Former President Barack Obama's memoir A Promised Land,focusing on his political life from his time in Chicago through the killing of Osama bin Laden during his presidency, hits shelves Tuesday.

The book acts as a record of the former president's rise to the nation's top elected office — and his first two years on the job. But it also gives a window into his thinking along the way, about policy, his political life and his personal life.

Here, we present five clips of Obama reading from his memoir. The first is of his decision to approve the raid that led to the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But this recollection, like the others here, contains reflections on times spent with some of the women in his life, including his wife, Michelle; his mother, Ann; his grandmother "Toot"; his mother-in-law, Marian; and his daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Audio excerpted is courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio fromA Promised Land, by Barack Obama, read by the author.

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