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The 30 best biographies of all time.

Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”

At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction .

All the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels , if not more so. With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time — some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects.

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1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

This biography of esteemed mathematician John Nash was both a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and the basis for the award-winning film of the same name. Nasar thoroughly explores Nash’s prestigious career, from his beginnings at MIT to his work at the RAND Corporation — as well the internal battle he waged against schizophrenia, a disorder that nearly derailed his life.

2. Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film The Imitation Game - Updated Edition by Andrew Hodges

Hodges’ 1983 biography of Alan Turing sheds light on the inner workings of this brilliant mathematician, cryptologist, and computer pioneer. Indeed, despite the title ( a nod to his work during WWII ), a great deal of the “enigmatic” Turing is laid out in this book. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during the war, his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and of course, the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s — when homosexual acts were still a crime punishable by English law.

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical, but also a work of creative genius itself. This massive undertaking of over 800 pages details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life: from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid (and ultimately career-destroying) affair with Maria Reynolds. He may never have been president, but he was a fascinating and unique figure in American history — plus it’s fun to get the truth behind the songs.

Prefer to read about fascinating First Ladies rather than almost-presidents? Check out this awesome list of books about First Ladies over on The Archive.

4. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston

A prolific essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Hurston turned her hand to biographical writing in 1927 with this incredible work, kept under lock and key until it was published 2018. It’s based on Hurston’s interviews with the last remaining survivor of the Middle Passage slave trade, a man named Cudjo Lewis. Rendered in searing detail and Lewis’ highly affecting African-American vernacular, this biography of the “last black cargo” will transport you back in time to an era that, chillingly, is not nearly as far away from us as it feels.

5. Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

Though many a biography of him has been attempted, Gilbert’s is the final authority on Winston Churchill — considered by many to be Britain’s greatest prime minister ever. A dexterous balance of in-depth research and intimately drawn details makes this biography a perfect tribute to the mercurial man who led Britain through World War II.

Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book, which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight, Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the equation, replacing the \'dominion of matter\' with \'a great stillness\'--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly frightening.

Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character, which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change the world. --Gregory McNamee

6. E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

This “biography of the world’s most famous equation” is a one-of-a-kind take on the genre: rather than being the story of Einstein, it really does follow the history of the equation itself. From the origins and development of its individual elements (energy, mass, and light) to their ramifications in the twentieth century, Bodanis turns what could be an extremely dry subject into engaging fare for readers of all stripes.

7. Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

When Enrique was only five years old, his mother left Honduras for the United States, promising a quick return. Eleven years later, Enrique finally decided to take matters into his own hands in order to see her again: he would traverse Central and South America via railway, risking his life atop the “train of death” and at the hands of the immigration authorities, to reunite with his mother. This tale of Enrique’s perilous journey is not for the faint of heart, but it is an account of incredible devotion and sharp commentary on the pain of separation among immigrant families.

8. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

Herrera’s 1983 biography of renowned painter Frida Kahlo, one of the most recognizable names in modern art, has since become the definitive account on her life. And while Kahlo no doubt endured a great deal of suffering (a horrific accident when she was eighteen, a husband who had constant affairs), the focal point of the book is not her pain. Instead, it’s her artistic brilliance and immense resolve to leave her mark on the world — a mark that will not soon be forgotten, in part thanks to Herrera’s dedicated work.

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Perhaps the most impressive biographical feat of the twenty-first century, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about a woman whose cells completely changed the trajectory of modern medicine. Rebecca Skloot skillfully commemorates the previously unknown life of a poor black woman whose cancer cells were taken, without her knowledge, for medical testing — and without whom we wouldn’t have many of the critical cures we depend upon today.

10. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992. Five months later, McCandless was found emaciated and deceased in his shelter — but of what cause? Krakauer’s biography of McCandless retraces his steps back to the beginning of the trek, attempting to suss out what the young man was looking for on his journey, and whether he fully understood what dangers lay before him.

11. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families by James Agee

"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” From this line derives the central issue of Agee and Evans’ work: who truly deserves our praise and recognition? According to this 1941 biography, it’s the barely-surviving sharecropper families who were severely impacted by the American “Dust Bowl” — hundreds of people entrenched in poverty, whose humanity Evans and Agee desperately implore their audience to see in their book.

12. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Another mysterious explorer takes center stage in this gripping 2009 biography. Grann tells the story of Percy Fawcett, the archaeologist who vanished in the Amazon along with his son in 1925, supposedly in search of an ancient lost city. Parallel to this narrative, Grann describes his own travels in the Amazon 80 years later: discovering firsthand what threats Fawcett may have encountered, and coming to realize what the “Lost City of Z” really was.

13. Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Though many of us will be familiar with the name Mao Zedong, this prodigious biography sheds unprecedented light upon the power-hungry “Red Emperor.” Chang and Halliday begin with the shocking statistic that Mao was responsible for 70 million deaths during peacetime — more than any other twentieth-century world leader. From there, they unravel Mao’s complex ideologies, motivations, and missions, breaking down his long-propagated “hero” persona and thrusting forth a new, grislier image of one of China’s biggest revolutionaries.

14. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson by Andrew Wilson

Titled after one of her most evocative poems, this shimmering bio of Sylvia Plath takes an unusual approach. Instead of focusing on her years of depression and tempestuous marriage to poet Ted Hughes, it chronicles her life before she ever came to Cambridge. Wilson closely examines her early family and relationships, feelings and experiences, with information taken from her meticulous diaries — setting a strong precedent for other Plath biographers to follow.

15. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

What if you had twenty-four different people living inside you, and you never knew which one was going to come out? Such was the life of Billy Milligan, the subject of this haunting biography by the author of Flowers for Algernon . Keyes recounts, in a refreshingly straightforward style, the events of Billy’s life and how his psyche came to be “split”... as well as how, with Keyes’ help, he attempted to put the fragments of himself back together.

16. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

This gorgeously constructed biography follows Paul Farmer, a doctor who’s worked for decades to eradicate infectious diseases around the globe, particularly in underprivileged areas. Though Farmer’s humanitarian accomplishments are extraordinary in and of themselves, the true charm of this book comes from Kidder’s personal relationship with him — and the sense of fulfillment the reader sustains from reading about someone genuinely heroic, written by someone else who truly understands and admires what they do.

17. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

Here’s another bio that will reshape your views of a famed historical tyrant, though this time in a surprisingly favorable light. Decorated scholar Andrew Roberts delves into the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his near-flawless military instincts to his complex and confusing relationship with his wife. But Roberts’ attitude toward his subject is what really makes this work shine: rather than ridiculing him ( as it would undoubtedly be easy to do ), he approaches the “petty tyrant” with a healthy amount of deference.

18. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert A. Caro

Lyndon Johnson might not seem as intriguing or scandalous as figures like Kennedy, Nixon, or W. Bush. But in this expertly woven biography, Robert Caro lays out the long, winding road of his political career, and it’s full of twists you wouldn’t expect. Johnson himself was a surprisingly cunning figure, gradually maneuvering his way closer and closer to power. Finally, in 1963, he got his greatest wish — but at what cost? Fans of Adam McKay’s Vice , this is the book for you.

19. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

Anyone who grew up reading Little House on the Prairie will surely be fascinated by this tell-all biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Caroline Fraser draws upon never-before-published historical resources to create a lush study of the author’s life — not in the gently narrated manner of the Little House series, but in raw and startling truths about her upbringing, marriage, and volatile relationship with her daughter (and alleged ghostwriter) Rose Wilder Lane.

20. Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled just after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot of Prince’s life is actually a largely visual work — Shahidi served as his private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. And whatever they say about pictures being worth a thousand words, Shahidi’s are worth more still: Prince’s incredible vibrance, contagious excitement, and altogether singular personality come through in every shot.

21. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

Could there be a more fitting title for a book about the husband-wife team who discovered radioactivity? What you may not know is that these nuclear pioneers also had a fascinating personal history. Marie Sklodowska met Pierre Curie when she came to work in his lab in 1891, and just a few years later they were married. Their passion for each other bled into their passion for their work, and vice-versa — and in almost no time at all, they were on their way to their first of their Nobel Prizes.

22. Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

She may not have been assassinated or killed in a mysterious plane crash, but Rosemary Kennedy’s fate is in many ways the worst of “the Kennedy Curse.” As if a botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Yet in this new biography, penned by devoted Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of Rosemary’s post-lobotomy life is at last revealed.

23. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

This appropriately lyrical biography of brilliant Jazz Age poet and renowned feminist, Edna St. Vincent Millay, is indeed a perfect balance of savage and beautiful. While Millay’s poetic work was delicate and subtle, the woman herself was feisty and unpredictable, harboring unusual and occasionally destructive habits that Milford fervently explores.

24. Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes

Holmes’ famous philosophy of “biography as pursuit” is thoroughly proven here in his first full-length biographical work. Shelley: The Pursuit details an almost feverish tracking of Percy Shelley as a dark and cutting figure in the Romantic period — reforming many previous historical conceptions about him through Holmes’ compelling and resolute writing.

25. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Another Gothic figure has been made newly known through this work, detailing the life of prolific horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson. Author Ruth Franklin digs deep into the existence of the reclusive and mysterious Jackson, drawing penetrating comparisons between the true events of her life and the dark nature of her fiction.

26. The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

Fans of Into the Wild and The Lost City of Z will find their next adventure fix in this 2017 book about Christopher Knight, a man who lived by himself in the Maine woods for almost thirty years. The tale of this so-called “last true hermit” will captivate readers who have always fantasized about escaping society, with vivid descriptions of Knight’s rural setup, his carefully calculated moves and how he managed to survive the deadly cold of the Maine winters.

27. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The man, the myth, the legend: Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, is properly immortalized in Isaacson’s masterful biography. It divulges the details of Jobs’ little-known childhood and tracks his fateful path from garage engineer to leader of one of the largest tech companies in the world — not to mention his formative role in other legendary companies like Pixar, and indeed within the Silicon Valley ecosystem as a whole.

28. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Olympic runner Louis Zamperini was just twenty-six when his US Army bomber crashed and burned in the Pacific, leaving him and two other men afloat on a raft for forty-seven days — only to be captured by the Japanese Navy and tortured as a POW for the next two and a half years. In this gripping biography, Laura Hillenbrand tracks Zamperini’s story from beginning to end… including how he embraced Christian evangelism as a means of recovery, and even came to forgive his tormentors in his later years.

29. Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff

Everyone knows of Vladimir Nabokov — but what about his wife, Vera, whom he called “the best-humored woman I have ever known”? According to Schiff, she was a genius in her own right, supporting Vladimir not only as his partner, but also as his all-around editor and translator. And she kept up that trademark humor throughout it all, inspiring her husband’s work and injecting some of her own creative flair into it along the way.

30. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

William Shakespeare is a notoriously slippery historical figure — no one really knows when he was born, what he looked like, or how many plays he wrote. But that didn’t stop Stephen Greenblatt, who in 2004 turned out this magnificently detailed biography of the Bard: a series of imaginative reenactments of his writing process, and insights on how the social and political ideals of the time would have influenced him. Indeed, no one exists in a vacuum, not even Shakespeare — hence the conscious depiction of him in this book as a “will in the world,” rather than an isolated writer shut up in his own musty study.

If you're looking for more inspiring nonfiction, check out this list of 30 engaging self-help books , or this list of the last century's best memoirs !

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The 50 Best Biographies of All Time

Think you know the full and complete story about George Washington, Steve Jobs, or Joan of Arc? Think again.

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Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to “frustrate as utterly as possible the postmortem exploiter” by destroying his personal letters and journals. And one of our greatest living writers, Hermione Lee, once compared biographies to autopsies that add “a new terror to death”—the potential muddying of someone’s legacy when their life is held up to the scrutiny of investigation.

But despite its long history dating back to ancient Rome and Sumeria, biography as a genre didn’t really pop off until the middle of the twentieth century, when we became obsessed with celebrity culture. Since then, biographies of presidents, activists, artists, and musicians have regularly appeared on bestseller lists, while Hollywood continues to adapt them into Oscar bait like A Beautiful Mind, The Imitation Game , and Steve Jobs .

Why do we read so many books about the lives and deaths of strangers, as told by second-hand and third-hand sources? Is it merely our love for gossip, or are we trying to understand ourselves through the triumphs and failures of others?

To keep this list from blossoming into hundreds of titles, we only included books currently in print and translated into English. We also limited it to one book per author, and one book per subject. In ranked order, here are the best biographies of all time.

Crown The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss

You’re probably familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo , the 1844 revenge novel by Alexandre Dumas. But did you know it was based on the life of Dumas’s father, the mixed-race General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, son of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave? Thanks to Reiss’s masterful pacing and plotting, this rip-roaring biography of Thomas-Alexandre reads more like an adventure novel than a work of nonfiction. The Black Count won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2013, and it’s only a matter of time before a filmmaker turns it into a big-screen blockbuster.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, by Craig Brown

Few biographies are as genuinely fun to read as this barnburner from the irreverent English critic Craig Brown. Princess Margaret may have been everyone’s favorite character from Netflix’s The Crown , but Brown’s eye for ostentatious details and revelatory insights will help you see why everyone in the 1950s—from Pablo Picasso and Gore Vidal to Peter Sellers and Andy Warhol—was obsessed with her. When book critic Parul Sehgal says that she “ripped through the book with the avidity of Margaret attacking her morning vodka and orange juice,” you know you’re in for a treat.

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller, by Alec Nevala-Lee

If you want to feel optimistic about the future again, look no further than this brilliant biography of Buckminster Fuller, the “modern Leonardo da Vinci” of the 1960s and 1970s who came up with the idea of a “Spaceship Earth” and inspired Silicon Valley’s belief that technology could be a global force for good (while earning plenty of critics who found his ideas impractical). Alec Nevala-Lee’s writing is as serene and precise as one of Fuller’s geodesic domes, and his research into never-before-seen documents makes this a genuinely groundbreaking book full of surprises.

Free Press Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, by Robin D.G. Kelley

The late American jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk has been so heavily mythologized that it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. But Robin D. G. Kelley’s biography is an essential book for jazz fans looking to understand the man behind the myths. Monk’s family provided Kelley with full access to their archives, resulting in chapter after chapter of fascinating details, from his birth in small-town North Carolina to his death across the Hudson from Manhattan.

University of Chicago Press Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, by Meryle Secrest

There are dozens of books about America’s most celebrated architect, but Secrest’s 1998 biography is still the most fun to read. For one, she doesn’t shy away from the fact that Wright could be an absolute monster, even to his own friends and family. Secondly, her research into more than 100,000 letters, as well as interviews with nearly every surviving person who knew Wright, makes this book a one-of-a-kind look at how Wright’s personal life influenced his architecture.

Ralph Ellison: A Biography, by Arnold Rampersad

Ralph Ellison’s landmark novel, Invisible Man , is about a Black man who faced systemic racism in the Deep South during his youth, then migrated to New York, only to find oppression of a slightly different kind. What makes Arnold Rampersand’s honest and insightful biography of Ellison so compelling is how he connects the dots between Invisible Man and Ellison’s own journey from small-town Oklahoma to New York’s literary scene during the Harlem Renaissance.

Oscar Wilde: A Life, by Matthew Sturgis

Now remembered for his 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde was one of the most fascinating men of the fin-de-siècle thanks to his poems, plays, and some of the earliest reported “celebrity trials.” Sturgis’s scintillating biography is the most encyclopedic chronicle of Wilde’s life to date, thanks to new research into his personal notebooks and a full transcript of his libel trial.

Beacon Press A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks, by Angela Jackson

The poet Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, but because she spent most of her life in Chicago instead of New York, she hasn’t been studied or celebrated as often as her peers in the Harlem Renaissance. Luckily, Angela Jackson’s biography is full of new details about Brooks’s personal life, and how it influenced her poetry across five decades.

Atria Books Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, by Dana Stevens

Was Buster Keaton the most influential filmmaker of the first half of the twentieth century? Dana Stevens makes a compelling case in this dazzling mix of biography, essays, and cultural history. Much like Keaton’s filmography, Stevens playfully jumps from genre to genre in an endlessly entertaining way, while illuminating how Keaton’s influence on film and television continues to this day.

Algonquin Books Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation, by Dean Jobb

Dean Jobb is a master of narrative nonfiction on par with Erik Larsen, author of The Devil in the White City . Jobb’s biography of Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of the Jazz Age, is among the few great biographies that read like a thriller. Set in Chicago during the 1880s through the 1920s, it’s also filled with sumptuous period details, from lakeside mansions to streets choked with Model Ts.

Vintage Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, by Hermione Lee

Hermione Lee’s biographies of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton could easily have made this list. But her book about a less famous person—Penelope Fitzgerald, the English novelist who wrote The Bookshop, The Blue Flower , and The Beginning of Spring —might be her best yet. At just over 500 pages, it’s considerably shorter than those other biographies, partially because Fitzgerald’s life wasn’t nearly as well documented. But Lee’s conciseness is exactly what makes this book a more enjoyable read, along with the thrilling feeling that she’s uncovering a new story literary historians haven’t already explored.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

Many biographers have written about Sylvia Plath, often drawing parallels between her poetry and her death by suicide at the age of thirty. But in this startling book, Plath isn’t wholly defined by her tragedy, and Heather Clark’s craftsmanship as a writer makes it a joy to read. It’s also the most comprehensive account of Plath’s final year yet put to paper, with new information that will change the way you think of her life, poetry, and death.

Pontius Pilate, by Ann Wroe

Compared to most biography subjects, there isn’t much surviving documentation about the life of Pontius Pilate, the Judaean governor who ordered the execution of the historical Jesus in the first century AD. But Ann Wroe leans into all that uncertainty in her groundbreaking book, making for a fascinating mix of research and informed speculation that often feels like reading a really good historical novel.

Brand: History Book Club Bolívar: American Liberator, by Marie Arana

In the early nineteenth century, Simón Bolívar led six modern countries—Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela—to independence from the Spanish Empire. In this rousing work of biography and geopolitical history, Marie Arana deftly chronicles his epic life with propulsive prose, including a killer first sentence: “They heard him before they saw him: the sound of hooves striking the earth, steady as a heartbeat, urgent as a revolution.”

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang

Ever read a biography of a fictional character? In the 1930s and 1940s, Charlie Chan came to popularity as a Chinese American police detective in Earl Derr Biggers’s mystery novels and their big-screen adaptations. In writing this book, Yunte Huang became something of a detective himself to track down the real-life inspiration for the character, a Hawaiian cop named Chang Apana born shortly after the Civil War. The result is an astute blend between biography and cultural criticism as Huang analyzes how Chan served as a crucial counterpoint to stereotypical Chinese villains in early Hollywood.

Random House Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, by Nancy Milford

Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the most fascinating women of the twentieth century—an openly bisexual poet, playwright, and feminist icon who helped make Greenwich Village a cultural bohemia in the 1920s. With a knack for torrid details and creative insights, Nancy Milford successfully captures what made Millay so irresistible—right down to her voice, “an instrument of seduction” that captivated men and women alike.

