A Promised Land
by Barack Obama
Even before he became the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama had already won a Grammy award for his narration of the audiobook of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from my Father, recommended a number of times in Five Books reviews, including for his insights into Africa from his contact with his father’s family, who come from Kenya.
A Promised Land is the first volume of his presidential memoirs, to be published November 17th, 2020, in 25 languages. It’s 768 pages long but, yet again, Obama has narrated it himself. Obama is a thoughtful man, and the book/audiobook is likely to be illuminative, both of his presidency and what has happened in its wake.
Recommendations from our site
“It’s absolutely stunning as a listening experience, and I think his style of writing and presentation suit the format beautifully. As he’s said in interviews he’s done about the memoir, he wants to speak directly to listeners and in particular to young people.” Read more...
“Obama’s memoir confronts the disappointments of his presidency, and the extent to which some of the political backlash against him was due to the fact that he was the first Black man to occupy the Oval Office. Yet Obama retains optimism about America. He makes the case, convincingly, that we are making significant progress, that our democratic institutions and constitutional traditions can accommodate demographic groups that were once excluded, as well as new immigrants and their descendants and that we can slowly build a more just society.” Read more...
Barack Obama is an experienced—and talented—audiobook narrator so it’s no surprise he’s the one reading aloud his presidential memoir. This is only the first volume and it’s already more than 29 hours, so it’s quite a commitment, but also a unique opportunity to be told, firsthand, what it’s actually like to be President of the United States (POTUS). Hint: you’re dealing with a lot of complicated things, like healthcare reform.
Narrator: Barack Obama
Length: 29hr 10mins
Commentary
“Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come. It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid.”
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reviews A Promised Land in the New York Times, November 12th, 2020
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