Barack Obama

New York Times Washington correspondent Jodi Kantor interviewed more than 200 sources, including White House aides and friends of the Obamas, to paint a portrait of the first family's life inside the White House.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind talks about his unflattering picture of rivalries and dysfunction within President Obama's first economic team in his book Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President. Some of officials quoted in the book say they were misquoted or that their comments were taken out of context.

In the media, Stanley Ann Dunham is often identified simply as "a white anthropologist from Kansas," or "a single mother on food stamps." But biogrpaher Janny Scott argues that those descriptions don't do justice to the president's mother -- a complex, intellectual woman who led an "unconventional" life.