This post is part of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 challenge:

December 4 Book. What book – fiction or non – touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

The life stories of two political figures — each completely radical in his own way — tie for my best books of 2009: Barack Obama and Harvey Milk.  Although Dreams from My Father is an autobiographical tale written at the beginning of Obama’s political career, and The Mayor of Castro Street is a biography written by Randy Shilts after Harvey Milk’s tragic death, both books stretched my mind wide open about how I think about politics in the U.S.  I know the word “hope” has turned into something of a cliche this days, but I found that the stories of both of these men erased some of my jadedness and replaced it with a little hope that the political process can also be used to effect positive change.

I blogged about both books earlier this year, so I’ll share some of those thoughts with you.

On Dreams from My Father:

We all know these bits and pieces about Obama’s life already, but the internal struggle he is able to convey in this book is moving and filled with layers of complexity. His thought process is analytical and displays an unwillingness to accept pat answers to difficult questions. The life experiences Obama explores in this book are such a contrast from what I have come to expect from American presidents, and at the same time are not all that different from the life experiences of many Americans. For some reason, I find this to be the best qualification of all to hold the highest office in the land. (From February 26, 2009).

On The Mayor of Castro Street:

How fitting that I should finish reading Randy Shilts’ biography of Harvey Milk just one day before President Obama honored 16 people — truly agents for change — with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Along with the likes of Steven Hawking, Senator Edward Kennedy, Desmond Tutu, Billie Jean King, Sandra Day O’Connor and Sidney Poitier, Harvey Milk was (posthumously) awarded with the nation’s highest civilian honor. …  Shilts does such a brilliant job of gathering an incredible amount of detail and information and turning it into a fascinating description of a life.  And it never becomes dull, even for one second.  Nor does he attempt to gloss over Milk’s failings, as one may be wont to do with such a symbolic figure of the gay movement. Instead, I was left with an honest sense of who Milk was; intriguing and complicated and much more interesting than what the White House speech might lead you to believe.  Milk prophesied many times that he would never make it to see his 50th birthday, and it is truly a tragedy that his assassination proved him right. (From August 13, 2009).