A Promised Land

"Yes, and it is book one—so he hasn’t made it through everything yet. Luckily, he’s a fantastic narrator. It is wonderful to hear his words about his life: as a young person with Michelle, all the things that he’s dealing with as president. But it is 29 hours, so you have to be aware that there’s going to be a lot of listening, and that there’s more to come in the future. Yes, absolutely. One of the fun things that I get to do as someone who interacts with a lot of the publishers, is one day I was on a meeting for the Audio Publishers Association, and the producer of this audiobook was there. We had a meeting that was allotted an hour. We had about 15 minutes of material, and then he spent the other 45 minutes talking about what it was like to record Obama out on Martha’s Vineyard. It was really fun to hear about that experience. Yes, at least. It will have gone through three rounds of listening. What’s fun about this particular category is that we actually bring in some celebrity judges, people who are coming from a wide variety of backgrounds. This category is about ‘What would entice someone to listen to more?’ And you can see that there’s some great selections here for that."

"It’s a big thing! Biden probably already has a literary agent lining things up right now. The critics often say: You’re just doing that so it can be in your memoir. As you say, it’s a big tradition. Every single president, to my knowledge—at least in the last several decades—have done it. We all know it’s coming. And in general, you know, they do a good job. I think they want to add to the discussion; they are an important source for historians. Churchill’s writing, of course, is famous for being an important historical document, and I think he set a standard for what a U.S. president can do in writing about their experiences. Trump is an outlier in many ways, so maybe he will break this tradition too. But I doubt it. It’s a big moneymaker! So I think that, at the very least, will get him playing the game. It forms a big part of the literary scene in the U.S. and certainly part of creating the historical record. Absolutely. I’m sure he gets a lot of help with editors and contributors, but the book is in his own voice. He’s a really smart person, was the president of the Harvard Law Review—probably the most prestigious role for a student in the American legal academy—and very, very, literate, whether you agree with his politics or not. George W. Bush’s memoirs, although I’ve not included it on this list, was also in his own voice, in a different way. And that was refreshing too. You can tell they didn’t just have somebody else, who articulates themselves differently, write the books. It’s refreshing. And I found Obama’s, particularly, to be a great read, really enjoyable. I have. I love that book—it’s a great, great book. They must have been writing them at roughly the same, just after Obama left office, and they kind of go together. You can tell they were talking to each other about what they were writing—a) to be consistent, but also b) to complement each other. Michelle Obama’s perspective, both as First Lady and just as a really smart person who was right in the middle of all of it—is really insightful, enriching, and refreshing. Yes, thank you. I’d like to mention Hillary Clinton ’s books. She writes both fiction and nonfiction, and is a fascinating historical figure in herself. She has a great perspective. Sometimes biographers and journalists do a great job, but they weren’t actually in the room. They don’t have a perspective that is hardened and chiseled by experience. Hillary Clinton, if you look at her background, is unbelievable. I mean, she was First Lady for Bill Clinton, but did a lot of real work. She testified before Congress, contributed in some phenomenal ways. Then she was a senator, and by all accounts did a great job. She won reelection, was Secretary of State for Obama, was very respected. Then, of course, she has the experience of running against Trump. So I recommend all her books— she’s written so many I don’t know which one to pick out. Maybe What Happened? , about the election with Trump. But there are several and she brings a great perspective."

"I was incapable of reading Barack Obama for a few years, because the contrast to the occupant of the White House was just a little bit too painful. Now that Donald Trump is on the way out of the White House, I am enjoying listening to this book. The Promised Land speaks to me particularly because it resonates with arguments that I make in the book I’m writing. We live in a moment of tremendous pessimism about our ability to build a fair, multi-ethnic democracy. Many people on the ethno-racist right are paranoid about demographic transformations and believe that anybody who is not a white Christian cannot come to be a true American or a true German or a true Italian. Many people on the left believe that their countries have not made any significant improvements over the last 50 years and that the only way to make progress within the next 50 years would be through radical and even revolutionary change. “2020 has shown us that Twitter is a distorted reflection of reality” 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. Democracy has been in retreat for the last decade. Authoritarian populists have risen to power in virtually every part of the world. Currently there are competent candidates who might end up in charge in France , in Italy . And we know that populists , once in office, stay in power much longer than other politicians. In view of all that, I take inspiration from the United States. It is very rare for an American incumbent president to lose. And it’s very very rare for a populist to be voted out at the first opportunity. So, for all of the deep divisions in American society at the moment, the fact that Joe Biden will take office as the 46th President of the United States—despite all the attempts by Trump and parts of the Republican Party to subvert the election and overturn its outcome—is a huge relief to me. So, I’d argue that American democracy is still a bit of a beacon. Part of our best books of 2020 series."

"As an audiobook, hands down it’s President Obama’s A Promised Land , which has just come out in the last few months. 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. I heard him do a presentation for the high school system of Chicago, where he is talking to the students. In his lovely style he says, ‘kids, you’re not really going to enjoy all of it. But there’s a lot of really important stuff that I put in here for you.’ And I think that’s true. There are really wonderful lessons and thoughtful ideas for young people to take hold of. You’re going over many years of history, of a person’s life. With the Obama memoir, at AudioFile we interviewed the producer of the audiobook, Dan Zitt, who is an executive producer at Penguin Random House. He said that if you think of memoir as a genre, it begins with the writer trying to recreate their journey in a way that satisfies their own need for reflection. I thought that was such an interesting thing to say about Obama. It is probably one of the reasons that his memoir is so brilliant, his reflective nature about his presidential terms. It also tells you why the George Bush memoir is a totally different kind of journey. Each of them is taking a journey and they’re wanting to tell you a story about that journey."