I think this guy is going places

by David Safier

Six years late for the party and 17 years after it was published, I finally got around to reading Barack Obama's "Dreams from My Father." I don't read book-length claptrap from politicians, but this was lying around the house and I was between books.

It's not claptrap, not by miles. This is a beautifully written, thoughtful book by a man in a unique position to comment on racial and social matters. The depiction of the two sides of his parentage, going back a few generations, and of his personal, ongoing struggles to come to grips with himself make this a unique document. And reading it after watching Obama in the White House for three years gives it unintended layers of richness.

OK, enough. Like I say, I'm late for the party. Just wanted to say how impressed, and edified, I was by the book and the man who wrote it.