Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Campaign autobiographies are often only interesting in what they tell you about how the candidate would like to be viewed. But this was written in the mid-90s, long before a run for office was on Barack Obama's radar, and it should not come as much of a surprise that it's very good. He's always been a talented writer, and this examination of his own childhood, his post-college years organizing in Chicago, and a trip to Kenya to learn more about his father is well-crafted, despite some uneven pacing and occasional indulgences. It's very much worth the read and still has interesting things to say even nearly 30 years after it was written.