The Story of Barack Obama

One of the most anticipated political books of recent memory is an exhaustively reported, absorbing biography that sheds a real-life look on our current president. Drawing from hundreds of interviews, including with President Obama himself, and a vast collection of letters, journals, and diaries, <em>Barack Obama: The Story</em> by David Maraniss moves from Hawaii to New York to Chicago as it follows the forces and figures that helped create the sitting President. This history is peppered with the influential people who shaped Obama, from his white mother to his reliable and remarkable grandmother. Obama himself does not even enter the book until chapter seven, as the first six tell the well-known story of the Kansas and Kenyan ancestors that made Barack who he is today.<br /><br />Biographer David Maraniss is a <em>Washington Post</em> associate editor and the author of numerous celebrated biographies, including the 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography covering President Clinton. Maraniss will speak at the Downtown Milwaukee Public Library, in an event sponsored by Boswell Books, 7 p.m. July 18.<em><br /><br />The Sandcastle Girls</em> by Chris Bohjalian is a dynamic love tale seeped in historical fiction. The year is 1915 and Elizabeth Endicott has moved to Syria to aid refugees of the Armenian genocide. Once there, Elizabeth befriends Armen, a young widow, and amidst the trials of distance and war, the pair fall in love. Fast forward to the present day and to novelist Laura Petrosian, where Laura finds herself embarking on a journey of her own, back through her family's history.<br /><br />Chris Bohjalian is the critically acclaimed author of fifteen books, including the <em>New York Times</em> bestsellers <em>The Double Bind</em>, <em>The Night Strangers</em>, and <em>Skeletons at the Feast</em>.&nbsp;Bohjalian will appear at Books and Co. in Oconomowoc, 7 p.m., July 18.<strong><br /><br />Book Happenings</strong><br /><br />Bushville Wins! The '57 Braves<br />Milwaukee County Historical Society<br />910 Old World 3rd St.<br /><br />John Klima's work has appeared in the annual <em>Best American Sports Writing</em> anthology and he has authored several books on baseball history. His latest will be dear to Milwaukeeans. <em>Bushville Wins! The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball</em> is as interesting as the title is long as it recounts the miracle year in the annals of local athletics. Klima will lecture and sign books 1:30 p.m., July 16 at the County Historical Society.&nbsp;