My book club met last night to discuss Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama. Many of us were very excited to see this make our 2009 reading list.

Here’s the blurb from Barnes and Noble:

“Obama opens his story in New York, where he hears that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has died in a car accident. The news triggers a chain of memories as Barack retraces his family’s unusual history: the migration of his mother’s family from small-town Kansas to the Hawaiian islands; the love that develops between his mother and a promising young Kenyan student, a love nurtured by youthful innocence and the integrationist spirit of the early sixties; his father’s departure from Hawaii when Barack was two, as the realities of race and power reassert themselves; and Barack’s own awakening to the fears and doubts that exist not just between the larger black and white worlds but within himself.”

Obama can write! I always knew he was a great public speaker but his writing skills are really quite impressive. This is a well written, honest account of his experiences growing up as a boy and his struggle with race. It really makes you think about race and class struggles and how far we have come as a nation. Someone in my book group said “it’s really a study on how to be human” and I would have to agree. We are humans first and we all tend to forget that.

Although the opportunity was there to discuss or push an agenda, this did not happen with my group. The discussion was lively and well moderated and everyone agreed that it was worth reading. Give it a try!