Simon & Schuster Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

Few people have the luxury of choosing their own biographers, but that’s exactly what the late co-founder of Apple did when he tapped Walter Isaacson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. Adapted for the big screen by Aaron Sorkin in 2015, Steve Jobs is full of plot twists and suspense thanks to a mind-blowing amount of research on the part of Isaacson, who interviewed Jobs more than forty times and spoke with just about everyone who’d ever come into contact with him.

Brand: Random House Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), by Stacy Schiff

The Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Without my wife, I wouldn’t have written a single novel.” And while Stacy Schiff’s biography of Cleopatra could also easily make this list, her telling of Véra Nabokova’s life in Russia, Europe, and the United States is revolutionary for finally bringing Véra out of her husband’s shadow. It’s also one of the most romantic biographies you’ll ever read, with some truly unforgettable images, like Vera’s habit of carrying a handgun to protect Vladimir on butterfly-hunting excursions.

Greenblatt, Stephen Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, by Stephen Greenblatt

We know what you’re thinking. Who needs another book about Shakespeare?! But Greenblatt’s masterful biography is like traveling back in time to see firsthand how a small-town Englishman became the greatest writer of all time. Like Wroe’s biography of Pontius Pilate, there’s plenty of speculation here, as there are very few surviving records of Shakespeare’s daily life, but Greenblatt’s best trick is the way he pulls details from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets to construct a compelling narrative.

Crown Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

When Kiese Laymon calls a book a “literary miracle,” you pay attention. James Baldwin’s legacy has enjoyed something of a revival over the last few years thanks to films like I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk , as well as books like Glaude’s new biography. It’s genuinely a bit of a miracle how he manages to combine the story of Baldwin’s life with interpretations of Baldwin’s work—as well as Glaude’s own story of discovering, resisting, and rediscovering Baldwin’s books throughout his life.

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50 Must-Read Biographies

Find your next favorite biography with this list of 50 must-read best biographies featuring people from literature, science, history, and more.

Rebecca Hussey

Rebecca holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. She teaches courses in composition, literature, and the arts. When she’s not reading or grading papers, she’s hanging out with her husband and son and/or riding her bike and/or buying books. She can't get enough of reading and writing about books, so she writes the bookish newsletter "Reading Indie," focusing on small press books and translations. Newsletter: Reading Indie Twitter: @ofbooksandbikes

View All posts by Rebecca Hussey

The best biographies give us a satisfying glimpse into a great person’s life, while also teaching us about the context in which that person lived. Through biography, we can also learn history, psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, and more. Reading a great biography is both fun and educational. What’s not to love?

Below I’ve listed 50 of the best biographies out there. You will find a mix of subjects, including important figures in literature, science, politics, history, art, and more. I’ve tried to keep this list focused on biography only, so there is little in the way of memoir or autobiography. In a couple cases, authors have written about their family members, but for the most part, these are books where the focus is on the biographical subject, not the author.

The first handful are group biographies, and after that, I’ve arranged them alphabetically by subject. Book descriptions come from Goodreads.

Take a look and let me know about your favorite biography in the comments!

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

“In  All We Know , Lisa Cohen describes their [Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, and Madge Garland’s] glamorous choices, complicated failures, and controversial personal lives with lyricism and empathy. At once a series of intimate portraits and a startling investigation into style, celebrity, sexuality, and the genre of biography itself,  All We Know  explores a hidden history of modernism and pays tribute to three compelling lives.”

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

“Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as ‘Human Computers,’ calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women.”

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie

“In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them – in works that readers of all kinds could admire.  The Life You Save May Be Your Own  is their story – a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us.”

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

“As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.”

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

“In a sweeping narrative, Fraser traces the cultural, familial and political roots of each of Henry’s queens, pushes aside the stereotypes that have long defined them, and illuminates the complex character of each.”

John Adams by David McCullough

“In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot — ‘the colossus of independence,’ as Thomas Jefferson called him.”

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Melissa Fleming

“Emotionally riveting and eye-opening,  A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea  is the incredible story of a young woman, an international crisis, and the triumph of the human spirit. Melissa Fleming shares the harrowing journey of Doaa Al Zamel, a young Syrian refugee in search of a better life.”

At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess in Victorian England by Walter Dean Myers

“One terrifying night in 1848, a young African princess’s village is raided by warriors. The invaders kill her mother and father, the King and Queen, and take her captive. Two years later, a British naval captain rescues her and takes her to England where she is presented to Queen Victoria, and becomes a loved and respected member of the royal court.”

John Brown by W.E.B. Du Bois

“ John Brown is W. E. B. Du Bois’s groundbreaking political biography that paved the way for his transition from academia to a lifelong career in social activism. This biography is unlike Du Bois’s earlier work; it is intended as a work of consciousness-raising on the politics of race.”

Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen L. Carter

“[Eunice Hunton Carter] was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s ― and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted.”

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

“An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members.”

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.”

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

“Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered.”

Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

“In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.”

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

“After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve ‘the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century’: What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett & his quest for the Lost City of Z?”

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

“Amanda Foreman draws on a wealth of fresh research and writes colorfully and penetratingly about the fascinating Georgiana, whose struggle against her own weaknesses, whose great beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a part in the affairs of the world make her a vibrant, astonishingly contemporary figure.”

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik Ping Zhu

“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame she was just trying to make the world a little better and a little freer. But along the way, the feminist pioneer’s searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. [This book], created by the young lawyer who began the Internet sensation and an award-winning journalist, takes you behind the myth for an intimate, irreverent look at the justice’s life and work.”

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

“A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother.”

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

“ Shirley Jackson  reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the literary genius behind such classics as ‘The Lottery’ and  The Haunting of Hill House .”

The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

“This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart.”

The Life of Samuel Johnson   by James Boswell

“Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail.”

Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers

“Barbara Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention. Yet Jordan herself remained a mystery.”

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

“This engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from her own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; a devastating accident at age eighteen that left her crippled and unable to bear children.”

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph

“Often photographed in a cowboy hat with her middle finger held defiantly in the air, Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy (1916–2000) left a vibrant legacy as a leader of the Black Power and feminist movements. In the first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the life and political influence of this strikingly bold and controversial radical activist.”

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

“In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food.”

The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma by Peter Popham

“Peter Popham … draws upon previously untapped testimony and fresh revelations to tell the story of a woman whose bravery and determination have captivated people around the globe. Celebrated today as one of the world’s greatest exponents of non-violent political defiance since Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only four years after her first experience of politics.”

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”   by Zora Neale Hurston

“In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

“Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.”

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln’s political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.”

The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart

“A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and call them the New Negro — the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.”

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux

“Drawing from the private archives of the poet’s estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde’s iconic status, charting her conservative childhood in Harlem; her early marriage to a white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence as an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as a seminal poet of American literature.”

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

“Thurgood Marshall stands today as the great architect of American race relations, having expanded the foundation of individual rights for all Americans. His victory in the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case outlawing school segregation, would have him a historic figure even if he had not gone on to become the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.”

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

“ The Mayor of Castro Street  is Shilts’s acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s.”

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

“The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.”

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell

This book is “a vivid portrait of Montaigne, showing how his ideas gave birth to our modern sense of our inner selves, from Shakespeare’s plays to the dilemmas we face today.”

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm

“From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, this brilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. Janet Malcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend of Sylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plath biographies.”

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley   by Peter Guralnick

“Based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, [this book] traces the evolution not just of the man but of the music and of the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait of Elvis and his world.

Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

“Kate Summerscale brilliantly recreates the Victorian world, chronicling in exquisite and compelling detail the life of Isabella Robinson, wherein the longings of a frustrated wife collided with a society clinging to rigid ideas about sanity, the boundaries of privacy, the institution of marriage, and female sexuality.”

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

“A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained?”

The Invisible Woman: The Story of Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan by Claire Tomalin

“When Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857, she was 18: a professional actress performing in his production of  The Frozen Deep . He was 45: a literary legend, a national treasure, married with ten children. This meeting sparked a love affair that lasted over a decade, destroying Dickens’s marriage and ending with Nelly’s near-disappearance from the public record.”

Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter

“Slowly, but surely, Sojourner climbed from beneath the weight of slavery, secured respect for herself, and utilized the distinction of her race to become not only a symbol for black women, but for the feminist movement as a whole.”

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

“Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America’s first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes.”

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

“With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life, [Chernow] carries the reader through Washington’s troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian Wars, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.”

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

“ Ida: A Sword Among Lions  is a sweeping narrative about a country and a crusader embroiled in the struggle against lynching: a practice that imperiled not only the lives of black men and women, but also a nation based on law and riven by race.”

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

“But the true saga of [Wilder’s] life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography.”

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

“Although mother and daughter, these two brilliant women never knew one another – Wollstonecraft died of an infection in 1797 at the age of thirty-eight, a week after giving birth. Nevertheless their lives were so closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies so eerily similar, it seems impossible to consider one without the other.”

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

“Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.”

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

“Of the great figures in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins’ bullets at age thirty-nine.”

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

“On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.”

Want to read more about great biographies? Check out this post on presidential biographies , this list of biographies and memoirs about remarkable women , and this list of 100 must-read musician biographies and memoirs .

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Best Biographies

Discover the lives of remarkable individuals through the best biographies, chosen from a wide array of reputable literary sources and biography enthusiasts. these compelling reads offer intimate portraits and have earned accolades across numerous literary discussions..

10 Biographies That Inspire | TheReviewGeek Recommends

Life is a journey filled with numerous experiences, both good and bad. These experiences can teach us valuable life lessons, shape our character, and inspire us to be better. However, it’s not just our own experiences that can enlighten and motivate us; the lives of others can also offer profound insights and inspiration. This is where biographies come in.

In this article, we’ll explore ten such inspirational biographies that promise to captivate your imagination, stir your emotions, and inspire you in ways you’d never thought possible. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the fascinating world of others.

“The Diary of a Young Girl”

Anne Frank’s diary is an extraordinary testament to the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity. The diary narrates Anne’s life while hiding from the Nazis during World War II.

Despite her circumstances, Anne’s poignant reflections, unwavering optimism, and belief in humanity make this biography a profound and compelling read. Her resilience and courage continue to inspire millions around the world.

“A Beautiful Mind” by Sylvia Nasar

This biography tells the moving story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who battled schizophrenia. Despite his debilitating mental illness, Nash made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of mathematics and economics, eventually winning the Nobel Prize.

His life story serves as a powerful reminder of the incredible strength of the human spirit and the potential within all of us to overcome our challenges.

“Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela’s autobiography is a stirring tale of perseverance, courage, and unwavering commitment to justice. It chronicles Mandela’s life from his childhood in rural South Africa to his time as a freedom fighter, his 27 years in prison, and his eventual rise to the presidency.

Mandela’s life embodies the power of resilience and the transformational impact one person can have on the world.

“The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller

Helen Keller’s autobiography is a beacon of hope and an embodiment of the indomitable human spirit. Despite being born deaf and blind, Keller overcame these challenges to become a renowned author, political activist, and lecturer. Her life story serves as a powerful testament to the strength of determination and the limitless potential of the human spirit.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot

This compelling biography reveals the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge—became instrumental in many medical breakthroughs.

Skloot beautifully intertwines the narrative of scientific discovery with the painful history of Henrietta’s family, resulting in a captivating and thought-provoking biography that challenges our understanding of ethics, race, and medicine.

“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson

Based on more than forty interviews conducted over two years, Isaacson’s biography paints an honest and insightful portrait of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc.

It recounts his roller-coaster life, marked by groundbreaking innovation, intense passion, personal demons, and a relentless pursuit of perfection. This biography inspires readers to embrace their creativity and follow their dreams, no matter the obstacles.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou

In this memoir, Maya Angelou recounts her early life, marked by racism, trauma, and adversity. Yet, her story is ultimately one of resilience and redemption, as she finds her voice and learns to soar above her circumstances. Angelou’s compelling narrative and poetic prose make this autobiography a powerful and inspiring read. What Angelou puts in the book says a lot about humanity and its ways. 

“Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer

Krakauer’s biography follows the adventurous and tragic story of Chris McCandless, a young man who abandoned his comfortable life to journey into the Alaskan wilderness.

While his story ends in tragedy, McCandless’s pursuit of truth, freedom, and a life lived fully continues to inspire many to question societal norms and seek their own path. Paging through Into the Wild, you will likely get an understanding of the temporariness of the materialistic life most of us are after. 

“Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly

This illuminating biography brings to light the untold story of four African-American women mathematicians who played crucial roles in NASA’s space program.

Against the backdrop of segregation and sexism, these women broke barriers and changed the course of history. Their story serves as a powerful testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of diversity in innovation.

“Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” by Ashlee Vance

Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX, is known not just for his genius but also for his audacious visions of the future. Vance’s biography offers a fascinating glimpse into Musk’s life and his relentless pursuit of ambitious goals. This biography will inspire you to dream big and challenge the status quo. You might start understanding why Elon does what he does.

There we have it, our list of 10 best biographies that inspire. What do you think about our picks? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below: 

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The 30 best biographies to add to your reading list

Some stories involve incredible, larger-than-life characters. these are the best biographies ever written..

Writing a great biography is no easy task. The author is charged with capturing some of the most iconic and influential people on the planet, folks that often have larger than life personas. To capture that in words is a genuine challenge that the best biographers relish.

The very best biographies don't just hold a mirror up to these remarkable characters. Instead, they show us a different side of them, or just how a certain approach of philosophy fueled their game-changing ways. Biographies inform, for certain, but they entertain and inspire to no end as well.

Below, we gathered a comprehensive list of the best biographies ever written. Some of these biographies were selected because of the subject matter and others were chosen because of the biographer. It’s often said that reading biographies is the best way to gain new knowledge, so we suggest you start with these great selections. If you love history, you’ll certainly want to include these best history books to your home library.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro

The former parks commissioner of New York, Robert Moses was a man who got power, loved power, and was transformed by power. This 1,000-plus page biography could be the definitive study of power and legacy. It’s a great learning tool of mostly what not to be and who not to become.

Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

Totto-Chan is a special figure in modern Japanese culture and is on the same celebrity status level as Oprah is to us here in the United States. The book describes the childhood in pre-World War II Japan of a misunderstood girl who suffered from attention disorders and excessive energy and who later was mentored by a very special school principal who truly understood her. The book has sold more than 5 million copies in Japan.

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Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith

The man who was responsible for winning World War II, twice prevented the use of nuclear weapons, and attempted to keep our soldiers out of Vietnam, all while making it look easy, is none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. This biography is a history lesson as well as an opportunity to get inside the mind of a brilliant man.

Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson

This particular biography dates back more than 50 years, which means it was written without the worry of being politically correct or controversial, but instead focused on providing a conclusive picture of the man. Modern enough to be historically accurate, this biography details a lot of the little-known facts about Mr. Edison in addition to his accomplishments, as well as his failures.

Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office by Zach O’Malley Greenburg

Empire State of Mind is both an unofficial biography of the rap mogul Jay-Z as well as a business book. It shows how the rapper hustled his way to the top of the music industry to become one of the most powerful and influential people in music.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer

The story of the professional football player who gave up a $3 million NFL contract to join the Army Rangers after 9/11, only to die under suspicious circumstances in the hills of Afghanistan, is a book about everything that is right and wrong with the U.S. military. Pat Tillman wasn’t perfect, but he was a man we could all learn something from. His incredible story is one of bravery and selflessness -- and will forever be tied to the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Titan: The Life of John. D. Rockefeller Sr. by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow has written some of the best biographies of our time. In this 832-page biography of John. D. Rockefeller, he shares the main lessons you would take away from someone like Rockefeller, a strangely stoic, incredibly resilient, and -- despite his reputation as a robber baron -- humble and compassionate man. Most successful people get worse as they age, but Rockefeller instead became more open-minded and more generous. The biography also details his wrongdoings and permits you the opportunity to make your own judgment on Rockefeller’s character.

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

Another example of Chernow’s brilliance in biographical writing is given in his biography of George Washington. Today, we study Washington not only for his against-the-odds military victory over a superior British Army but also for his strategic vision, which is partially responsible for many of the most enduring American institutions and practices. It’s another long read of the type Chernow is famous for, but it's also a page-turner. Although it’s intimidating to look at, the reading time goes by quickly.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson has written some of the greatest biographies in contemporary literature. Our modern-day genius, Steve Jobs, will forever be remembered as the mastermind who brought us Apple. This biography shows Jobs at his best, which includes illustrations of his determination and creativity but also details the worst of him, including his tyrannical and vicious ways of running a business (and his family). From this book, you will learn to appreciate the man for the genius that he was, but it will most likely not inspire you to follow in his path.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

Most depictions show the Mongols as bloodthirsty pillagers, but in this biography, we are also shown how they introduced many progressive advances to their conquered nations. You will learn how Genghis Khan abolished torture, permitted universal religious freedom, and destroyed existing feudal systems.

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank

his five-volume retelling of the life and times of Russian literary giant Fyodor Dostoevsky is considered the best biography available on the subject. The mammoth exploration sheds light on Dostoevsky's works, ideology, and historical context. For those who are not specifically interested in the famous author, the also book paints a picture of 19th-century Russia.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvelous Works of Nature and Man by Martin Kemp

Kemp’s account of da Vinci’s life and work is considered the go-to biography of the famous Renaissance figure. This incredible book sheds light on one of the most creative figures who ever lived, guiding readers through a fully integrated account of his scientific, artistic, and technological works, as well as the life events that helped form the man that made them.

Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Leslie-Ann Jones

After the massive success of the movie recently released about rock legend Freddie Mercury and his band, Queen, you might be interested in learning more about the frontman. This biography draws from hundreds of interviews with key figures in his life to create a revealing glimpse into Mercury’s life.

Empire: The Life, Legend, and Madness of Howard Hughes by Donald Barlett

This is an epic biography of an epic man. It shows the heights of his incredible success as well as the depths of his inner struggles. Readers learn about the tough but eccentric figure in a story that details his incredible success as an aviator, film producer, and more.

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

The brilliant mathematician, cytologist, and computer pioneer Alan Turing is beautifully depicted in this biography. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during World War II , his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s when homosexual acts were still a crime and punishable by law.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Of course, we couldn’t highlight Ron Chernow’s best works without including his biography on Alexander Hamilton , which is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical but also a work of creative genius itself. Another more than 800-page book (an ongoing theme for Chernow biographies), this book details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life, from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid affair with Maria Reynolds. If you’ve seen the musical, this book will help answer a lot of those burning questions that you may have.

Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

The focal point of this biography is not the suffering that was endured by Frida Kahlo, but instead, her artistic brilliance and her immense resolve to leave her mark on the world. Herrera’s 1983 biography of one of the most recognizable names in modern art has since become the definitive account of her life.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Recommended reading for any adventurer or explorer -- the story of Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, who hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992 only to have his remains discovered in his shelter five months later -- Into the Wild retraces his steps along the trek, attempting to discover what the young man was looking for on his journey. Krakauer delivers one of the best biography books in recent memory.

Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot into the life of Prince is largely visual. The author served as the musician’s private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. You already know the expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and in this case, they are worth a lot more.

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

The “Kennedy Curse” didn’t bring forth an assassination or a mysterious plane crash for Rosemary Kennedy, although her fate might have been the worst of them all. As if her botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Penned by Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of her post-lobotomy life is finally revealed.

Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is likely the most divisive U.S. president of modern times. The comprehensive biography of Trump is reported by a team of award-winning Washington Post journalists and co-authored by investigative political reporter Michael Kranish and senior editor Marc Fisher. The book gives the reader an insight into Trump, from his upbringing in Queens to his turbulent careers in real estate and entertainment to his astonishing rise as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Most are familiar with the revolutionary Mao Zedong. This carefully curated biography by Jung Chang digs deeper into the life of the "Red Emperor." You won't find these interviews and stories about the world leader in history books alone. This extensive account of the man known simply as Mao begins with a horrific statistic: He was responsible for the deaths of more than 70 million people during his regime.

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell 

Biographies often give us the stories of people we know and love, but they can also reveal new stories about people that may have been lost to history. In her bestseller, Sonia Purnell tells the story of Virginia Hall, a prolific and heroic spy from World War II who took down the Axis Powers on one leg. 

Black Boy by Richard Wright

A standard biography is usually given by a historian after years and years of research and writing, but sometimes it’s better to go straight to the source. In his memoir, Richard Wright details his life as he recalls it as a black American in the 20th century. Black Boy is a harsh, painful, beautiful, and revealing read about race in the United States -- and about a towering figure of literature. 

Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Isaacson represents the gold standard for contemporary biographers, and his tome on Leonardo da Vinci was a bestseller for a reason. Isaacson is able to show a detailed, intimate portrait of the most famous painter of all time from centuries away.

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Want to know how the biggest sports company of all time came to be? Hear it from the man himself. Phil Knight’s book takes you through how his little sneaker company in Oregon became the worldwide leader in sportswear. 

The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

One of the most famous biographies ever, The Autobiography of Malcolm X remains a classic and an important read. Malcolm X’s politics, though controversial at the time and today, is a valuable and provocative perspective that will make you reconsider how you think about America and the American Dream. 

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Long before becoming Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah lived many, many lifetimes. Born to apartheid South Africa, Noah’s story is one of perseverance and triumph, and one that he manages to make funny by some sort of magic trick. 

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

Of course, today, you know Issa Rae as the writer, actor, and star of HBO’s Insecure, but before her hit show came her webseries and book of the same name, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. Rae’s memoir wrestles with the idea of being an introvert in a world that considers Black people inherently cool.

Robin by Davie Itzkoff

One of the most beloved comedians and actors of all time, Robin Williams' passing in 2014 shook fans across generations. In his book, New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff covers the life, work, and emotions of one of the most complicated and misunderstood comedians ever. Oh captain, my captain...

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Mark Stock is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He fell into wine during the Recession and has been fixated on the stuff since. He spent years making, selling, and sipping Pinot Noir in the Dundee Hills before a full return to his journalistic roots in 2016. He's helplessly tied to European soccer, casting for trout, and grunge rock. In addition to The Manual, he writes for SevenFifty Daily , Sip Northwest , The Somm Journal , The Drake , Willamette Week , Travel Oregon , and more. He has a website and occasionally even updates it: markastock.com .

Send all editorial inquiries  HERE .

Summer is the time of year that a lot of people look forward to. The days are warm and long. For outdoor activities, there's a long and never-ending list. Grilling, camping, and running outside in the sunshine are great starters. But for most, it means enjoying activities involving bodies of water. Summer means it's time for spritzes, swim trunks, and some water fights. One never grows out of such things, especially when you have top-notch equipment and it's scorching outside.

This kind of battle is fun, refreshing, and a healthy way to combat your friends. So why don't you invite your family or best buddies over (it's also a fun team-building experience, looking at your corporate world) for a water gun match this summer? Indeed, they will be eager to get on the battlefield with you. If you want to sharpen your aiming skills in time for the fight, we've compiled a list of the best water guns for men this 2023.

It's never too late to be a kid. Sure, technically it is, but that's your adult brain at work. With the right state of imagination and a few helpful tools, you can relive your youth.

A great way to do so is by way of our favorite kind of weapon: the fake one. Nerf guns have ruled the category for generations, with their signature soft ammo and inventive designs. Best, they don't hurt anybody involved in a shootout. They'll take you straight back to the playground, with the sound of an ice cream truck and the distance and laughter all around. It's a healthy kind of battle, one that involves lots of exercise and carefree joy. Best, you're also an adult, so if you feel like having a beer or staying out a little later when the battle is over, you can.

Shopping for the best gifts for men can at times seem like a daunting task, whether it be for a birthday, an anniversary, or any gift in between. So, we decided to help you out and lend you a hand and make gift-giving a little less stressful with a thoughtfully curated list of tried-and-true gifts suited for men. And at times, no matter how well or how long you have known someone, you just don't know where to look.

From small everyday carry items and others from the cool tech world to experiences that help you disconnect to reconnect, we offer you a gift guide for every guy on your list or some nice ways to treat yourself, too. Ahead, you will find a list of the best practical gifts for every type of guy. With that being said, here are the best gifts for men in 2023.

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The Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies of 2022

Featuring buster keaton, jean rhys, bernardine evaristo, kate beaton, and more.

We’ve come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing: basic math, and lots of it.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction ; Nonfiction ; Memoir and Biography; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror; Short Story Collections; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature ; and Literature in Translation .

Today’s installment: Memoir and Biography .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole (Liveright) 17 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan

“One of the many triumphs of Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves is that he manages to find a form that accommodates the spectacular changes that have occurred in Ireland over the past six decades, which happens to be his life span … it is not a memoir, nor is it an absolute history, nor is it entirely a personal reflection or a crepuscular credo. It is, in fact, all of these things helixed together: his life, his country, his thoughts, his misgivings, his anger, his pride, his doubt, all of them belonging, eventually, to us … O’Toole, an agile cultural commentator, considers himself to be a representative of the blank slate on which the experiment of change was undertaken, but it’s a tribute to him that he maintains his humility, his sharpness and his enlightened distrust …

O’Toole writes brilliantly and compellingly of the dark times, but he is graceful enough to know that there is humor and light in the cracks. There is a touch of Eduardo Galeano in the way he can settle on a telling phrase … But the real accomplishment of this book is that it achieves a conscious form of history-telling, a personal hybrid that feels distinctly honest and humble at the same time. O’Toole has not invented the form, but he comes close to perfecting it. He embraces the contradictions and the confusion. In the process, he weaves the flag rather than waving it.”

–Colum McCann ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Thin Places: A Natural History of Healing and Home by Kerri Ní Dochartaigh (Milkweed)

12 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Assured and affecting … A powerful and bracing memoir … This is a book that will make you see the world differently: it asks you to reconsider the animals and insects we often view as pests – the rat, for example, and the moth. It asks you to look at the sea and the sky and the trees anew; to wonder, when you are somewhere beautiful, whether you might be in a thin place, and what your responsibilities are to your location.It asks you to show compassion for people you think are difficult, to cultivate empathy, to try to understand the trauma that made them the way they are.”

–Lynn Enright ( The Irish Times )

3. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)

14 Rave • 4 Positive

“It could hardly be more different in tone from [Beaton’s] popular larky strip Hark! A Vagrant … Yes, it’s funny at moments; Beaton’s low-key wryness is present and correct, and her drawings of people are as charming and as expressive as ever. But its mood overall is deeply melancholic. Her story, which runs to more than 400 pages, encompasses not only such thorny matters as social class and environmental destruction; it may be the best book I have ever read about sexual harassment …

There are some gorgeous drawings in Ducks of the snow and the starry sky at night. But the human terrain, in her hands, is never only black and white … And it’s this that gives her story not only its richness and depth, but also its astonishing grace. Life is complex, she tell us, quietly, and we are all in it together; each one of us is only trying to survive. What a difficult, gorgeous and abidingly humane book. It really does deserve to win all the prizes.”

–Rachel Cooke ( The Guardian )

4. Stay True by Hua Hsu (Doubleday)

14 Rave • 3 Positive

“… quietly wrenching … To say that this book is about grief or coming-of-age doesn’t quite do it justice; nor is it mainly about being Asian American, even though there are glimmers of that too. Hsu captures the past by conveying both its mood and specificity … This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion—all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life … Hsu is a subtle writer, not a showy one; the joy of Stay True sneaks up on you, and the wry jokes are threaded seamlessly throughout.”

–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )

5.  Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Grove)

13 Rave • 4 Positive

“Part coming-of-age story and part how-to manual, the book is, above all, one of the most down-to-earth and least self-aggrandizing works of self-reflection you could hope to read. Evaristo’s guilelessness is refreshing, even unsettling … With ribald humour and admirable candour, Evaristo takes us on a tour of her sexual history … Characterized by the resilience of its author, it is replete with stories about the communities and connections Evaristo has cultivated over forty years … Invigoratingly disruptive as an artist, Evaristo is a bridge-builder as a human being.”

–Emily Bernard ( The Times Literary Supplement )

1. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

14 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Rundell is right that Donne…must never be forgotten, and she is the ideal person to evangelise him for our age. She shares his linguistic dexterity, his pleasure in what TS Eliot called ‘felt thought’, his ability to bestow physicality on the abstract … It’s a biography filled with gaps and Rundell brings a zest for imaginative speculation to these. We know so little about Donne’s wife, but Rundell brings her alive as never before … Rundell confronts the difficult issue of Donne’s misogyny head-on … This is a determinedly deft book, and I would have liked it to billow a little more, making room for more extensive readings of the poems and larger arguments about the Renaissance. But if there is an overarching argument, then it’s about Donne as an ‘infinity merchant’ … To read Donne is to grapple with a vision of the eternal that is startlingly reinvented in the here and now, and Rundell captures this vision alive in all its power, eloquence and strangeness”

–Laura Feigel ( The Guardian )

2. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland (Harper)

12 Rave • 3 Positive

“Compelling … We know about Auschwitz. We know what happened there. But Freedland, with his strong, clear prose and vivid details, makes us feel it, and the first half of this book is not an easy read. The chillingly efficient mass murder of thousands of people is harrowing enough, but Freedland tells us stories of individual evils as well that are almost harder to take … His matter-of-fact tone makes it bearable for us to continue to read … The Escape Artist is riveting history, eloquently written and scrupulously researched. Rosenberg’s brilliance, courage and fortitude are nothing short of amazing.”

–Laurie Hertzel ( The Star Tribune )

3. I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys by Miranda Seymour (W. W. Norton & Company)

11 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Pan

“…illuminating and meticulously researched … paints a deft portrait of a flawed, complex, yet endlessly fascinating woman who, though repeatedly bowed, refused to be broken … Following dismal reviews of her fourth novel, Rhys drifted into obscurity. Ms. Seymour’s book could have lost momentum here. Instead, it compellingly charts turbulent, drink-fueled years of wild moods and reckless acts before building to a cathartic climax with Rhys’s rescue, renewed lease on life and late-career triumph … is at its most powerful when Ms. Seymour, clear-eyed but also with empathy, elaborates on Rhys’s woes …

Ms. Seymour is less convincing with her bold claim that Rhys was ‘perhaps the finest English woman novelist of the twentieth century.’ However, she does expertly demonstrate that Rhys led a challenging yet remarkable life and that her slim but substantial novels about beleaguered women were ahead of their time … This insightful biography brilliantly shows how her many battles were lost and won.”

–Malcolm Forbes ( The Wall Street Journal )

4. The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

9 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Grisly yet inspiring … Fitzharris depicts her hero as irrepressibly dedicated and unfailingly likable. The suspense of her narrative comes not from any interpersonal drama but from the formidable challenges posed by the physical world … The Facemaker is mostly a story of medical progress and extraordinary achievement, but as Gillies himself well knew—grappling daily with the unbearable suffering that people willingly inflicted on one another—failure was never far behind.”

5. Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life by James Curtis (Knopf)

8 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Keaton fans have often complained that nearly all biographies of him suffer from a questionable slant or a cursory treatment of key events. With Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life —at more than 800 pages dense with research and facts—Mr. Curtis rectifies that situation, and how. He digs deep into Keaton’s process and shows how something like the brilliant two-reeler Cops went from a storyline conceived from necessity—construction on the movie lot encouraged shooting outdoors—to a masterpiece … This will doubtless be the primary reference on Keaton’s life for a long time to come … the worse Keaton’s life gets, the more engrossing Mr. Curtis’s book becomes.”

–Farran Smith Nehme ( The Wall Street Journal )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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Best Biographies Of All Time: 8 Essential Reads

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Anthony Bourdain (file Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP)

I recently listed some of my favorite history books of all-time and because people are the most interesting aspects of history, I included a few great biographies of significant historical figures like Malcolm X, Winston Churchill, Julius Caesar, and others.

But there are so many others Here are some of the best biographies of all time, many of which are written to inspire you to take risks in business—and in life.

The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy by Charles R. Morris 

The Tycoons by Charles R. Morris

What powered American industry, from the devastating aftermath of its civil war, to become the catalyst behind the world largest economy within decades? The answer has much to do with four men: Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould and Morgan. These industrialists, financiers, railroaders and oil tycoons became as big and wealthy as America itself, and along the way paved the road for what is today the laws, regulations and infrastructure of our modern markets. I enjoyed this book as not just a biography of these four men, but as an economic history of the United States during one of its most tumultuous eras.

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War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey by Nigel Hamilton

War and Peace by Nigel Hamilton

Nigel Hamilton's acclaimed trilogy (which is available as a three-part boxed set ) ends with this volume that happened coincide with the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. This book makes me think of perhaps my favorite presidential biography of all time:  Truman   by David McCullough. While many under-appreciated Truman during his term in office, today's readers of McCullough's 1992 biography will truly understand how he capably overcame the enormity of the challenges he faced and the impact his leadership has on our society today. But as Hamilton's FDR trilogy makes clear, many of Truman's successes (and failures) or due to what he inherited from Roosevelt.

Mozart: A Life by Peter Gay

Mozart by Peter Gay

Is it possible to summarize the life of the world's arguably greatest composer in just 160 pages? Peter Gay, a historian and previous National Book Award winner, pulls it off expertly, with a quick, engaging and informative narrative that not only digs into the nature and personality of the musical genius but also gives a great background of the economic and political times that influenced his life and his work. Gay 1999 biography takes pains to debunk some of the myths surrounding Mozart's life (no, he wasn't poisoned by a rival composer and, no, he wasn't buried in a pauper's grave).  This book isn't a deep dive or an expanded narrative. But for me, it provided all the information I wanted to learn about a musician whose works have helped me navigate my way through the mundane work—I am an accountant, after all—of my professional life.

Anthony Bourdain Remembered  by CNN

Anthony Bourdain Remembered

I've been interested in Anthony Bourdain—who tragically took his own life in 2018—long before he became a nationally known TV star of the hit CNN series "Parts Unknown." I didn't love reading   Kitchen Confidential — his first and most famous book—simply because of all the crazy stories of drug use and partying that went on behind the scenes at the restaurants where he worked. I enjoyed it because I like to go to restaurants and I'm curious—from a business and creative standpoint—about how they work. But it's Bourdain's legacy that's considered in   Anthony Bourdain Remembered , a bestseller released just last month compiling memories and anecdotes from his fans, friends, and colleagues at CNN.

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore 

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Montefiore's 2003 biography of Stalin is about a man who lived with death every single day of his life to become the leader of millions and an infamous reminder of what can happen when the wrong leaders rise to power. But as the book explains—in great and sometimes gory detail—he achieved that power through many murderous and violent ways. More interestingly, Montefiore provides countless examples of how Stalin befriended his fellow politicians, party members and others only to abandon (and oftentimes eliminate them) in pursuit of his goals. Can a ruthless monster rise to the top and stay there his entire life? This book shows how it's possible.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow 

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

With all due respect to the hit musical—which is fantastic—the book it's based on is better.  That's because Ron Chernow's 2004 biography more deeply describes Hamilton's days as a soldier under Washington's command and the complexities involved in financing a young nation's growth and creating a central bank amidst the monumental political and financial challenges of the day. Hamilton—the nation’s most famous immigrant to some—never held elected office. But his influence on our lives today is still very much apparent.

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro 

The Passage of Power by Robert Caro

Robert Caro's latest entry in his series of LBJ biographies (there were three previous volumes) covers from approximately 1958 to 1964 and explains in great detail how Johnson—the powerful leader of the Senate who so aspired to the presidency —rose out of the political wilderness of the vice-presidency to use the skills he learned in over 30 years of government service to rescue the country from a devastating presidential assassination and guide it back to stability.

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson 

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson—the former editor of Time , best known for his other great biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs—not only illuminates some of da Vinci's greatest artistic works, but also reveals the genius behind this self-taught, self-confident entrepreneur. Leonardo was constantly promoting his artistic abilities to wealthy benefactors and had the creativity to come up with flying machines and giant crossbows while studying anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. Few geniuses like this have ever walked the earth.

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Home / Book Writing / The Best Biography Books of All Time: My 10 Personal Favorites

The Best Biography Books of All Time: My 10 Personal Favorites

I love great biography books. Whether it's about a hero, celebrity, business mogul, or dastardly villain, biographies give an amazing insight into the mindset of success and hard work.

And while biographies aren't necessarily white-knuckle page-turners or complex Lit-RPG , they're sure to provide an interesting read.

In this article, you will learn:

• The importance of a biography – both as a writer and a reader
• Our top picks for the best biographies of all time

Table of contents

• Our Best Biography Books
• Biographies for Readers
• Biographies for Writers
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
• Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
• The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
• Bohemian Rhapsody: The Definitive Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones
• The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee Jr
• The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller
• Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• The Stan Lee Story by Roy Thomas
• What Do You Think Of Our Best Biography Books List?

Mind you, this is a highly subjective article. If you don't see your favorite biography on this list, let us know in the comments below what you believe deserves to be on this list and why. And with that, let's jump right into some good lessons and even better titles.

• Titan: The Life of John D Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
• Bohemian Rhapsody: The Definitive Biography of Freddie Mercury by Leslie-Ann Jones
• The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee Jr.

Why Are Biographies Important?

Often glossed over, a biography holds much more than just the story of someone's life. While the stories can be entertaining, there is another value to reading and writing biography books.

When looking at what can be gained by readers through biographies, three main points come to mind.

• Biographies provide real-life lessons.

There's an old piece of advice that I'm sure everybody has heard before, “Learn from others' mistakes.” And while we might not necessarily follow that as we should, it's sound advice. By reading biographies, you can see where other people made their mistakes and learn from them in the process. Biography subjects can be mentors if you'll let them.

• Biographies are inspiring.

Most of the time, biographies focus on great people accomplishing great deeds. Reading about them will surely light a fire underneath you and provide the inspiration you need to conquer whatever obstacles stand in your way.

• Biographies allow you to walk a mile in someone else's shoes.

Sometimes it's necessary to see things from a different perspective. Doing so can be truly enlightening. Biographies shine a light into why someone acted the way they did, giving you fresh insight.

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Readers of biographies aren't the only people to benefit from them. Those who write biographies go through the learning process themselves. Here are a few benefits authors of biographies might glean.

• They come with their own subject matter.

While careful research must be done to write a good biography, it can be helpful to have a life's worth of adventures to work with. If you're struggling to come up with a new story for a book, consider telling someone else's story.

