#12 in Biography & memoir
A Promised Land
- 928
- Pages
- about 17 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 20 weeks on the list, peaked at #1
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About the book
A Promised Land is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, it is the first of a planned two-volume series, but as of July 2026, no second volume has been announced. Remaining focused on his political career, the presidential memoir documents Obama's life from his early years through to the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. The book is 768 pages long and available in digital, paperback, and hardcover formats and has been translated into two dozen languages. There is also a 29-hour audiobook edition that is read by Obama himself.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.6 across 457 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 75% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Biography & memoir average of 8.2. That is how 8.5 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.1 | 17 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 8.6 | 440 | 96% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“A Promised Land is less a political book and more a personal account of how Barack Obama became president and what it was like to carry the responsibilities of the office. Going into the book, I mainly wanted to learn more about Obama as a…”
““I suspect that God's plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations; that in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to…”
Frequently asked
How long is A Promised Land?
It has 928 pages — longer than 99% of the ranked books in Biography & memoir.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Biography & memoir — with scores between 8.4 and 8.5, closest to this book.
