    • 4/5
      Interesting but a little depressing at times. He's very honest and the thought that he might get to be US President had obviously never entered his head. There is too much detail at some points but it is meant to be a memoir and not a novel.
    • 4/5
      i was amazed at how well obama could write. after president, he should be a writer! touching and engrossing memoir!
    • 5/5
      Dreams from my Father is a book that inspires critical thinking in me. It underlines the importance of one's roots and highlights the need to embrace them.

      Obama delivers voice is strong and with great emotion, the messages shinks in with ease.

      I highly recommend this book especially to anyone struggling with his or her identity.
    • 5/5
      This book gave me a window into the life of a biracial man. An amazing man who comes from humble beginnings and became our greatest President.
    • 5/5
      I always regarded Mr. Obama as an improbable president. Reading this book made me realize that I needed to add a few superlative modifiers before the word improbable. His mother’s and father’s backgrounds are not the environments that one would expect would produce a president. Add to this spending a number of adolescent years in Indonesia and the course becomes even more improbable. The book is well written and the fact that it is read by the president makes it even more enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      Awesome and intriguingly rich story! Great narration by President Obama!
    • 5/5
      I found it fascinating to learn about the unique upbringing on President Obama. The unanswered questions and imaged that he created around his father and his absence are familiar to so many people. Finding family and demystifying his history is something that many humans don’t get to reconcile in their lives.
    • 5/5
      Reading this now, makes me realize all that I took for granted while he was in office.
      Brilliant, insightful, inspiring.
    • 5/5
      Outstanding...what a story. Loved it, This is a great book
    • 5/5
      Love it
      I learned so much about his heritage
    • 5/5
      Absolutely fantastic insight into the early history and background of this incredible man! Recommend ??‍?
    • 4/5
      Very inspiring to hear Obama speak about his past and how his ideas about hope are inspired true his past. I got a great feeling when hearing this story. The biggest idea that he provides with this book is, the audacity of hope. How a life can go true different fases but with hope you can choose a direction or an action that will lead you to a better life or better situation.
    • 5/5
      He's actually a really good narrator, all his relatives come to life as he quotes them.
    • 5/5
      Obama is an excellent speaker and his voice came across in this book. It was wonderful to learn about the history of a man that shaped the history of our nation.
    • 5/5
      Relatable, uplifting, and inspiring to finally listen to Barack Obama's beginnings.
    • 5/5
      Good book that inspires you to learn about who you are And where you are from... both the good and bad! Also gives you hope in your own story
    • 5/5
      I really loved the book. Especially, hearing him speak of Kenya, my country, it touched my heart.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful story. It really gave me insight on who Barack Obama is!
    • 5/5
      Amazing insight into the importance of one's heritage. Loved it!
    • 5/5
      wow. having 7 hours with obamas voice, so comforting. loved it
    • 5/5
      I loved learning about President Obama's history from one of the best presidents in history.
    • 5/5
      What can I say. An audiobook that moves you. In Obama's own words!
    • 4/5
      Such an interesting life... definitely a worthwhile read.
    • 4/5
      A straightforwardly readable memoir of a young man's finding a way to define who he is and what direction he will take against a background of disparate voices shouting all sorts of truth and myth. It almost completely avoids the necessary coyness imposed when a young man tells his story to a culture requiring the myth of righteousness and purity of faith and at least gets over that lightly. Obama's time with his grandparents in Hawaii and the summer in Kenya came across most clearly, perhaps because the first was processed through affections and the second through an intense requirement to make it comprehensible.
    • 3/5
      Obviously I wouldn't have read this had Obama not run for President, though I might have read it even if he had lost. As a piece of literature, it's perhaps overwritten and could stand from a 50-page reduction. But as insight into the mind of our President written before he was anybody at all, it gives me heart that Obama thinks, that he understands that problems of race and class, in this country and elsewhere, aren't easy, but they are problems. The book gives me heart.
    • 4/5
      This is an amazing autobiography of a man who was born in the United States inheriting both the ‘black’ and ‘white’ legacy equally, who at the same time was also a son of Africa and so in appearance, a black man who was also very intelligent, who grew up in Asia as a child, went to school with and associated many other cultures, got to know society’s low income sections and their hardships, lived with and associated them, became well educated and finally became the President of the United States! He talks about his struggles for identity while growing up and as a young man, a struggle that he himself had to take on hard and long within himself finally to emerge with a heart for the people and a vision for change for better.