‘History is . . . big. History is sweeping. History is supposed to be a record of momentous occasions, not so much the tiny, insignificant ones… Here was a chance to get to know Obama in a way most people hadn’t. The tiny stories that stuck. The voices that called. The cries and the howls of the people he had pledged to serve. Here was the raw material of the ideas that bounced through his mind as he went about his days in cabinet meetings, bilateral summits, fundraisers, the Situation Room, and to his bed at night.’

One of the most important politics books of the year, To Obama is a record of a time when politics intersected with empathy.

Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed. He was the first president to read letters from citizens on a daily basis since George Washington. The only President to have received more mail than Obama was Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

The letters Obama read affected real tangible change leading to reforms in healthcare, criminal justice and LGBTQ+ rights. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas tells the story of the Obama years -speaking to the letter writers, President Obama himself and the White House staff who sifted through the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom of the White House.

To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship with the American people, and at how this extraordinary dialogue shaped an era-defining presidency.