One exciting benefit of reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming immediately after Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father: A story of race and inheritance is that I am able to cross reference the details of stories and interesting facts, reinforcing the things I would like to take away from both books. Through this process, I realized I had the timeline on the 44th president’s first memoir completely wrong!

As Michelle detailed the details of her husband’s first book, it did not align with what I had thought and posted about previously when discussing my first book of the year. I assumed his book came out prior to his initial entry into politics, but this is actually incorrect. The book was originally published in 1995, long before he became the political phenom that won the presidency in 2008. The book was, however, re-released in 2004 as his political career began to take hold.

It is interesting to read these 2 books in succession. Their overlapping narratives and 23 year publication date difference provides a really fascinating and fun comparison.