
To Obama
With Love, Joy, Hate and Despair
Jeanne Marie Laskas(Author)
Bloomsbury Circus (Publisher)
Published on 18. September 2018
Book
Hardback
416 pages
978-1-4088-9452-1 (ISBN)
Description
One of the most important politics books of the year, To Obama is a record of a time when politics intersected with empathy.
A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR
Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. There is Peggy, a patriotic grandmother who thinks the President is trying to lead the country into socialism; James, who on the morning after the 2016 election tells the President to start packing; and Dawn, who writes to say that he made it possible for a very jaded generation to begin to hope and believe in the good.
They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation, in their darkest times of need, with anger, fear and respect. To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship with the American people, and at how this extraordinary dialogue shaped an era-defining presidency.
A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR
Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. There is Peggy, a patriotic grandmother who thinks the President is trying to lead the country into socialism; James, who on the morning after the 2016 election tells the President to start packing; and Dawn, who writes to say that he made it possible for a very jaded generation to begin to hope and believe in the good.
They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation, in their darkest times of need, with anger, fear and respect. To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship with the American people, and at how this extraordinary dialogue shaped an era-defining presidency.
Reviews / Votes
Reminiscent of Tom Wolfe at his best. It may be trite to say that To Obama is itself a love letter, but that's how it reads: like a letter to someone long lost. It is steeped in a powerful yearning for a period in time that slips further from us with every passing day. How did we fall so far? * New Statesman * A unique retelling of the Obama years, a people's history that views America's great political milestones through the impassioned writing of its citizens. And, for once, the president is refreshingly not the star of the show. That prize goes to his correspondents, whose loving, joyful, angry and despairing words tell the real story of Obama's America * Sunday Times * A moving and inevitably nostalgic or even elegiac read, redolent of the human grace and statesmanship of the Obama presidency. A beautifully researched and written book * Observer * To Obama gives us a glimpse of a secret and incredibly sweet world within his White House, and paints a portrait of a man deeply concerned with his citizens' problems, struggling to do the right thing. [A] startling, delicate and immensely readable story. Another poignant reminder of what once was * Telegraph * Full of lovely details. The insight into America provided by the letters cleverly selected by Laskas is fascinating * Literary Review * These stories, when you read them all together, tell the American story. It's inspirational, it's frustrating, it's angry, it's grateful, it's resilient -- Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama Alternately heart-breaking and hopeful, angry and questioning - the empathetic, often poetic, polar opposite of the Trump twitter feed * Vogue * The heartbreaking, hope-inducing letters tell the story of a nation * Elle *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Weight
760 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-9452-1 (9781408894521)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
09/2018
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Jeanne Marie Laskas is the author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller Concussion. She is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, a correspondent at GQ and a two-time National Magazine Award finalist. Her stories have also appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic and Esquire. She serves as Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, and lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.
jeannemarielaskas.com / @jmlaskas
jeannemarielaskas.com / @jmlaskas