• They will humble and humanize you.

A biography humbles its author. You may be one of the most successful writers ever; but when writing a biography, you're writing about somebody else's success and their life. It kind of puts things into perspective. You get an outside look at how life operates and how people react to ups and downs. You'll see that you're a part of something much bigger than yourself. This will allow you to learn from your subject's trials and tribulations.

I recommend sharing what you personally learned from your research in the preface part of your book. Let readers know how writing the biography has made you a better person and more aware. That will make readers excited to potentially experience a similar transformation.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Looking for the Best Biography Books of All Time? Check out our list here on Kindlepreneur! #amwriting #reading #biographies” quote=”Looking for the Best Biography Books of All Time? Check out our list here on Kindlepreneur!”]

Our Top Picks for the Best Biography Books of All Time

Here are our picks for the best biographies of all time. These are listed in no particular order, as it was already hard enough to narrow them down this much.

About the Biography:  This biography focuses on the life of Henrietta Lacks. A simple tobacco farmer, Henrietta unwittingly became one of the largest contributors to modern medical science. Back in 1951, Henrietta visited The Johns Hopkins Hospital where a large cancerous tumor was found on her cervix. Samples of these cancer cells ended up being collected and, unbeknownst to her, sent to a nearby tissue lab for experimentation. Her cells (now called HeLa cells) were very special compared to everyone else's. Instead of dying under stressful conditions, hers would double in number! Further experimentation led to many scientific breakthroughs, including the polio vaccine. It was only 20 years later–and after Henrietta's passing–that her family actually found out what happened.

About the Author: Rebecca Skloot has a very interesting writing background. She's been a professor for both creative writing and science journalism at the University of Pittsburgh, University of Memphis, and New York University. And she's got a rather prolific writing portfolio. She's published over 200 short stories and essays, but nothing quite took off like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Why We Chose This Biography: When this book came out in 2010, it was one for the record books. It was not only selected as a notable book by the New York Times — 60 different major publications named it as the best book of the year! This biography has garnered so much attention over the past decade, with Oprah Winfrey even producing an HBO film on it.

About the Biography: When Lincoln won the presidency, his rivals were shocked and dismayed. Lincoln became the victor due to his high capacity to relate to the common folk and his overwhelming sense of poise and decency. That ability allowed him to develop one of the most unusual presidential cabinets in history. One made up of his politically experienced and headstrong rivals.

About the Author:  Doris Kearns Goodwin is an American political biographer. She has written biographies for several other American presidents including Lyndon B Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft. In 2005, she won the Lincoln Award (Best Book about The Civil War) for Team of Rivals  and parts of it were used for the basis of the 2012 Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln .

Why We Chose This Biography:  Many people would say that Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest United States Presidents to hold the office. Though his life was shortened by assassination, he made a huge impact on the American Union and history itself. One of the ways he was able to do so was by bringing the people together–friends and enemies alike. And the masterful writing from Goodwin only accentuates how much impact Lincoln actually had.

About the Biography:  Titan explores the life of the world's first billionaire — oil magnate, John D. Rockefeller, Sr. This biography talks about Rockefeller's humble beginnings and how he rose through the corporate ladder to become one of the most powerful men in history. The biography has cameos from major players such as Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and many more. This has been touted as one of America's great biographies by Time Magazine .

About the Author: Beginning his career in freelance journalism, Ron Chernow quickly evolved into one of the foremost biographical writers in the United States. Although he pursues writing full time now, he still contributes articles to publications such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal .

Why We Chose This Biography:  Even long after his death, Rockefeller is one of the greatest business inspirations for any budding entrepreneur. He truly defined and set the term “industry titan,” and there's still so much that we can learn from his practices.

About the Biography:  This 2008 Audie Award winner tells the story of how an awkward, impatient patent clerk became one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. The book covers the entirety of Einstein's life, from the common misconception that he wasn't good at math to his involvement in World War I and II. Isaacson also covers Einstein's Physics achievements and his formulation of the General Theory of Relativity. This is one of the best biography books for anyone interested in politics, physics, or personal achievement.

About the Author:  Walter Isaacson has quite the resume. He's been the managing editor at Time , CEO of CNN, and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He's made a household name for himself through his biographies of Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Ben Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and Henry Kissinger.

Why We Chose This Biography:  Albert Einstein has become synonymous with the word ‘genius.' If you were to create a top 10 list of the most influential minds in history, there's a good chance he'd be on it. And when you have his life presented to you by the legendary biographical author Walter Isaacson…You're in for one heck of a read.

About the Biography:  Warren Buffett is one of the richest men in America and one of the most respected. Known for showing great humility, he has been shrouded in enigma as he lives a very private life (until this biography anyway). Entrusting his life story to Alice Schroeder, Alice writes the book that Buffett claims he never could.

About the Author:  Alice is an American former insurance analyst and writer. She caught the attention of Warren Buffett through her writing skills and was entrusted to tell his story. After her success with The Snowball , you'll catch more of her writing in columns for T he Bloomberg News .

Why We Chose This Biography:  Warren Buffett is a wildly successful businessman who's made some of the best decisions when it comes to investing in the stock market. And at the same time, he does it with the utmost degree of modesty. He's a huge role model for just about anybody trying to make it in life. So when he finally decided to sit down with someone to tell his story…I'm gonna listen. Or read it.

About the Biography:  Bohemian Rhapsody is the Freddie Mercury biography that you never knew you needed. This book primarily focuses on the period in the 1980s where Queen began to fragment–namely before Live Aid. It's been described as an emotional roller coaster, taking the reader through Freddie's childhood in India and Zanzibar to his wilder years in the '70s and '80s.

About the Author:  Lesley-Ann Jones is an English author and journalist. Most of her works revolve around rock and roll and pop superstars. She's a top-notch writer and captured Freddie at his most real in this biography.

Why We Chose This Biography: Many would agree that Freddie Mercury had one of the most electrifying voices in the history of rock and roll. However, it wasn't just Freddie's four-plus octave range that made him so controversial. His battles with societal norms, his sexuality, and AIDS keep him in the public light to this day. If you're a fan of Queen or of music in general, this is an amazing look into the life of an even more amazing artist (and one of the best biography books).

About the Biography:  Ted Williams is a Boston Red Sox legend. And one of the greatest (if not the GOAT) hitters to ever play the game. He put up numbers so awe-inspiring that players today are still struggling to reach them. Not only that, he served as a US Marine pilot in the Korean War for five years. Ted had a rather volatile domestic life. This biography explores the peaks and valleys of this baseball legend both on and off the field.

About the Author:  As the son of the famous Watergate reporter, Ben Bradlee Sr., Bradlee Jr. has made an enormous name for himself through his own writing. Spending most of his career as an editor at The Boston Globe , Bradlee helped see the paper to a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. His biography on Ted Williams became a New York Times Bestseller. Slated to become a TV miniseries, this is a story you'll definitely want to read.

Why We Chose This Biography:  For those of you who don't know, I'm an avid Red Sox fan. Seriously, there's nothing like being at Fenway staring down the Green Monster. I chose this biography because you get to see this idolized baseball legend for everything he was. Most people never think about what their sports heroes are like off the field. This one had me reading late into the night as I couldn't put it down.

My Ted Williams signed baseball. You can see it on the white shelves behind me in my videos.

I respect a lot of things about Ted Williams. He was a jet pilot in WWII and Korea. Even when he was at his prime, he still willingly went to war. And really fought…not just signed autographs and paraded around for War Bonds. Even when shot down behind enemy lines in Korea, Ted Williams made his way back to safety and ultimately back to baseball.

This book humanizes Ted and shows every facet of his life–the rough and the polished.

About the Biography:  This biography tells the story of prolific Sci-Fi writer Ray Bradbury, from his beginnings in a small town in Illinois to his feuds on the silver screen with various film and television personalities. After hundreds of hours spent with Ray, the author and he became close friends. This adulation can be detected throughout the book in Weller's writing style.

About the Author:  Sam Weller has made his career as an accomplished journalist through reporting on the life of Ray Bradbury. He is an LA Times Bestseller and is the recipient of the 2005 Society of Midland Authors Award for Best Biography for The Bradbury Chronicles .

Why We Chose This Biography:  As a Sci-Fi enthusiast, I understand the impact that Ray Bradbury made on the genre–even on short stories in general. Influenced by his environment, this biography provides a unique angle into Bradbury's work.

About the Biography: The best Biography books aren't always about the heroes in life. This biography is about one of the most fierce villains of all time: Joseph Stalin. This book primarily focuses on after his rise to absolute power. It goes into excruciating detail about the actions of the madman and his court. Due to the emotionally disturbing scenes littered throughout this book, I recommend this for mature readers only.

About the Author:  Simon Sebag Montefiore has a very accomplished and varied resume. Writing fiction and non-fiction books for both children and adults, his career as a British historian spreads across a vast audience. His biography on Stalin, though, received the Best History Book of the Year at the 2004 British Book Awards.

Why We Chose This Biography: There's an old adage that says, “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. ” And while this does sound very cliché… clichés exist for a reason. This book is a tough read — not necessarily because of the language, but because of the subject matter. It's somewhat difficult to imagine one man was capable of so many monstrosities. It's important to understand so we as a society can stop similar events from happening again.

About the Biography:  The story of Stanley Leiber–or Stan Lee–is a must-read for every comic lover. This full-feature biography goes through the steps of how Stan Lee and Jack Kirby became the Kings of Comics and beloved worldwide. Co-creator of some of Marvel's (and Earth's) mightiest heroes, Stan Lee helped build the legends of Wolverine, Ultron, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Carol Danvers–aka Captain Marvel–and so many more! This physically over-sized book portrays just how gigantic Lee was. It comes complete with full-sized illustrations and even a note from Stan the Man himself. Excelsior!

About the Author: Roy Thomas is a comic book writer and editor. Among his other achievements, he is also the first successor to Marvel Comics after Stan Lee himself. He is one of the writers responsible for ushering in the Golden Age of Comics.

Why We Chose This Biography:  If you're a comic book nut like me, this has got to be on your reading bucket list. Without a doubt, Lee sculpted the modern comic book industry. From blockbuster movies, games, and new weekly comic issues, fans feel Stan Lee's influence in each universe–Marvel, DC, or independent.

Out of all the available stories out there, these are the top ten best biography books I've chosen. However, this list is completely subjective. And I'd love to hear from you. What are your favorites?

Let me know which ones I've missed on social media. I'm always looking for new books to add to my reading list!

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

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76 thoughts on “ The Best Biography Books of All Time: My 10 Personal Favorites ”

Great idea and great list Dave. I LOVE biographies, they are a wonderful and personal access to history through the life of a leader.My shortlist:1. William Manchester, “The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill,” in 3 volumes, so that counts as 3 ;-)4. Michael Lewis, “The Undoing Project,” about the partnership between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky who single-handedly disrupted economic wisdom and invented the field of behavioral economics.5. Barbara Tuchman, “Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945,” about General Stillwell who was at least as brilliant as Patton or Marshall.6. Blanche Wiesen Cook, “Eleanor Roosevelt”, a 2-volume series about FDR`s first lady who created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That again counts for 2 books ;-)8. Shlomo Avneri, “Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State,” about the visionary who dreamed up and laid the foundation for modern Israel.9. Taylor Branch, “Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63,” a compelling biography of the civil rights leader.10. Walter Isaacson, “Steve Jobs” (I also loved Isaacson`s Einstein: His Life and Universe, but since you list that already, I recommend his Jobs biography, which shows the path-breaking entrepreneur, warts ‘n’ all).Enjoy.Thomas D. Zweifel Author of 8 books, including the award-winning “Strategy-In-Action” and “The Rabbi and the CEO”that became bestsellers thanks to Dave Chesson`s insight

Hi Dave,Great list of biographies and good insights into the value of reading bios.May I suggest a biography in the occult genre, Brother XII: The Strange Odyssey of a 20th-century Prophet, the story of Edward Arthur Wilson, mystic, visionary, prophet and prototypical cult leader.The details of this fascinating story are at my website brotherxii.com , which you might like to check out, as it gives a good illustrated synopsis of this strange saga.Josh Gates did an episode on Brother XII recently, œSecrets of Brother XII,  though the book itself has far more detail, and is based on interviews with former disciples and Brother XII ‘s private papers.Thanks for all the great work you do for authors.

Thanks and looks great!

Dave… Great list of Biographies! When you said, “Those who write biographies go through the learning process themselves” you were right on. However, there is a special learning process that authors who write their own autobiographies go through. The power of the story depends a lot on if you are writing about happy memories or ones permeated in pain, suffering and abuse. Five years ago as an unknown, first-time, self-published author, I decided to write my true-life story. As you start writing, you remember (and relive) what really happened and not the way you would have liked things to happen. One is factual and the other enters the realm of fiction.If your story is harrowing, as mine is, it is not only difficult to write, edit, and rewrite, but narrating your own audiobook can be an unimaginably disturbing experience. There were many times I broke down and could not continue for days just having to relive what I was subjected to for the first 16 years of my life.However, writing your autobiography is a tremendously healing process and allows you to see that what happened did not happen “to you” but happened “for you” in the end. Insight into Life is the reward for any author who is bold enough to write their pain and for any reader who is brave enough to experience it with them. – Linda Deir, author of “GUIDED” – Winner of the Int’l Body-Mind-Spirit Book Award.

Oh, That is some really good points. have not written an autobiography…not quite there yet but I’ll keep this in mind!

Hi Dave, thank you for an excellent idea, and some Interesting titles. I actually have four in my Audible library or wish list. And I will be keen to get the Ray Bradbury one. My list of 10 are below. Clearly subjective, but by its very nature that is always the case. ERIC`s 10 FAVOURITE BIOGRAPHIES / AUTOBIOGRAPHIESSurname / First Name / Title / Subject Albom Mitch TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE Morrie Schwartz Esterhaus Joe HOLLYWOOD ANIMAL Joe Esterhaus Eyman Scott JOHN WAYNE, The Life and Legend John Wayne Granger Stewart SPARKS FLY UPWARDS Stewart Granger Hotchner A E PAPPA HEMINGWAY Ernest Hemingway Jenkins Roy WINSTON CHURCHILL Winston Churchill McCourt Frank ANGELA`s ASHES Frank Mc Court McCullough Colleen RODEN CUTLER, VC Roden Cutler Parini Jay JOHN STEINBECK, A Biography John Steinbeck Sandburg Carl LINCOLN Abraham Lincoln 6 Volumes Footnotes: Pulitzer Prize for ANGELA`s ASHES and LINCOLN. Roy Jenkins CHURCHILL is arguably the best single volume bio of WSC Great title by Stewart Granger, taken from Job – 5:7 “Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards.”

Nice – yeah the Churchill one is on my list right now!

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The New York Times

Books | the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years, the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES JUNE 26, 2019

The New York Times’s book critics select the most outstanding memoirs published since 1969.

Click the star icon to create and share your own list of favorites or books to read.

Fierce Attachments

Vivian gornick, farrar, straus & giroux, 1987.

“I remember only the women,” Vivian Gornick writes near the start of her memoir of growing up in the Bronx tenements in the 1940s, surrounded by the blunt, brawling, yearning women of the neighborhood, chief among them her indomitable mother. “I absorbed them as I would chloroform on a cloth laid against my face. It has taken me 30 years to understand how much of them I understood.”

When Gornick’s father died suddenly, she looked in the coffin for so long that she had to be pulled away. That fearlessness suffuses this book; she stares unflinchingly at all that is hidden, difficult, strange, unresolvable in herself and others — at loneliness, sexual malice and the devouring, claustral closeness of mothers and daughters. The book is propelled by Gornick’s attempts to extricate herself from the stifling sorrow of her home — first through sex and marriage, but later, and more reliably, through the life of the mind, the “glamorous company” of ideas. It’s a portrait of the artist as she finds a language — original, allergic to euphemism and therapeutic banalities — worthy of the women that raised her. — Parul Sehgal

I love this book — even during those moments when I want to scream at Gornick, which are the times when she becomes the hypercritical, constantly disappointed woman that her mother, through her words and example, taught the author to be. There’s a clarity to this memoir that’s so brilliant it's unsettling; Gornick finds a measure of freedom in her writing and her feminist activism, but even then, she and her mother can never let each other go. —  Jennifer Szalai

Gornick’s language is so fresh and so blunt; it’s a quintessentially American voice, and a beautiful one. The confidence of her tone in “Fierce Attachments” reminds me of the Saul Bellow who wrote, in the opening lines of “The Adventures of Augie March,” “I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way.” — Dwight Garner

Buy this book

The Woman Warrior

Maxine hong kingston, alfred a. knopf, 1976.

This book is more than four decades old, but I can’t think of another memoir quite like it that has been published since. True stories, ghost stories, “talk stories” — Maxine Hong Kingston whirs them all together to produce something wild and astonishing that still asserts itself with a ruthless precision.

The American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants, Kingston navigates a bewildering journey between worlds, each one stifling yet perforated by inconsistencies. There’s the Chinese village of Kingston’s ancestors, where girls learn the song of the warrior woman while being told they are destined to become a wife and a slave. There’s the postwar California of her childhood, where she has to unlearn the “strong and bossy” voices of the Chinese women in her family in favor of an “American-feminine” whisper. There’s Mao’s revolution, which is supposed to upend the old feudal system that kept her female ancestors trapped in servitude (if they weren’t victims of infanticides as unwanted baby girls) but also imposes its own deadly cruelty, preventing her parents from returning home.

The narrative undulates, shifting between ghost world, real world and family lore. It can be deadpan and funny, too. The young Kingston resolves to become a lumberjack and a newspaper reporter. Both worthy ambitions, but I’m thankful she wrote this indelible memoir instead. — Jennifer Szalai

Alison Bechdel

Houghton mifflin harcourt, 2006.

Alison Bechdel’s beloved graphic novel is an elaborately layered account of life and artifice, family silence and revelation, springing from her father’s suicide. He was a distant man who devoted himself to the refurbishment of his sprawling Victorian home — and to a hidden erotic life involving young men. The title comes from the abbreviation of the family business — a funeral home — but it also refers to the dual funhouse portrait of father and daughter, of the author’s own queerness.

It’s a sexual and intellectual coming-of-age story that swims along literary lines, honoring the books that nourished Bechdel and her parents and seemed to speak for them: Kate Millet, Proust, Oscar Wilde, theory, poetry and literature. “Fun Home” joins that lineage, an original, mournful, intricate work of art. — Parul Sehgal

The Liars’ Club

Viking, 1995.

This incendiary memoir, about the author’s childhood in the 1960s in a small industrial town in Southeast Texas, was published in 1995 and helped start the modern memoir boom. The book deserves its reputation. You can almost say about Mary Karr’s agile prose what she says about herself at the age of 7: “I was small-boned and skinny, but more than able to make up for that with sheer meanness.”

As a girl, Karr was a serious settler of scores, willing to bite anyone who had wronged her or to climb a tree with a BB gun to take aim at an entire family. Her mother, who “fancied herself a kind of bohemian Scarlett O’Hara,” had a wild streak. She was married seven times, and was subject to psychotic episodes. Her father was an oil refinery worker, a brawling yet taciturn man who came most fully alive when telling tall stories, often in the back room of a bait shop, with a group of men called “The Liars’ Club.”

