{"product_id":"to-obama-with-love-joy-anger-and-hope","title":"To Obama: With Love  Joy  Anger  and Hope","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn insightful study of a president who listened to even his harshest critics with grace and humility.The Washington Post  NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GLAMOUR  Every evening for eight years  at his request  President Obama was given ten handpicked letters written by ordinary American citizensthe unfiltered voice of a nationfrom his Office of Presidential Correspondence. He was the first president to interact daily with constituent mail and to archive it in its entirety. The letters affected not only the president and his policies but also the deeply committed people who were tasked with opening and reading the millions of pleas  rants  thank-yous  and apologies that landed in the White House mailroom.  In To Obama  Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama  the letter writers themselves  and the White House staff who sifted through the powerful  moving  and incredibly intimate narrative of America during the Obama years: There is Kelli  who saw her grandfathers finally marrylegallyafter thirty-five years together; Bill  a lifelong Republican whose attitude toward immigration reform was transformed when he met a boy escaping MS-13 gang leaders in El Salvador; Heba  a Syrian refugee who wants to forget the day the tanks rolled into her village; Marjorie  who grappled with disturbing feelings of racial bias lurking within her during the George Zimmerman trial; and Vicki  whose family was torn apart by those who voted for Trump and those who did not.  They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation  in their darkest times of need  in search of connection. They wrote with anger  fear  and respect. And together  this chorus of voices achieves a kind of beautiful harmony. To Obama is an intimate look at one mans relationship to the American people  and at a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.  Praise for To Obama  I cried several times.Pete Souza  Beautifully researched and written . . . A moving and inevitably nostalgic or even elegiac read  redolent of the human grace and statesmanship of the Obama presidency.The Guardian  These stories  when you read them all together  tell the American story. Theyre inspirational  theyre frustrating  theyre angry  theyre grateful  theyre resilient.Valerie Jarrett\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946483806261,"sku":"ByrdShop_0525509380","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780525509387.jpg?v=1769952045","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/to-obama-with-love-joy-anger-and-hope","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}