A.’s Reviews > A Promised Land > Status Update

Gotten through a lot, but highlights include:
—Obama sounding his angriest when he rails against the American addiction to cheap gas
—Callback to Corey, the disfigured veteran
—Obama’s helplessness in South America when the pilot is shot down over Libya.

Take a shot everytime Obama imagines what it must be like from someone else's perspective.

This is a very foreign policy-heavy section of the book, and I can't help but get the feeling that he's maneuvering the narrative around to suit his own purposes. Like, he's making Iran's nuclear program seem like a HUGE deal now so that his own Iran Accord seems that much cooler in Book 2. Same for Medvedev vs. Putin.

Meeting with Putin

Obama’s perplexity over the Nobel Prize. A pool of stars descending.

The famous scene where Obama gets Grassley to admit nothing will get him to vote yes. Also, “Even at the time, doubts came naturally to me,” says Obama, summing up lis life philosophy. Also, great little scene of Michelle catching a clipon TV of anti-Obama protests. “It’s a trip, isn’t it? How scared they are of us.”

Among other things, Obama is a skilled characterizer of various heads of state. He takes genuine pleasure in contrasting the staid and sanguine Angela Merkel from the splenetic Sarkozy.

The first crack in this smooth reading experience; Obama not entirely convincing about his refusal to crack down on Wall Street executives

“Translation: You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I care.” Audibly laughed. Also loved the thorough worldbuilding of the White House staff and its internal logic.

Before this, a truly dazzling passage about the quality of the light in the Oval Office.

Winning the presidency. The leadup to the inauguration. A great scene between Michelle and Obama, getting ready for bed: “You’re going to be president,” she murmurs.

I really loved the slyness of this one passage: Obama talks about his first house, and it’s clutter. Then he talks about his money issues, and how they led him to try to refinance his mortgage; then, as he runs the numbers, how it made more sense to parlay the equity into a housing loan; and before you realize it he’s not only explained the seeds of the housing crisis but placed himself in the eye of the storm.