This is one of the best books ever written about growing up in America. Karr evokes the contours of her preadolescent mind — the fears, fights and petty jealousies — with extraordinary and often comic vividness. This memoir, packed with eccentrics, is beautifully eccentric in its own right. — Dwight Garner

For generations my ancestors had been strapping skillets onto their oxen and walking west. It turned out to be impossible for me to “run away” in the sense other American teenagers did. Any movement at all was taken for progress in my family.

—Mary Karr, “The Liar’s Club”

Christopher Hitchens

Twelve, 2010.

This high-spirited memoir traces the life and times of this inimitable public intellectual, who is much missed, from his childhood in Portsmouth, England, where his father was a navy man, through boarding school, his studies at Oxford and his subsequent career as a writer both in England and the United States.

Christopher Hitchens was a man of the left but unpredictable (and sometimes inscrutable) politically. “Hitch-22” demonstrates how seriously he took the things that really matter: social justice, learning, direct language, the free play of the mind, loyalty and holding public figures to high standards.

This is a vibrant book about friendships, and it will make you want to take your own more seriously. Hitchens recounts moments with friends that include Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and the poet James Fenton. There is a lot of wit here, and bawdy wordplay, and accounts of long nights spent drinking and smoking. Hitchens decided to become a student of history and politics, he writes, after the Cuban missile crisis. “If politics could force its way into my life in such a vicious and chilling manner, I felt, then I had better find out a bit more about it.” He was a force to contend with from the time he was in short pants. “I was probably insufferable,” he concedes. — Dwight Garner

Read the critics discuss the process of putting together the list.

Men We Reaped

Jesmyn ward, bloomsbury, 2013.

“Men’s bodies litter my family history,” the novelist Jesmyn Ward writes in this torrential, sorrowing tribute to five young black men she knew, including her brother, who died in the span of four years, lost to suicide, drugs or accidents. These men were devoured by her hometown, DeLisle, Miss. — called Wolf Town by its first settlers — “pinioned beneath poverty and history and racism.”

Ward tells their stories with tenderness and reverence; they live again in these pages. Their fates twine with her own — her dislocation and anguish, and later, the complicated story of her own survival, and isolation, as she is recruited to elite all-white schools. She is a writer who has metabolized the Greeks and Faulkner — their themes course through her work — and the stories of the deaths of these men join larger national narratives about rural poverty and racism. But Ward never allows her subjects to become symbolic. This work of great grief and beauty renders them individual and irreplaceable. — Parul Sehgal

Random House, 1995

It’s Vidal, so you know the gossip will be abundant, and top shelf. Scores will be settled (with Anaïs Nin, Charlton Heston, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, his mother), conquests enumerated (Jack Kerouac), choice quips dispensed. “At least I have a style,” Truman Capote once sniped at him. “Of course you do,” Vidal responded soothingly. “You stole it from Carson McCullers.”

It was a rangy life — one that took him into the military, politics, Hollywood, Broadway — and he depicts it with the silky urbanity you expect. What comes as a shock is the book’s directness and deep feeling — its innocence.

It’s a love story, at the end of the day. Vidal had a lifelong companion but remained passionately compelled by a beautiful classmate, his first paramour, Jimmie, who died at 19, shot and bayoneted while sleeping in a foxhole on Iwo Jima. He is the phantom that has haunted Vidal’s long, eventful life. “Palimpsest” is a book full of revelations.

“By choice and luck, my life has been spent reading other people’s books and making sentences for my own,” Vidal writes. Our great luck, too. — Parul Sehgal

Giving Up the Ghost

Hilary mantel, a john macrae book/henry holt & company, 2003.

As a poor Catholic girl growing up in the north of England, Hilary Mantel was an exuberant child of improbable ambition, deciding early on that she was destined to become a knight errant and would change into a boy when she turned 4.

Her mesmerizing memoir reads like an attempt to recover the girl she once was, before others began to dictate her story for her. At the age of 7, looking about the garden, she saw an apparition, perhaps the Devil. She thought it was her fault, for allowing her greedy gaze to wander. Her stepfather was bullying, judgmental, condescending; anything Mantel did seemed to anger him. As a young woman, she started to get headaches, vision problems, pains that coursed through her body, bleeding that no longer confined itself to that time of the month. The doctors told her she was insane.

The ghost she is giving up in the title isn’t her life but that of the child she might have had but never will. Years of misdiagnoses culminated in the removal of her reproductive organs, barnacled by scar tissue caused by endometriosis. Her body changed from very thin to very fat. Mantel, perhaps best known for her novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies,” writes about all of this with a fine ear and a furious intelligence, as she resurrects phantoms who “shiver between the lines.” — Jennifer Szalai

I used to think that autobiography was a form of weakness, and perhaps I still do. But I also think that, if you’re weak, it’s childish to pretend to be strong.

—Hilary Mantel, “Giving Up the Ghost”

A Childhood

Harry crews, harper & row, 1978.

This taut, powerful and deeply original memoir covers just the first six years of this gifted novelist’s life, but it is a nearly Dickensian anthology of physical and mental intensities.

Harry Crews grew up in southern Georgia, not far from the Okefenokee Swamp. His father, a tenant farmer, died of a heart attack before Crews was 2. His stepfather was a violent drunk. When Crews was 5, he fell into a boiler of water that was being used to scald pigs. His own skin came off, he writes, “like a wet glove.” When he recovered from this long and painful ordeal, he contracted polio so severely that his heels drew back tightly until they touched the backs of his thighs. He was told, incorrectly, that he would never walk again. “The world that circumscribed the people I come from,” he writes, “had so little margin for error, for bad luck, that when something went wrong, it almost always brought something else down with it.”

Crews sought solace in the Sears, Roebuck catalog, the only book in his house besides the Bible. He began his career as a writer by making up stories about the people he saw there. These humans didn’t have scars and blemishes like everyone he knew. “On their faces were looks of happiness, even joy, looks that I never saw much of in the faces of the people around me.” — Dwight Garner

Dreams From My Father

Barack obama, times books/random house, 1995.

Barack Obama’s first book was published a year before he was elected to the Illinois senate and long before his eight years in the White House under the unrelenting gaze of the public eye. “Dreams From My Father” is a moving and frank work of self-excavation — mercifully free of the kind of virtue-signaling and cheerful moralizing that makes so many politicians’ memoirs read like notes to a stump speech.

Obama recounts an upbringing that set him apart, with a tangle of roots that didn’t give him an obvious map to who he was. His father was from Kenya; his mother from Kansas. Obama himself was born in Hawaii, lived in Indonesia for a time, and was largely raised by his mother and maternal grandparents, after his father left for Harvard when Obama was 2.

“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he writes, “understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere.” To see what held his worlds together was also to learn what kept them apart. This is a book about the uses of disenchantment; the revelations are all the more astonishing for being modest and hard-won. — Jennifer Szalai

Philip Roth

Simon & schuster, 1991.

Philip Roth’s book is a Kaddish to his father, Herman Roth, who developed a benign brain tumor at 86. Surgery was not an option, and Herman became immured in his body, which “had become a terrifying escape-proof enclosure, the holding pen in a slaughterhouse.”

“Patrimony,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, is written plainly, without any flourishes — just the unbearable facts of a father’s decline, the body weakening, the vigorous mind dimming. It’s the rough stuff of devotion. Roth adopts care of his increasingly difficult father and witnesses his rapid decline, admonishing himself: “You must not forget anything.”

“He was always teaching me something,” Roth recalls of his father. He never stopped. In this book, Roth offers a moving tribute to the man but also a portrait almost breathtaking in its honesty and lack of sentimentalism, so truthful and exact that it is as much a portrait of living as dying, son as father. “He could be a pitiless realist,” Roth writes of Herman, proudly. “But I wasn’t his offspring for nothing.” — Parul Sehgal

I had seen my father’s brain, and everything and nothing was revealed. A mystery scarcely short of divine, the brain, even in the case of a retired insurance man with an eighth-grade education from Newark’s Thirteenth Avenue School.

—Philip Roth, “Patrimony”

All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw

Theodore rosengarten, alfred a. knopf, 1974.

This indelible book, an oral history from an illiterate black Alabama sharecropper, won the National Book Award in 1975, beating a lineup of instant classics that included “The Power Broker,” Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses; Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s “All the President’s Men”; Studs Terkel’s “Working”; and Robert M. Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Unlike these other books, “All God’s Dangers” has largely been forgotten. It’s time for that to change.

This book’s author, Theodore Rosengarten, was a Harvard graduate student who went to Alabama in 1968 while researching a defunct labor organization. Someone suggested he speak with Shaw, whose real name was Ned Cobb. What emerged from Cobb’s mouth was dense and tangled social history, a narrative that essentially takes us from slavery to Selma from the point of view of an unprosperous but eloquent and unbroken black man.

Reading it, you will learn more about wheat, guano, farm implements, bugs, cattle killing and mule handling than you would think possible. This is also a dense catalog of the ways that whites tricked and mistreated blacks in the first half of the 20th century. “Years ago I heard that Abraham Lincoln freed the colored people,” Cobb says, “but it didn’t amount to a hill of beans.” About his white neighbors, he declares, “Any way they could deprive a Negro was a celebration to ’em.” This book is not always easy reading, but it is the real deal, an essential American document. — Dwight Garner

Lives Other Than My Own

Emmanuel carrère. translated from the french by linda coverdale., metropolitan books/henry holt & company, 2011.

You begin this memoir thinking it will be about one thing, and it turns into something else altogether — a book at once more ordinary and more extraordinary than any first impressions might allow.

Emmanuel Carrère starts with the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka — he was there, vacationing with his girlfriend. But that’s just the first 50 pages. Then he turns to the story of his girlfriend’s sister, a small-town judge who’s dying of cancer, and her friendship with another judge, who also has cancer. Carrère’s girlfriend chides him for thinking that such unpromising material offers him some sort of golden storytelling opportunity: “They don’t even sleep together — and at the end, she dies,” she says to him. “Have I got that straight? That’s your story?”

She does have it straight, but there’s so much more to it. Carrère weaves in his own experiences, coming up against his own limitations, his own prejudices, his own understanding of what defines a meaningful life. His sentences are clean, never showy; he writes about himself through others in a way that feels both necessarily generous and candidly — which is to say appropriately — narcissistic.

Whenever I try to describe this memoir — and I do that often, since it’s a book I don’t just recommend but implore people to read — I feel like I’m trying to parse a magic trick. — Jennifer Szalai

A Tale of Love and Darkness

Amos oz. translated from the hebrew by nicholas de lange., harcourt, 2004.

This memoir was born from a long silence, written 50 years after Amos Oz’s mother killed herself with sleeping pills, when he was 12, three months before his bar mitzvah. The resulting book is both brutal and generous, filled with meandering reflections on a life’s journey in politics and literature.

The only child of European Jews who settled in the Promised Land, Oz grew up alongside the new state of Israel, initially enamored of a fierce nationalism before becoming furiously (and in one memorable scene, rather hilariously) disillusioned. As a lonely boy, Oz felt unseen by his awkward father and confounded by his brilliant and deeply unhappy mother. She taught him that people were a constant source of betrayal and disappointment. Books, though, would never let him down. Hearing about what happened to those Jews who stayed in Europe, the young Oz wanted to become a book, because no matter how many books were destroyed there was a decent chance that one copy could survive.

Oz says he essentially killed his father by moving to a kibbutz at 15 and changing his name. But his father lives on in this memoir, along with Oz’s mother — not just in his recollections of her, but in the very existence of this book. She was the one who captivated him with stories that “amazed you, sent shivers up your spine, then disappeared back into the darkness before you had time to see what was in front of your eyes.” — Jennifer Szalai

This Boy’s Life

Tobias wolff, the atlantic monthly press, 1989.

“Our car boiled over again just after my mother and I crossed the Continental Divide.” So begins Tobias Wolff’s powerful and impeccably written memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, a classic of the genre that has lost none of its power.

Divorced mother and son had hit the road together, fleeing a bad man, trying to change their luck and maybe get rich as uranium prospectors. The author’s wealthy and estranged father was absent. Soon his mother linked up with a man named Dwight (never trust a man named Dwight) who beat young Wolff, stole his paper route money and forced him to shuck horse chestnuts after school for hours, until his hands were “crazed with cuts and scratches” from their sharply spined husks. Wolff became wild in high school, a delinquent and a petty thief, before escaping to a prep school in Pennsylvania. His prose lights up the experience of growing up in America during this era. He describes going to confession and trying to articulate an individual sin this way: “It was like fishing a swamp, where you feel the tug of something that at first seems promising and then resistant and finally hopeless as you realize that you’ve snagged the bottom, that you have the whole planet on the other end of your line.” — Dwight Garner

A Life’s Work

Rachel cusk, picador, 2002.

Rachel Cusk writes about new motherhood with an honesty and clarity that makes this memoir feel almost illicit. Sleepless nights, yes; colic, yes; but also a raw, frantic love for her firstborn daughter that she depicts and dissects with both rigor and amazement.

As many readers as there are who love “A Life’s Work” as much as I do, I know others who have been put off by its steely register, finding it too denuded, shorn of warmth and giddiness — those very things that help make motherhood such an enormous experience, and not just a grueling one. But whenever I read Cusk’s book, I am irrevocably pulled along in its thrall, constantly startled by her observations — milk running “in untasted rivulets” down her baby’s “affronted cheek”; pregnancy literature that “bristles with threats and the promise of reprisal” — and her willingness to see her experience cold.

Or, at least, to try to, because what becomes clear is that it’s impossible for Cusk to hold on to her old self. The childless writer who could compartmentalize with ease and take boundaries for granted has to learn an entirely new way of being. Embedded in Cusk’s chiseled sentences are her attempts to engage with a roiling vulnerability. None of the chipper, treacly stuff here; motherhood deserves more respect than that. — Jennifer Szalai

J.M. Coetzee

Viking, 1997.

The Nobel Prize-winning J.M. Coetzee is one of those novelists who rarely give interviews, and when he does, he’s like the Robert Mueller of the literary world — reticent, discreet and quietly insistent that his books should speak for themselves.

Coetzee, in other words, is taciturn in the extreme. Yet he has also written three revealing volumes about his life — “Boyhood,” “Youth” and “Summertime.” The first, “Boyhood,” is most explicitly and conventionally a memoir, covering his years growing up in a provincial village outside of Cape Town. The child of Afrikaner parents who had pretensions to English gentility, he was buttoned-up and sensitive, desperate to fit into the “normal” world around him but also confounded and repulsed by it. He noticed how his indolent relatives clung to their privileged position in South Africa’s brutal racial hierarchy through cruelty and a raw assertion of power. Out in the world, he lived in constant fear of violence and humiliation; at home he was cosseted by his mother and presided like a king.

The memoir is told in the third-person present tense, which lends it a peculiar immediacy. Coetzee is free to observe the boy he once was without the interpretive intrusions that come with age; he can remain true to what he felt then, rather than what he knows now. His recollections are stark and painfully intimate: “He feels like a crab pulled out of its shell, pink and wounded and obscene.” — Jennifer Szalai

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974

“The book is already a period piece,” the legendary travel writer Jan Morris opens her memoir. “It was written in the 1970s, and is decidedly of the 1970s.” It might be of its time but it is also ardent, musical, poetic and full of warm humor — a chronicle of ecstasies. Best remembered as one of the first accounts of gender transition, “Conundrum” is a study of home in all its forms — of finding home in one’s body, of Morris’s native Wales, of all the cities she possesses by dint of loving them so fiercely.

We are carried from her childhood, in the lap of a family militantly opposed to conformity, to her long career as a reporter in England and Egypt. She went everywhere, met everyone: Che Guevara (“sharp as a cat in Cuba”), Guy Burgess (“swollen with drink and self-reproach in Moscow”). It’s an enviably full life, with a long marriage, four children and Morris’s determinedly sunny disposition and ability to regard every second of her life, however difficult — especially if difficult — as a species of grand adventure.

She chafes at the notion of “identity” (“a trendy word I have long distrusted, masking as it often does befuddled ideas and lazy thinking”). It is thrilling to watch her arrive at an understanding of a sense of self and language that is her own, bespoke. “To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial,” she writes. “It was a melody that I heard within myself.” — Parul Sehgal

I did not query my condition, or seek reasons for it. I knew very well that it was an irrational conviction — I was in no way psychotic, and perhaps not much more neurotic than most of us; but there it was, I knew it to be true, and if it was impossible then the definition of possibility was inadequate.

—Jan Morris, “Conundrum”

Sonali Deraniyagala

Alfred a. knopf, 2013.

Sonali Deraniyagala was searching the internet for ways to kill herself when one click led to another and she was staring at a news article featuring pictures of her two young sons. The boys had died not long before — victims of the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, which also killed Deraniyagala’s husband and her parents. She herself survived by clinging to a branch.

“Wave” is a meticulous account of derangement — of being so undone by grief that life becomes not just impossible but terrifying. She recalls stabbing herself with a butter knife. She couldn’t look at a flower or a blade of grass without feeling a sickening sense of panic. Reading this book is like staring into the abyss, only instead of staring back it might just swallow you whole.

This, believe it or not, is why you should read it — for Deraniyagala’s unflinching account of the horror that took away her family, and for her willingness to lay bare how it made her not only more vulnerable but also, at times, more cruel. Her return to life was gradual, tentative and difficult; she learned the only way out of her unbearable anguish was to remember what had happened and to keep it close. — Jennifer Szalai

Always Unreliable: Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week Was in June

Clive james, picador, 2004.

The Australian-born critic, poet, memoirist, novelist, travel writer and translator Clive James isn’t as well known in America as he is in England, where he’s lived most of his adult life. Over there, cabdrivers know who James is: the ebullient man who hosted many comic and erudite television programs over the years. We have no one quite like him over here: Think Johnny Carson combined with Edmund Wilson.

James is the author of five memoirs, to which many readers have a cultlike devotion. The first three — “Unreliable Memoirs,” “Falling Towards England” and “May Week Was in June” — have been collected into one volume, “Always Unreliable,” and they are especially incisive and comic. In a preface to the first book, James dealt a truth few memoirists will admit: “Most first novels are disguised autobiographies. This autobiography is a disguised novel.” He’s an admitted exaggerator, but nonetheless he’s led a big life.

He was born in 1939 and grew up with an absent father, a Japanese prisoner of war. Released, his father died in a plane crash on his way home when James was 5. The author fully relives his adolescent agonies (“you can die of envy for cratered faces weeping with yellow pus”) and his rowdy troublemaking years. Later volumes take him to London and then to Cambridge University, where he edits Granta, the literary magazine, dabbles in theater (“It was my first, cruel exposure to the awkward fact that the arts attract the insane”) and gets married. He is never less than good company. — Dwight Garner

Travels With Lizbeth

Lars eighner, st. martin’s press, 1993.

Lars Eighner’s memoir contains the finest first-person writing we have about the experience of being homeless in America. Yet it’s not a dirge or a Bukowski-like scratching of the groin but an offbeat and plaintive hymn to life. It’s the sort of book that releases the emergency brake on your soul. Eighner spent three years on the streets (mostly in Austin, Tex.) and on the road in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after suffering from migraines and losing a series of jobs. The book he wrote is a literate and exceedingly humane document.

