{"id":1797,"date":"2009-06-23T00:01:17","date_gmt":"2009-06-23T07:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=1797"},"modified":"2026-06-12T09:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T09:15:11","slug":"book-openers-barack-obama-how-he-got-so-smart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/book-openers-barack-obama-how-he-got-so-smart\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Openers: Barack Obama \u2014 How He Got So Smart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President<\/a>
Barack Obama was a president who could think. White House photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

If you haven’t yet read President Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n

To survive emotionally, this man had to think<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Dreams from My Father <\/em>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.<\/p>\n

I especially liked the Random House audiobook version. <\/em>Obama’s reading earned him the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.<\/p>\n

Dreams from My Father<\/em>, Barack Obama, Three Rivers Press, 1995 and 2004.<\/p>\n

More about Obama, at the “Rhetorician in the White House<\/a>.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"President<\/a><\/p>\n

Barack Obama was a president who could think. His memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” explains how Obama got so smart. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,50],"tags":[283,284,34,285,220,286],"class_list":["post-1797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-openers","category-on-writing-reading","tag-african-americans","tag-barack-obama","tag-dont-miss","tag-dreams-from-my-father","tag-grammar-geek","tag-multicultural"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52810,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1797\/revisions\/52810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}