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

'The real story of Obama's America' Sunday Times

Every day, President Obama received ten thousand letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read ten of them before going to bed.

In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter-writers themselves and the White House staff in the Office of Presidential Correspondence who were witness to the millions of pleas, rants, thank-yous and apologies that landed in the mailroom during the Obama years. At once desperate, joyful, hateful and despairing, they form an intimate portrait of one man's relationship with the American people, and of a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.

An Oprah.com "Must-Read Book"
In "Hidden America," award-winning journalist Jeanne Marie Laskas dives deep into her subjects and emerges with character-driven stories about the people who make our lives run every day--and yet we barely think of them.
Take the men of Hopedale Mining company in Cadiz, Ohio. Laskas spent several weeks with them, both below and above ground, and by the end, you will know not only about their work, but about Pap and his dying mom, Smitty and the mail-order bride who stood him up at the airport, and Scotty and his thwarted dreams of becoming a boxing champion.
That is only one hidden world. Others that she explores: an Alaskan oil rig, a migrant labor camp in Maine, the air traffic control center at LaGuardia Airport in New York, a beef ranch in Texas, a landfill in California, a long-haul trucker in Iowa, a gun shop in Arizona, and the Cincinnati Ben-Gals cheerleaders, mere footnotes in the moneymaking spectacle that is professional football.

This is the story of one man's fight against a multibillion dollar colossus. A man who stood up for what was right, whatever the cost. The brilliant young forensic pathologist had no idea that the body on the slab in front of him would change his life, and ultimately change the world. The body belonged to legendary American Footballer Mike Webster, whose mental health had rapidly declined after he had stopped playing - he had ended up Tasering himself to relieve his chronic back pain and fixing his rotting teeth with Superglue. Dr Bennet Omalu found that the psychosis suffered by "Iron Mike" was no accident. His autopsy unearthed evidence of a trauma-related disease - the direct result of years of blows to the head in games. He knew it would keep killing scores of other sportsmen unless something was done. He believed that the NFL (National Football League), one of the most powerful corporations in America, would welcome the discovery. But it was the one truth they wanted to ignore. Omalu himself became a target. 'This is classic David and Goliath stuff, and as exciting as a great courtroom drama. A riveting, powerful human tale . . . a masterclass on how to tell a story' Charles Duhigg, New York Times columnist and bestselling author of The Power of Habit