On the streets, he clung to a kind of dignity. He refused to beg or steal. He didn’t care for drugs; he barely drank. “Being suddenly intoxicated in a public place in the early afternoon,” he writes, “is not my idea of a good time.” He foraged for books and magazines as much as food, but an especially fine portion of this book is his writing about dumpster-diving. There’s the jarring impression that every grain of rice is a maggot. About botulism, he writes: “Often the first symptom is death.” There is something strangely Emersonian, capable and self-reliant, in his scavenging. “I live from the refuse of others,” he declares. “I think it a sound and honorable niche.” — Dwight Garner

Day after day I could aspire, within reason, to nothing more than survival. Although the planets wandered among the stars and the moon waxed and waned, the identical naked barrenness of existence was exposed to me, day in and day out.

—Lars Eighner, “Travels With Lizbeth”

Little, Brown & Company, 2015

The photographer Sally Mann’s memoir is weird, intense and uncommonly beautiful. She has real literary gifts, and she’s led a big Southern-bohemian life, rich with incident. Or maybe it only seems rich with incident because of an old maxim that still holds: Stories happen only to people who can tell them.

Like Mary Karr, Mann as a child was a scrappy, troublemaking tomboy, one who grew into a scrappy, troublemaking, impossible-to-ignore young woman and artist. She was raised in Virginia by sophisticated, lettered parents. When she grew too wild, they sent her away to a prep school in Vermont where, she writes, “I smoked, I drank, I skipped classes, I snuck out, I took drugs, I stole quarts of ice cream for my dorm by breaking into the kitchen storerooms, I made out with my boyfriends in the library basement, I hitchhiked into town and down I-91, and when caught, I weaseled out of all of it.”

This memoir recounts some of the Southern gothic elements of her parents’ lives. This book is heavily illustrated, and traces her growth as an artist. It recounts friendships with Southern artists and writers such as Cy Twombly and Reynolds Price. Her anecdotes have snap. About his advanced old age, in a line that is hard to forget, Twombly tells the author that he is “closing down the bodega for real.” But this story is entirely her own. — Dwight Garner

Country Girl

Edna o’brien, little, brown and company, 2013.

The enormously gifted Irish writer Edna O’Brien was near the red-hot center of the Swinging ’60s in London. She dropped acid with her psychiatrist, R.D. Laing. Among those who came to her parties were Marianne Faithfull, Sean Connery, Princess Margaret and Jane Fonda. Richard Burton and Marlon Brando tried to get her into bed. Robert Mitchum succeeded after wooing her with this pickup line: “I bet you wish I was Robert Taylor, and I bet you never tasted white peaches.”

O’Brien was born in a village in County Clare, in the west of Ireland, in 1930. This earthy and evocative book also traces her youth and her development as a writer. Her small family was religious. Her father was a farmer who drank and gambled; her mother was a former maid. She has described her village, Tuamgraney, as “enclosed, fervid and bigoted.” O’Brien didn’t attend college. She moved to Dublin, where she worked in a drugstore while studying at the Pharmaceutical College at night. She began to read literature, and she wondered: “Why could life not be lived at that same pitch? Why was it only in books that I could find the utter outlet for my emotions?” This memoir has perfect pitch. — Dwight Garner

Marjane Satrapi. Translated from the French by Mattias Ripa and Blake Ferris.

Pantheon, 2003.

At the age of 6, Marjane Satrapi privately declared herself the last prophet of Islam. At 14, she left Iran for a boarding school in Austria, sent away by parents terrified of their outspoken daughter’s penchant for challenging her teachers (and hypocrisy wherever she sniffed it out). At 31, she published “Persepolis,” in French (it was later translated into English by Mattias Ripa and Blake Ferris), a stunning graphic memoir hailed as a wholly original achievement in the form.

There’s still a startling freshness to the book. It won’t age. In inky shadows and simple, expressive lines — reminiscent of Ludwig Bemelmans’s “Madeline” — Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a world of protests and disappearances (and scoring punk rock cassettes on the black market).

The revolution, the rise of fundamentalism, a brutal family history of torture, imprisonment and exile are conveyed from a child’s perspective and achieve a stark, shocking impact. — Parul Sehgal

Margo Jefferson

Pantheon, 2015.

The motto was simple in Margo Jefferson’s childhood home: “Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment.” Her family was part of Chicago’s black elite. Her father was the head pediatrician at Provident, America’s oldest black hospital; her mother was a socialite. They saw themselves as a “Third Race, poised between the masses of Negroes and all classes of Caucasians.” Life was navigated according to strict standards of behavior and femininity. Jefferson writes of the punishing psychic burden of growing up feeling that she was a representative for her race and, later, of nagging, terrifying suicidal impulses.

Jefferson won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her book reviews in The New York Times. “Negroland” is an extended form of criticism that dances between a history of social class to a close reading of her mother’s expressions; the information calibrated in a brow arched “three to four millimeters.”

The prose is blunt and evasive, sensuous and ascetic, doubting and resolute — and above all beautifully skeptical of the genre, of the memoir’s conventions, clichés and limits. “How do you adapt your singular, willful self to so much history and myth? So much glory, banality, honor and betrayal?” she asks. This shape-shifting, form-shattering book carves one path forward. — Parul Sehgal

25 More Great Memoirs

Presented in Alphabetical Order by Author

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

Viv albertine, thomas dunne books/st. martin’s press, 2014.

Viv Albertine participated in the birth of punk in the mid-1970s. She was in a band with Sid Vicious before he joined the Sex Pistols. She dated Mick Jones while he was putting together his new band, the Clash. She could barely play guitar, yet she became the lead guitarist for the Slits. Her memoir is wiry and fearless. It contains story after story about men who told her she couldn’t do things that she did anyway. Her life up to the breakup of the Slits occupies only half of the book. There’s a lot of pain in the second section: loneliness, doubt, a bad marriage, cancer, depression. Throughout, this account has an honest, lo-fi grace.

Martin Amis

Talk miramax books/hyperion, 2000.

In this memoir, the acclaimed author of “London Fields,” “Money” and other novels decided, he writes, “to speak, for once, without artifice.” The entertaining, loosely structured result is movingly earnest and wickedly funny. It includes a portrait, both cleareyed and affectionate, of the author’s father, the comic novelist and poet Kingsley Amis. In addition, “Experience” offers more vivid and harrowing writing about dental problems than you might have thought one person capable of producing.

Slow Days, Fast Company

Alfred a. knopf, 1977.

The Los Angeles-born glamour girl, bohemian, artist, muse, sensualist, wit and pioneering foodie Eve Babitz writes prose that reads like Nora Ephron by way of Joan Didion, albeit with more lust and drugs and tequila. “Slow Days, Fast Company” and “Eve’s Hollywood,” the book that preceded it, are officially billed as fiction, but they are mostly undisguised dispatches from her own experiences in 1970s California. Reading her is like being out on the warm open road at sundown, with what she called “4/60 air-conditioning” — that is, going 60 miles per hour with all four windows down. You can feel the wind in your hair.

Russell Baker

Congdon & weed, 1982.

Russell Baker’s warm and disarmingly funny account of his life growing up in Depression-era America has garnered comparisons to the work of Mark Twain. The book quickly became a beloved best seller when it was published, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Baker was born into poverty in Virginia in 1925. He was 5 years old when his father, then 33, fell into a diabetic coma and died. The author’s strong, affectionate mother is a major presence in the book. Baker, a longtime humorist and columnist for The New York Times, died in January at 93.

Kafka Was the Rage

Anatole broyard, carol southern books/crown publishers, 1993.

Anatole Broyard, a longtime book critic and essayist for The New York Times, died in 1990 of prostate cancer. What he had finished of this memoir before his death mostly concerned his time living in the West Village after World War II. “A war is like an illness,” he writes, “and when it’s over you think you’ve never felt so well.” He writes about the vogue for psychoanalysis, his experience opening a used-book store and, primarily, his formative relationship with the artist Sheri Martinelli (her pseudonym in the book is Sheri Donatti). The book was truncated, but the writing in it is brilliant and often epigrammatic: “I just want love to live up to its publicity.”

Between the World and Me

Ta-nehisi coates, spiegel & grau, 2015.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, in the form of a letter to his son, is a scalding examination of his own experience as a black man in America, and of how much of American history has been systemically built on exploiting and committing violence against black bodies. Inspired by a section of James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” that was addressed to the author’s nephew, Coates’s book is a powerful testimony that will continue to have a profound impact on discussions about race in America.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan didion, alfred a. knopf, 2005.

Joan Didion, so long an exemplar of cool, of brilliant aloofness, showed us her unraveling in this memoir about the sudden death of her husband of 40 years, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and the frightening illness of her daughter, Quintana. It’s a troubled, meditative book, in which Didion writes of what it feels like to have “cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad.”

Barbarian Days

William finnegan, penguin press, 2015.

This account of a lifelong surfing obsession won the Pulitzer Prize in biography. William Finnegan, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, recalls his childhood in California and Hawaii, his many surfing buddies through the years and his taste for a kind of danger that approaches the sublime. In his 20s, he traveled through Asia and Africa and the South Pacific in search of waves, living in tents and cars and cheap apartments. One takes away from “Barbarian Days” a sense of a big, wind-chapped, well-lived life.

Personal History

Katharine graham, alfred a. knopf, 1997.

Katharine Graham’s brilliant but remote father, Eugene Meyer, capped his successful career as a financier and public servant by buying the struggling Washington Post in 1933 and nursing it to health. Graham took command of the paper in 1963, and steered it through the Watergate scandal and the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency, among other dramas. Her autobiography covers her life from childhood to her command of a towering journalistic institution in a deeply male-dominated industry. Her tone throughout is frank, self-critical, modest and justifiably proud.

Thinking in Pictures

Temple grandin, doubleday, 1995.

Memoirs are valued, in part, for their ability to open windows onto experiences other than our own, and few do that as dramatically as Temple Grandin’s “Thinking in Pictures.” Grandin, a professor of animal science who is autistic, describes the “library” of visual images in her memory, which she is constantly updating. (“It’s like getting a new version of software for the computer.”) As Oliver Sacks wrote in an introduction to the book, “Grandin’s voice came from a place which had never had a voice, never been granted real existence, before.”

Autobiography of a Face

Lucy grealy, houghton mifflin, 1994.

When she was 9 years old, Lucy Grealy was stricken with a rare, virulent form of bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma. She had radical surgery to remove half of her jaw, and years of radiation and chemotherapy, and recovered. She then endured a sense of disfigurement and isolation from other children. She became an accomplished poet and essayist before dying at 39 in 2002. Although entitled to self-pity, Grealy was not given to it. This memoir is a moving meditation on ugliness and beauty. Grealy’s life is the subject of another powerful memoir, Ann Patchett’s “Truth & Beauty,” which recounts the friendship between the two writers.

Dancing With Cuba

Alma guillermoprieto. translated from the spanish by esther allen., pantheon, 2004.

Alma Guillermoprieto was a 20-year-old dance student in 1969, when Merce Cunningham offered to recommend her for a teaching job at the National Schools of the Arts in Havana. This memoir is her account of the six months she spent there, a frustrating and fascinating time that opened her eyes to the world beyond dance. Eventually, political turmoil, piled on top of loneliness, youthful angst and assorted romantic troubles, led the author to the edge of a nervous breakdown. This remembrance is a pleasure to read, full of humanity, sly humor, curiosity and knowledge.

Minor Characters

Joyce johnson, houghton mifflin, 1983.

Joyce Johnson was 21 and not long out of Barnard College when, in the winter of 1957, Allen Ginsberg set her up on a blind date with Jack Kerouac, who was 34 and still largely unknown. Thus began an off-and-on relationship that lasted nearly two years, during which time “On the Road” was published, leading to life-altering fame — not only for Kerouac but many of his closest friends. Johnson’s book about this time is a riveting portrait of an era, and a glowing introduction to the Beats. It’s a book about a so-called minor character who, in the process of writing her life, became a major one.

The Memory Chalet

Penguin press, 2010.

The historian Tony Judt, who was known for his incisive analysis of current events and his synthesizing of European history in books like “Postwar,” wrote this book of autobiographical fragments after he was stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and had become “effectively quadriplegic.” He would think back over his life in the middle of the night, shape those memories into stories and dictate them to an assistant the next day. “The Memory Chalet,” the resulting unlikely artifact, ranges over Judt’s boyhood in England; the lives of his lower-middle-class Jewish parents; life as a student and fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, in the 1960s and early ’70s; and his life in New York City, where he eventually settled and taught.

Kiese Laymon

Scribner, 2018.

The most recently published entry on this list of 50 books, Kiese Laymon’s “Heavy” details the author’s childhood in Mississippi in the 1980s and his relationship with his alternately loving and abusive mother, who raised him on her own. It’s full of sharp, heart-rending thoughts about growing up black in the United States, and his fraught relationship with his body — Laymon’s weight has severely fluctuated over the years, a subject he plumbs with great sensitivity. This is a gorgeous, gutting book that’s fueled by candor yet freighted with ambivalence. It’s full of devotion and betrayal, euphoria and anguish.

Priestdaddy

Patricia lockwood, riverhead books, 2017.

Patricia Lockwood, an acclaimed poet, weaves in this memoir the story of her family — including her Roman Catholic priest father, who received a special dispensation from the Vatican — with the crisis that led her and her husband to live temporarily under her parents’ rectory roof. The book, consistently alive with feeling, is written with elastic style. And in Lockwood’s father, Greg, it has one of the great characters in nonfiction: He listens to Rush Limbaugh while watching Bill O’Reilly, consumes Arby’s Beef ’n Cheddar sandwiches the way other humans consume cashews and strides around in his underwear. Hilarious descriptions — of, to take one example, Greg’s guitar playing — alternate with profound examinations of family, art and faith.

H Is for Hawk

Helen macdonald, grove press, 2015.

When we meet Helen Macdonald in this beautiful and nearly feral book, she’s in her 30s, with “no partner, no children, no home.” When her father dies suddenly on a London street, it steals the floor from beneath her. Obsessed with birds of prey since she was a girl, Macdonald was already an experienced falconer. In her grief, seeking escape into something, she began to train one of nature’s most vicious predators, a goshawk. She unplugged her telephone. She told her friends to leave her alone. Nearly every paragraph she writes about the experience is strange in the best way, and injected with unexpected meaning.

The Color of Water

James mcbride, riverhead books, 1996.

This complex and moving story, which enjoyed a long run on best-seller lists, is about James McBride’s relationship with his mother, Ruth, the daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox Jewish rabbi. She fervently adopted Christianity and founded a black Baptist church in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn with McBride’s father. The book is suffused with issues of race, religion and identity, and simultaneously transcends those issues to be a story of family love and the sheer force of a mother’s will.

Angela’s Ashes

Frank mccourt, scribner, 1996.

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all,” Frank McCourt writes near the beginning of his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir. His parents had immigrated to New York, where McCourt was born, but soon moved back to Ireland, where they hoped relatives could help them with their four children. Having returned, they experienced crushing poverty. The book did perhaps more than any other to cement the 1990s boom in memoir writing — and reading. It features a Dickensian gallery of schoolmasters, shopkeepers and priests, in addition to McCourt’s unforgettable family.

Cockroaches

Scholastique mukasonga. translated from the french by jordan stump., archipelago books, 2016.

Thirty-seven of Scholastique Mukasonga’s family members were massacred in the Rwandan genocide in the spring of 1994, when the Hutu majority turned on their Tutsi neighbors, killing more than 800,000 people in 100 days. “Cockroaches” is Mukasonga’s devastating account of her childhood and what she was able to learn about the slaughter of her family. (“Cockroach” was the Hutu epithet of choice for the Tutsis.) It is a compendium of unspeakable crimes and horrifically inventive sadism, delivered in an even, unwavering tone.

Keith Richards

Little, brown & company, 2010.

In “Life,” the Rolling Stones guitarist writes with uncommon candor and immediacy — with the help of the veteran journalist James Fox — about drugs and his run-ins with the police; about the difficulties of getting and staying clean; and about the era when rock ’n’ roll came of age. He spares none of his thoughts, good and bad, about Mick Jagger. He also describes the spongelike love of music that he inherited from his grandfather, and his own sense of musical history — his reverence for the blues and R&B masters he has studied his entire life.

A Life in the Twentieth Century

Arthur schlesinger jr., houghton mifflin company, 2000.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a prizewinning historian who served in John F. Kennedy’s White House, here writes about the first 33 years of his life, from his birth in 1917 — the year the United States entered World War I — to 1950 and the beginnings of the Cold War. The son of an acclaimed historian, Schlesinger was born into great privilege. He went on a yearlong trip around the world between graduating from prep school and attending Harvard. This book has incisive things to say about the large themes of world history, including isolationism and interventionism, and about many other subjects besides, including the films of the 1930s.

Edmund White

Ecco/harpercollins publishers, 2006.

“My Lives” is broken into chapters whose headings follow a clever formula: “My Shrinks,” “My Mother,” “My Father,” “My Hustlers” ... But these seemingly narrow-focus, time-hopping slices add up to a robust autobiography. Edmund White’s portraits of his parents and their lives before him are novelistic; his writing about his own sexual experiences is exceedingly candid. Reviewing the book for The Guardian, the novelist Alan Hollinghurst said that “no other writer of White’s eminence has described his sexual life with such purposeful clarity.”

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Jeanette winterson, grove press, 2012.

This memoir’s title is the question Jeanette Winterson’s adoptive mother asked after discovering her daughter was a lesbian. Winterson’s mother loomed over her life, as she looms over this book. In a quiet way she is one of the great horror mothers of English-language literature. When she was angry with her daughter, she would say, “The Devil led us to the wrong crib.” This memoir’s narrative includes Winterson’s search for her birth mother and the author’s self-invention, her intellectual development. The device of the trapped young person saved by books is a hoary one, but Winterson makes it seem new, and sulfurous.

Close to the Knives

David wojnarowicz, vintage, 1991.

David Wojnarowicz, who died at 37 in 1992, was a vital part of the East Village art scene of the 1980s that also produced Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others. He was a painter, photographer, performance artist, AIDS activist and more — including writer. This work of hard-living autobiography is written in a flood of run-on sentences, and in a tone of almost hallucinatory incandescence. A typical sentence begins: “I remember when I was 8 years old I would crawl out the window of my apartment seven stories above the ground and hold on to the ledge with 10 scrawny fingers and lower myself out above the sea of cars burning up Eighth Avenue ...”

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Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies

The best of biography: the 2020 nbcc shortlist, recommended by elizabeth taylor.

The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth by Josh Levin

How do you find the perfect subject for a biography? “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they're dead,” a famous biographer once told Elizabeth Taylor . The author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee talks us through the books that made their 2020 shortlist.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King

L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron" by Lucasta Miller

Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purcell

1 Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King

2 the queen: the forgotten life behind an american myth by josh levin, 3 l.e.l.: the lost life and scandalous death of letitia elizabeth landon, the celebrated "female byron" by lucasta miller, 4 our man: richard holbrooke and the end of the american century by george packer, 5 a woman of no importance: the untold story of the american spy who helped win world war ii by sonia purcell.

T his is the second year that we’ve come together to discuss the National Book Critics’ Circle (NBCC) shortlist of the best new biographies . Have you noticed any trends or themes among the 2020 intake?

There seem to be fewer dutiful biographies of great men revered for their prominence rather than accomplishments. As the great historian and biographer Barbara Tuchman—winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Guns of August and Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-45 —once told me about a presidential candidate: “Titles on the door don’t fill an empty head.”

Biographers are increasingly pushing the form’s boundaries. As Emily Dickinson wrote: “Tell the truth but tell it slant.” Last year, for example, Mark Braude’s excellent The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from Exile to Escape focused on Napoleon ’s period of powerlessness and revealed a new perspective on a much-examined life. We are seeing more books that transcend category. One of my favourite books this year is Christopher Benfey’s If: The Untold Story of Kipling’s American Years which blends literary criticism and history into an original narrative about Rudyard Kipling, whom George Orwell described as a “jingo imperialist.” This book is not a cradle-to-grave biography, but rather zeroes in on Kipling’s time in Vermont when he reinvented himself as an American kind of writer. That slant rejects the traditional biographical form and illuminates Kipling’s life and legacy in a new and interesting way. Knowing that they were written in the wild kingdom of Vermont, perhaps some of us will be tempted to give those stories in The Jungle Book another try!

That’s interesting. I discussed the 2020 autobiography shortlist with Mark Athitakis recently, and he talked about how memoir has come to the fore, and that could be thought of as autobiography at a slant, as you say: pulling out a portion or theme from a life for close analysis. It’s interesting to hear that it’s also happening in biography in 2020.

Absolutely. The last time we spoke you introduced me to this concept of the group biography, which I hadn’t been familiar with before. And the first title we’re going to discuss today falls into this category. This is Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King. Perhaps you could tell us about it.

Yes. At the centre of King’s fascinating book is Columbia University’s Franz Boas (1858–1942), the father of cultural anthropology, who challenged his era’s prevailing wisdom that race, gender and sexuality were destiny. He argued against eugenics and contemporary theories of racial distinction between humans. His work culminated with his theory of relativism, which discredited the prevailing conviction that Western civilization was superior to simpler societies.

While Boas championed cultural diversity and scientific discovery, he also created an environment that inspired a circle of visionary women researchers who were pathbreaking. The book is kaleidoscopic, and its title comes from Zora Neale Hurston, one of Boas’s students whose fieldwork work led to her classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God . Margaret Mead’s fieldwork with adolescent girls led to her seminal work of anthropology, Coming of Age in Samoa . From her work on post-World War II Japan and Pueblo culture, Ruth Benedict shaped approaches to history and death. Ella Cara Deloria focused on Sioux folklore and legends.

“Boas championed cultural diversity and scientific discovery, and created an environment that inspired a circle of visionary women researchers”

At a time when women were beginning to chafe at the patriarchal social order, Boas encouraged them to find their work and share it with an audience. Together, they broke new ground and acknowledged differences of colour, gender, custom and ability, yet set forth an expansive vision of normalcy and humanity in a multicultural world. The pioneering work of Boas and his students is particularly interesting to consider in an increasingly tribal America.

Zora Neale Hurston wrote about her own cultural group, as did Ella Cara Deloria—so this was academic anthropology, with the benefit of insider perspectives. But why do you think it’s important to look at the lives of these particular individuals, as opposed to the evolution of ideas more generally?

That sounds right up my street. But let’s move on. Next we have The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth by Josh Levin. Tell us a little bit about its subject, and why you admire it.

We need to look back to the ‘welfare queen’ meme that took root in Ronald Reagan ’s failed 1976 presidential campaign. As the author of The Queen explains, the phrase was taken from the headlines of a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter’s Chicago Tribune investigation of Linda Taylor, a Cadillac-driving, fur-clad woman who scammed the system and was code for a lazy con artist. The myth took hold and fuelled public hysteria about cadging money that honest folks had worked hard to earn. She became the poster person for welfare abuse.

Because Five Books has a very international audience, I should quickly clarify that ‘welfare’ in this context refers to state benefit payments.

Yes, thank you. In The Queen , Levin sets out to find the real Linda Taylor, but it turns out that in this case, the reality really is more interesting than the story of a self-interested politician campaigning on fake news. There really was a Cadillac-driving scam artist called Linda Taylor, and in a feat of investigative reporting Josh Levin subverts the myth and reconstructs her life. It turns out that welfare fraud was the least of her problems. Through her many aliases, Levin found that she served time in prison, and may have murdered someone.

She was both victim and victimizer; Linda Taylor was abused as a child growing up in the Jim Crow South. She abandoned her own children and is accused of selling others on the black market.

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Perhaps this is also a cautionary tale about daily journalism, because Linda Taylor became known to reporters after she called the Chicago police to report a burglary. Her complicated story eluded journalists of the day who wrote her off as a welfare cheat, but Levin relentlessly digs into court transcripts, old property deeds and police records story to find a troubled, complicated woman, making clear in his footnotes how he documented her elusive story. Levin’s stamina and creative search for evidence in this book is extraordinary, especially considering how elusive she was and how many identities she assumed.

Perhaps I should note how important a sympathetic imagination is for the writing of biography. In The Queen , Levin shows how the newspaper headline became a campaign issue, but that her story is far more interesting than the myth.

This is a book that operates on so many different levels. It’s about American myth-making, and it’s also a hugely revealing social and psychological story about race, segregation, identity and a damaged person who went on to damage others.

And does Levin tackle the folly of building policy off the back of singular cases like this?

The Queen is not a policy book, but the implications of the single narrative are clear. Linda Taylor came to prominence during Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign; his slogan at this moment when history coalesced was “Let’s make America great again.” And of course, Trump’s MAGA theme was on the horizon.

In Britain too, there are echoes of it in the ‘benefit scrounger’ narrative.

Well, the third book shortlisted for the title of best biography—speaking of scandalous lives—is L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated ‘Female Byron’ by Lucasta Miller. This is a biography of the poet, literary celebrity and—I think it would it be fair to call her—a provocateur.

Yes, provocateur is fair! Of this year’s National Book Critics Circle biography finalists, one could argue that L.E.L is probably the most traditional, in the sense that it’s a chronological narrative about an overlooked artist from the past. As a group of literary critics, I think we at the NBCC have a soft spot for literary biographies, or perhaps we give them their due because we fully appreciate the intellectual dexterity required to segue between the life of a writer and what she writes.

Over the years, we’ve honored quite a few of these. Recent winners have included Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser and Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin, both of which set a very high standard.

In L.E.L. , which was the semi-anonymous nom de plume of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Lucasta Miller sets out to reclaim Landon’s literary accomplishments and establish her as a bridge between Romanticism and Victorianism . Miller contends that Landon’s work has been overlooked and perhaps made invisible because she was regarded as popular writer whose feminine poetry was dismissed, and that she should be considered from a contemporary perspective as ‘proto-postmodern,’ sort of postmodernist in training.

Structurally, Miller does something very smart with her biography of Landon. She begins with Landon’s mysterious death—was it murder? Suicide? Accident? She turns the adage ‘chronology is your friend’ upside down and begins with the end. In suspenseful way, Miller recounts how this innocent ingenue and sex siren controlled her public image. She had three children, kept a secret from her public, who thought she was a virgin. She has sexual relations with her mentor who also promoted her career, and, as you said, she wrote scandalous poetry. Defying the norms of the day, L.E.L.’s poetry was risky, bold, flirtatious and sly.

The Atlantic described L.E.L. as “a female artist forced to earn attention by reshaping her exploitation into glamour, knowing all the while that eventually titillation will become condemnation.” This sounds still very current, to me: this question of being a sexual female in the public eye. Do you think that this is a timely book?

Very well put by The Atlantic . Some might say that men and the public used her, but I think she used them right back. Landon was a woman making a living by her pen at a time when that was frowned upon. She was this upwardly-mobile woman whose provocations distracted others from noticing her self-sufficiency.

You mentioned her upward mobility. Just before we move on I want to read a short bit of her verse, which I thought was just so funny and self-aware:

He must be rich whom I could love, His fortune clear must be, Whether in land or in the funds, ‘Tis all the same to me.

So next we’ve got Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer. It’s a biography of the American diplomat. Tell me, why does this count among the best biographies of the year?

Within the first few chapters of Our Man , I was reminded of one of my favorite biographies ever: Ronald Steel’s Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Lippmann (1889–1974) was a reporter and commentator who was also involved in government. For six decades Lippmann was at the center of American political life—where the striving, almost great diplomat Richard Holbrooke yearned to be. As different as Walter Lippmann and Richard Holbrooke may have been, biographers Steel and Packer place them within the rich context of the quarrels, triumphs, friendships and alliances of the American century.

And excuse me for my ignorance, but ‘the American century’ means when, exactly—the 20th century? Or does it start later than that?

The American century is a shorthand for roughly the 20th century, when the American empire was born, flourished, matured, and finally began to diminish by about 2000, although it could be argued that the war in Vietnam marked the decline of American influence in the world.

Steel’s Lippmann and Packer’s Holbrooke were outsized men on the world stage who separately mirrored the waxing and waning of the American empire. In Our Man , Packer does the impossible. He takes Holbrooke’s story—a mid-level ‘almost great’ diplomat who was an idealist, but also an egotist, whose insatiable need for influence mirrored America’s anxious place in the world. From Vietnam to Afghanistan  and the Balkans, Holbrooke yearned for recognition, and ultimately failed in his quest to become Secretary of State.

“You just can’t help rooting for this deeply flawed man”

Packer builds a trust by breaking down the fourth wall and speaking directly to readers. “Do you mind if we hurry through the early years?” he asks. Scrupulously documented, at times Packer seems like he is channeling Holbrooke.

This is from the beginning:

Holbrooke? Yes, I knew him. I can’t get his voice out of my head. I still hear it saying, “You haven’t read that book? You really need to read it.” Saying, “I feel, and I hope this doesn’t sound too self-satisfied, that in a very difficult situation where nobody has the answer, I at least know what the overall questions and moving parts are.” Saying, “Gotta go, Hillary’s on the line.”

After Holbrooke’s death, his widow Kati Marton gave Packer her husband’s papers, journals and files. Holbrooke kept great track of his friends and foes and Packer had a truckload of his archives. I should note that although Holbrooke’s widow provided Packer access to her husband’s archives, he does not refrain from disclosing her extra-marital affairs or Holbrooke and Marton’s excessive spending.

Packer presents Holbrooke as a contradictory figure. While he craved approval by the elite, he also wanted to be a man of the people. He was very covetous of others and desperately wanted to be Secretary of State, yet alienated even his ardent supporters. He was enthralled with celebrity and money. Holbrooke’s social climbing and gross behavior are unseemly, yet Packer approaches him with such an empathic imagination, you just can’t help rooting for this deeply flawed man. He really becomes ‘Our Man’ in its best sense.

The New York Times made an interesting comment about this book: “It clocks in at more than 500 pages without the courtesy of an index. This isn’t a book you’re supposed to dip into piecemeal, but best appreciated like a novel, consumed whole.” This caught me off guard. I have never thought of reading a biography any other way. Have I been doing it wrong? Are most biographies intended to be dip-in-and-out sorts of books, reference books?

You’re not wrong! Those who read by index are really missing out, and in a whole different category are those just who look for themselves in the index, or the footnotes to see if they have been quoted.

Footnotes, though—they’re dynamite. I’m seeing more biographies with footnotes as mini-essays. It enhances my reading experience when grasp the range of sources for a biography.

Fantastic. I think that brings us to our last biography in the 2020 list. Sonia Purnell’s A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II . I know Sonia as the author of a biography of Boris Johnson, before he became prime minister: Just Boris: A Tale of Blonde Ambition .

What a great title! I’ll have to read it. I did read Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill which was excellent. As I recall, it was prodigiously researched and written in a lively style.

Tell me about this new book.

During these challenging times, tales of resistance in World War II have found a receptive audience. In the case of Sonia Purnell’s biography, Americans are keen to read about our own countryman’s heroism.

At the center of Purnell’s biography is socialite Virginia Hall of Baltimore, Maryland who had been shut out of the American diplomatic corps in the 1930s and stuck as a clerk in the State Department. Raised in affluence, she had learned to ride a horse, shoot, sail and cycle. An adventurous sort, she lost her leg below the knee in a hunting accident in Turkey. (True story: she shot herself in the foot.)

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After the Nazis invaded France, Hall got herself there to drive ambulances which she did with her prosthetic leg, known then as a ‘peg leg’ which she named Cuthbert. Fluent in French and knowledgeable about the terrain, Hall talked her way into the Office of Strategic Services, and eventually ran spy networks and supervised air drops of weapons. She was known as ‘Madonna of the Mountains.’

Purnell recounts Hall’s spy operations so vividly that it feels like one is reading a spy novel . As Purnell’s title suggests, Hall was often underestimated and overlooked. In rescuing Virginia Hall from obscurity, the book also tells a great story about the Resistance.

It’s so interesting to me that right now there is a spate of books about women in the Resistance: for example, there’s Madame Fourcade’s Secret War by Lynne Olson and then there’s The Resistance Quartet series by Caroline Moorehead.

She sounds like a fascinating character. And actually, that’s a point I want to pick up on. As a biographer yourself, you’re in a good position to comment on what makes a person a good subject to begin with.

Great question. I grew up reading biographies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a city which takes its history and historical figures very seriously, so that was my initial lens, I suppose. I toggled between history and journalism , but was always drawn to biography and went to graduate school in history where it turned out that biography was not in vogue.

The great C. Vann Woodward had retired but I had loved his books Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel and The Strange Career of Jim Crow and Mary Chesnut’s Civil War , so I visited him for tea and peppered him with questions about biography. Once I asked how I would know if I had found the perfect subject for a biography. And he said, in his amazing Southern accent: “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they’re dead.”

Ha! Brilliant.

Just so brilliant. I mean, what he was saying to me is: No hagiography or rescue mission, and you need to have the full measure of a life. I don’t really consider books about living people to be real biographies, because it’s not the full, measurable life. Also, I’d like to be able to trust my sources and all sources have agendas. So that’s how I think of biography.

That brings me to one more question I wanted to run by you. Coming back to the Packer book: I believe Packer was a friend of Holbrooke. Do you think a biographer writing about somebody they actually knew in real life is at an advantage or a disadvantage?

It probably works multiple ways. I personally prefer the subject to be dead and not someone I know. Packer did a New Yorker profile of Holbrooke and he was the one chosen to receive his papers. Maybe it’s just an individual case, but I feel that Packer is so honest in the book. He puts himself in it, and talks to the readers, so I don’t see it as a problem. I see it as: he has empathy, an understanding of Holbrooke, but it’s not like they were best friends. They just knew each other, I think.

It gets us to another interesting question, which is about access. Many people say access is really important in a biography. Access to interviewees, or access to the source. My friend Adam Cohen and I wrote a biography , and our character, Mayor Richard J. Daley, was dead. Then we tried to talk to his family, and we had a few sit downs—little brief ones—but they really cut us off. I was worried about that, but then I realized that I kind of knew what they were going to say anyway.

“Time reveals. I guess that’s why you can’t really rush a biography”

Right now I’m working on the 19th century, where nobody can talk back. I’m trying to read between the lines; it’s not just what a character’s writing in a letter, but also to whom they’re writing it. That says something intangible about a person. I mean, you wouldn’t put it in a biography, but it informs your sensibility. A friend of mine said that the process of not getting an interview with the Daley family was its own education. And, yes, in being repeatedly rebuffed, and how that was done, so much was revealed in the process.

Time reveals. I guess that’s why you can’t really rush a biography, because time has to reveal itself about a person.

You must have quite a wide perspective of the field at the moment. Do you feel optimistic about the state of biography in 2020?

Oh yes. Yes, I really do. I think that we’ve gotten past the cradle-to-grave biography. I mean, they’ll always been popping up, the dutiful ones, but increasingly these biographies are at a slant, or more episodic, or and I think that has brought a new energy to the genre.

So I feel optimistic about that, but I am worried about the problem of email and archives. I can’t even convey the joy of going into an archive, and finding these handwritten, impossible-to-read letters. They’re so good. I have to hand-type them, fantastic. Without letters , diaries and documents, I am so worried that so much great history is going to be lost.

Yes, I worry about this too. There’s an ephemerality to a lot of written discourse these days. So much of our own personal archives can be lost if one loses a password. We live our lives online, and then it disappears down the drain.

I mean, journalism was fantastically helpful when I wrote my book about Mayor Richard J. Daley and the making of modern Chicago, but so much of what appears now is on Twitter. It doesn’t even make it into the papers. The other thing I’ll say is that if you pick a day in history, say . . . August 23rd, 1968. It was during the Democratic Convention and I have a folder several feet wide of different newspaper articles covering the day’s events from wildly different perspectives. That doesn’t exist anymore. We’ve talked about the local news crisis, and I think we will see in a generation that books are really suffering, definitely. So I am so optimistic, but I’m worried at the same time.

Part of our best books of 2020  series.

March 1, 2020

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is a co-author of American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation with Adam Cohen, with whom she also cofounded The National Book Review. She has chaired four Pulitzer Prize juries, served as president of the National Book Critics Circle, and presided over the Harold Washington Literary Award selection committee three times. Former Time magazine correspondent in New York and Chicago and long-time literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, she is working on a biography of women in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras for Liveright/W.W. Norton.

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Best memoirs and biographies: from Britney Spears to the Beckhams

Dive into some of the most compelling life stories – from David Bowie to Keir Starmer

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Wild Thing by Sue Prideaux

Billionaire, nerd, saviour, king by anupreeta das, the house of beckham by tom bower, naked portrait: a memoir of lucian freud by rose boyt, the diaries of franz kafka, me and mr jones by suzi ronson, queen victoria and her prime ministers by anne somerset, byron: a life in ten letters by andrew stauffer, keir starmer: the biography by tom baldwin, hardy women by paula byrne, the woman in me by britney spears, marcia williams by linda mcdougall, lou reed: the king of new york by will hermes, original sins by matt rowland hill.

The biographer Sue Prideaux has a track record of rehabilitating "19th century enfants terribles", said Nikhil Krishnan in The Daily Telegraph . "I Am Dynamite!", her "highly entertaining" 2018 life of Nietzsche, took pains to prove that the philosopher was no antisemite. She has also penned sympathetic biographies of Strindberg and Munch. In her latest work, she offers an "equally stout defence" of the French painter Paul Gauguin – today widely regarded as an "adulterous imperialist" who "spread syphilis" to teenage girls on Tahiti. While admitting that Gauguin was not "exactly a saint", Prideaux stresses that he was no "ideologue" of empire: he consistently decried French policies in Tahiti, and defended the indigenous culture of Polynesia. Nor is there any evidence that he had syphilis. In challenging the stereotypes, Prideaux has performed a valuable service – even if not everyone will be convinced by her claims about "Gauguin's goodness".

His life was certainly "remarkable and varied", said Stephen Smith in Literary Review . Born in Paris in 1848, Gauguin spent part of his childhood in Peru (his mother being descended from a wealthy family there) and would tell people: "I am a savage from Peru". Despite performing poorly at school, he became "filthy rich" in his 20s as a trader on the Paris Bourse. In 1873, he married Mette-Sophie Gad, from a "respectable" Danish family, and they had five children. At first, painting was a hobby; but it became his main means of supporting himself after he lost his job in the 1882 stock market crash.

Telling his wife he needed to give free rein to the "savage" side of his nature, Gauguin left his family and moved to Brittany in 1886, said Tim Adams in The Observer . The following year, he travelled to Panama and the Caribbean (briefly working as a labourer on the Panama Canal) and, in 1888, he stayed with Vincent van Gogh in Arles – an "insane and creative" nine-week period that culminated in van Gogh cutting off his ear.

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In 1891, Gauguin departed for Tahiti, said Nadia Beard in the Financial Times . Most of the remaining 12 years of his life were spent either there or in the Marquesas Islands. Polynesia , while not the paradise he'd expected, enabled him to find a "new artistic language, one that would pave the way for Henri Matisse and others". The paintings he completed – often of semi-naked island girls – cemented his status as a great artist. Prideaux's impressively balanced book fleshes Gauguin out "with nuance and detail". It is a "scintillating" achievement.

Entrepreneurial genius? Aggressive monopolist? Major philanthropist? As the title of this book suggests, people have a range of takes on Bill Gates, said Nicole Kobie in The Times . The Microsoft co-founder was the original nerd-turned-billionaire – the "classic model" who paved the way for the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Once famed for his ruthlessness, Gates reinvented himself as a global philanthropist after Microsoft's alleged monopolistic practices landed the company in legal difficulty, and for six straight years YouGov polls found him to be the world's "most admired" man.

More recently, however, revelations about his ties to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – as well as his extra-marital affairs – have tarnished his reputation. In her well-researched and entertaining book, the New York Times journalist Anupreeta Das charts these "ups and downs" while using her subject to reflect on the "hidden influence of billionaires". Full of "intriguing titbits" – from Gates's love of fast cars to his "cringeworthy" pursuit of female employees – it "makes for compelling reading".

As Das delves into different facets of Gates's life, "eye-opening" details emerge, said The Economist . Gates, we learn, is the biggest private owner of farmland in America. The charitable foundation he started with his ex-wife Melinda outspends many governments – and even the WHO; this enables it to shape health policy in many countries, yet it is "accountable to no one". But the book has a major flaw: Gates never really comes alive as a person (he declined to be interviewed for it). Das's narrative has a "Gates-shaped hole" at its centre.

It also struck me as overly critical, said Felix Salmon in The Washington Post . Whatever his personal failings, there is surely a "lot to commend about Gates". Yet you won't read much in this book about the way he translated his ambitious vision of "a computer on every desk" into reality, or the key role he has played in the "spectacularly successful fight" against diseases such as HIV/Aids and malaria. Instead, the book "often reads like an extended list of all the major and minor complaints Das could find"; and not just about Gates, but about billionaires, nerds and philanthropists more generally.

Still, it does raise important questions, said Richard Waters in the Financial Times – about the growing chasm between the richest and the rest, and the moral demands we can make of those who use their wealth to do good. Even if it is not the final word on Gates, this book adds to our "understanding of the man".

If you judged David and Victoria Beckham from their Instagram posts, you'd assume that theirs is a "love story for the ages", said Anita Singh in The Telegraph . In countless shots taken at home or on holiday, they gaze adoringly into each other's eyes, seemingly as loved-up as they were 25 years ago, when they were married in "matching outfits of Ribena purple". Or they're surrounded by their four children, looking like a close-knit clan.

Yet according to Tom Bower's " The House of Beckham ", this "happy-families image" is pure fabrication, said Hannah Betts in the same paper . Bower, a veteran biographer, portrays their relationship as a "devil's bargain", designed to prop up their staggeringly profitable global brand. Posh and Becks, he says, don't actually like each other very much, and as individuals they leave a lot to be desired: "David is stingy, squeaky-voiced and volatile. Victoria is a tuneless, furious-faced WAG whose fashion line is a much-puffed vanity project." While Bower scores highly "in terms of research and truth-telling", he struggles to get past the "ghastliness of his subjects"; the narrative is "oddly flat".

There's little in this book that's revelatory, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times : mostly, it's "culled from available records". Yet the details are still "kind of gripping", from David's multiple alleged affairs – he emerges as a "shagging automaton" – to the many ways in which the Beckhams are money-obsessed: neither apparently likes tipping in restaurants, and every business decision David has ever made can, it seems, "be traced back to his desire to avoid tax". No less entertaining are his "superhuman" efforts to get a knighthood. "Unappreciative c**ts," he thundered, when the honours committee turned him down. "His leaked emails will simply never get old."

The Beckhams are certainly shielded by a "staggeringly slick" PR operation, said Katie Rosseinsky in The Independent . Yet Bower's efforts to pierce it are not terribly effective. This is an underwhelming and "overly long tome", which rehashes stereotypes that have always existed in the media – David as airhead, Victoria as "thin and miserable". By the end, the couple "seem no more real" than they did at the book's start. All the real details about David's affairs are 20 years old, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian . Beyond that, Bower relies on insinuation: David "appeared to be smitten" by an aristocratic party girl, or "attracted the attention of a glamorous Australian bikini model". It's not so much a take-down, as an "epic symphony of snide".

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Rose Boyt was 18 when she posed naked on a sofa for Rose, 1978-79, a painting by her father, Lucian Freud. "Nothing had been discussed," her memoir Naked Portrait begins. "I just assumed I would be naked." As one of Freud's 14 acknowledged children by various women, Boyt was "grateful for any attention from her father", said Laura Freeman in The Sunday Times . While he painted her in "full- frontal sprawl" during nocturnal sittings that lasted for months, they talked about art, literature, and Freud's childhood glimpse of Hitler in Berlin. The painter comes across as "a charismatic monster", with a talent for inspiring "abasement" in the women in his life. "I can't think of an art book with an opening page like it," said Freeman. "The writing is hypnotic and compulsive, the set-up compelling." But the intensity proves "unsustainable".

Boyt's own life to that point is evidence of Freud's "incorrigible selfishness" and "terminal irresponsibility", said Peter Carty in The i Paper . Her mother, Suzy, was a student at the Slade School of Art in the 1950s, when Freud was a lecturer there. The school expelled her for getting pregnant by Freud, who wasn't fired or even challenged about his behaviour. Days after Rose was born, Freud showed up with two lobsters and made Suzy, who was allergic to shellfish, get up and cook them. Despite Freud's great wealth, Rose grew up in bohemian poverty, not helped by her mother's impulsive nature, which led her to swap the family home for a long voyage on a leaky cargo ship when Rose was seven. As a "comprehensive and honest chronicler of her family history", Boyt is compelling. But she has "unburdened herself of everything. Unfortunately, this includes large amounts of unrelated autobiographical material." Most of this "should have been cut".

Not so, said Evgenia Siokos in The Telegraph . Some of the best chapters detail Boyt's life as an art-world It girl in the late 1970s. When Boyt isn't "being complimented on her Vivienne Westwood bondage trousers by Francis Bacon", she's being taken to Studio 54 by Andy Warhol. Some of it is admittedly not so "gossip-worthy": there are long diary excerpts and details of her therapy. "It seems like tedium, but it's a strength... Naked Portrait is a hall of mirrors with the young Boyt at its centre... Its events juxtapose, clash and occasionally confuse, painting a portrait of Freud that's even more revealing than his nude depiction of Rose."

When Franz Kafka's diaries were first published soon after his death, aged 40, in 1924, they were heavily polished by his friend Max Brod, said Dwight Garner in The New York Times . Brod – who'd ignored Kafka's instruction to burn all his manuscripts – set out to turn him into a saintly figure, untouched by "human impulses". He cut out anything remotely sexual (including his visits to prostitutes) and excised anything else he judged extraneous – including the letters, draft stories, dreams and aphorisms that Kafka had "stuffed" into his diaries. Now, more than 30 years after they appeared in Germany, the unexpurgated diaries have finally been published in English, sensitively translated by Ross Benjamin. And they're a "revelation".

Apart from anything else, this new edition is "a lot funnier than Brod's version", said Morten Høi Jensen in Literary Review . We see Kafka noticing that a fellow train passenger's "sizeable member makes a large bulge in his pants", and commenting on a friend's pornography collection. But more valuable still is the restoration of the "open-endedness" of the original text. Kafka's diaries were really closer to notebooks: they were, Benjamin notes, a "laboratory" for his fiction – and now we can peer into that laboratory, seeing how the themes of his writing (alienation and loss, futility and repetition) "grew out of his circumscribed life".

At times Kafka cuts a surprisingly ordinary figure, said Chris Power in The Guardian . We see him off to the theatre, or "watching a ski-jumping competition" – though at other times he expresses "profound loneliness and isolation". He emerges not just as the tortured genius he is known as now, but also as a "youngish man finding his way, hungry for experience and inspiration" – and the contradiction between the two "brings him closer to us".

In 1971, Suzi Ronson (then Suzanne Fussey) was a 21-year-old hairdresser at a salon in Beckenham, southeast London, when one of her customers – Mrs Jones – mentioned her "artistic" son David, said Anthony Quinn in The Observer . The next week, Mrs Jones brought in David's wife, Angie, who was so delighted with the "outrageous" haircut Suzi gave her that she took her to meet David himself – "a pale and epicene young man" who had just started calling himself David Bowie. With the help of a German anti-dandruff product, Suzi transformed David's "mousy" hair into a "spiky red feather cut". It was the birth of the "look of Ziggy Stardust".

Suzi, infatuated with the couple and their bohemian world, became Bowie's stylist, and soon after went on the road with him and the Spiders from Mars. Five decades on, she has written an "honest and troubled memoir" of her time as his "hair'n'make-up mascot". It belongs to a niche genre – call it "I-was-Sinatra's-valet" – but her book offers a compelling portrait of Bowie "on the verge of stardom".

Ronson skilfully charts her drab suburban upbringing, so different from Bowie's "countercultural" mileu, said Deborah Levy in Literary Review . With "perfect pitch and tension", she recounts key moments in his early career – from his legendary performance of Starman on Top of the Pops in 1972 to the night a year later when he unexpectedly "retired" Ziggy Stardust.

Her book makes a refreshing change from the hagiographic tone of most Bowie biographies, said John Aizlewood on iNews . Here, "the star emerges as cold": he sacks his drummer on his wedding day, and expects Suzi to procure him an "endless supply of young girls and boys". Suzi herself is soon "cut adrift", at which point she marries the guitarist Mick Ronson, who had also been ditched by Bowie. After that, the book loses its dynamism.

Much Bowie literature consists of "pretentious evaluation" of his lyrics and influences, said Suzanne Moore in The New Statesman . Ronson, by contrast, barely mentions his music, and instead focuses on practical matters – such as sewing the jewels onto Bowie's jockstrap, or worrying "about all the sweat breaking the zips of his costumes". She tells us that she slept with him once, but is "discreet" about the details. It makes for an engaging, often endearing account of the "magical rising of Ziggy, by the woman who put the colour in his hair".

Elizabeth II once described her great-great-grandmother as a "believer in moderation in all things", said Matthew Dennison in The Telegraph . But as Anne Somerset demonstrates in this "masterly account" of Queen Victoria's relationships with the ten men who served as her prime ministers, Victoria was "frequently far from moderate". In her private letters and memoranda, she made clear her dislike of "vivisectionists, Russians and four-time prime minister William Ewart Gladstone" (depicted together, above). And she remained unswervingly convinced of her right to meddle in politics – railing, for instance, against the "miserable democrats" in the Liberal Party. This caused friction, inevitably. Gladstone referred to her as "the leader of the opposition". Even the Conservative Disraeli, who was one of her favourites, found her "wilful and whimsical, like a spoilt child".

"Victoria supposedly wrote 60 million words during her reign, or 2,500 a day," said Gerard DeGroot in The Times . Somerset has immersed herself in this "huge mass of correspondence" – but while the result is "impressively well-researched", she doesn't entirely succeed in her apparent mission to "emphasise Victoria's positive contributions". Indeed, at one point she admits that her subject's behaviour "verged upon the monstrous".Covering Victoria's 63-year reign, from 1837, the book is billed as a "personal history" – but what it really reveals is the gap between "Victoria's public image and the queen her ministers saw". Perhaps this gap is inevitable: "for a constitutional monarchy to work", reverence "must be heaped on an individual who might, in truth, be a despot, a psychopath or an idiot". Nevertheless, this account is an "eye-opener", and Victoria's reputation does not emerge well from it.

What we see is that Victoria "loved power", said Philip Mansel in The Spectator . She was an enthusiastic reader of despatches. "Far from being fatigued with signatures and business, I like the whole thing exceedingly," she wrote in 1837. She also appreciated "British patriotism, British successes", and what she called the "deep devotion and loyalty of my people". Despite the "tragic living conditions" of many of her subjects, she was cheered even on her last visit to Ireland in April 1900, although she couldn't stand the Irish: "abominable... a dreadful people". As Somerset's "magnificent, disturbing" history reminds us, in the 19th century, "most people wanted more monarchy, not less".

"Mad, bad and dangerous to know" was how Lady Caroline Lamb famously characterised Lord Byron. It's a fair description, in many ways, said John Banville in The Guardian . But George Gordon, the 6th Baron Byron, "must also have been, at the simplest level, wonderful company". He didn't take himself too seriously, and his lust for life was immense: "I shall not live long," he wrote to his publisher John Murray in 1819, "& for that reason I must live while I can." In Byron: A Life in Ten Letters, Andrew Stauffer uses Bryon's "vivid and hugely entertaining letters" as a series of entry points into his tempestuous life. Each chapter begins with an extract from a letter; Stauffer then discusses the context that inspired it. It is an impressively "rounded portrait, venereal scars and all, of one of the prime movers of the Romantic movement".

Stauffer concedes that his approach is not particularly original, said D.J. Taylor in The Wall Street Journal : fragmented biographies are in vogue. "But there is something about Byron's headlong scamper about the world of his day that lends itself to this miniaturist treatment". We first see him as a Cambridge undergraduate, "planning endless bachelor parties"; then en route to Greece in 1810, where he swims the Hellespont with his friend Lt William Ekenhead; and later writing ghost stories on Lake Geneva with Percy and Mary Shelley. "The letters are practically Messianic in their intensity, aflame with relish for the incidental scenery or the women Byron is pursuing." It's a wonder, given the pace at which he lived his 36 years, that Byron had any time for serious writing.

The poet depicted in these pages often emerges as a "cold-hearted shit", said John Walsh in The Sunday Times . During his short-lived marriage to Annabella Milbanke – a "brilliant mathematician with a strong moral centre" – he installed his half-sister Augusta Leigh at their Piccadilly home, and "made the women compete with each other in caressing him". The night his wife gave birth, he "sat in the empty drawing room below, throwing empty bottles at the ceiling". In time, polite opinion turned against him, and he left England, never to return. Stauffer sometimes brings an incongruously "21st century perspective to 19th century behaviour": he describes Byron as a "sex tourist in Italy", and talks of Shelley's bisexual experiences as "polyamory". But no matter. This is a "devilishly readable book", which brings Regency England to "howling life", and its "disgraceful but irresistible subject into dazzling focus".

Although Keir Starmer is almost certain to be our next prime minister, he remains an "oddly elusive" figure, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian . People often complain that they don't really know what he stands for, and he talks about personal matters somewhat stiffly, as if holding something back. All this makes a book such as Keir Starmer: The Biography feel long overdue. Tom Baldwin is a former journalist who worked for five years as a Labour spin doctor; he was originally recruited to ghostwrite Starmer's own memoir, but Starmer backed out of the project last year, agreeing instead to cooperate on this biography. The result, while not exactly revelatory – Baldwin warns that his pages won't be "spattered with blood" – does a job that "very precisely mirrors its subject": it is careful, nuanced and eminently capable. "It is, in short, as intimate an insight into Britain's likely next prime minister as readers are probably going to get."

The most interesting chapters concern Starmer's "difficult early life", said Robert Shrimsley in the FT . Starmer grew up in a cramped semi in Surrey with a "seriously ill mother", Jo (she had Still's disease); a "cold, difficult" father, Rodney (a toolmaker); and three siblings (one of whom, Nick, has learning difficulties). Television was banned in the Starmer household, the "radio played only Beethoven or Shostakovich", and Rodney "barracked and bullied" visiting schoolfriends, said Patrick Maguire in The Times . Although Starmer was the only one of the siblings to go to grammar school and university, and then became a leading barrister, his dad never once told him he made him proud. Only after his death in 2018 did Starmer find out this wasn't "the full story": hidden in his father's wardrobe was a "scrapbook of every newspaper story about his son".

Many politicians pose as regular people, but Starmer emerges from this as someone who really is quite ordinary, said Matthew d'Ancona in the Evening Standard . He is happiest spending time with his family, or organising weekend eight-a-side football games. As his deputy, Angela Rayner, puts it: he is "the least political person I know in politics". The "one nagging question" is how much Baldwin's political sympathies have coloured his portrait, said Ben Riley-Smith in The Daily Telegraph . Had he discovered "less laudable aspects of Sir Keir's story", would he have "forensically interrogated" them? This may not, then, quite be a definitive biography – but it is engaging and "skilfully done".

The fame of the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy rested largely on the heroines he created, said Norma Clarke in Literary Review. With the likes of Tess Durbeyfield (Tess of the d'Urbervilles) and Sue Bridehead (Jude the Obscure), he displayed, as one young reader wrote to him, a "complete understanding of a woman's soul". But as Paula Byrne shows in this fascinating book, the women Hardy knew in real life were less fortunate. Byrne doggedly details them all, from Hardy's "strong-minded" mother, Jemima, to the "pretty girls" who "turned his head" in his youth, to his wives, Emma Gifford and Florence Dugdale (pictured, with Hardy). Hardy's women, she concludes, "paid a large price" for the "magnificent fictional women he invented". "In a sign of trouble to come, young Hardy fell in love violently and often," said Susie Goldsbrough in The Times . His first serious entanglement, says Byrne, "was with a Dorset maidservant called Eliza Nicholls, whom he dumped for her young sister".

In his mid-30s, Hardy married Emma, a solicitor's daughter. Although initially happy, the marriage soured as "Emma gained weight" and became increasingly eccentric. By the time of her death, aged 72, in 1912, she was living in the attic of their Dorset home – and the much younger Florence was living with them, having been employed as Hardy's typist. After Hardy married Florence in 1914, she had to put up with him "enthusiastically mourning the wife he had spent years complaining about" – and who now became the subject of an "astonishing" series of love poems. Although Byrne is sometimes hampered by a lack of evidence (Hardy destroyed most of Emma's letters, together with the journal she wrote about him), this is still an "absorbing" portrait of the women who suffered for Hardy's art.

In January 2008 – 11 months after the notorious occasion when she shaved off her own hair in a Los Angeles salon – Britney Spears was asked by her parents to meet them at their beach house, said Anna Leszkiewicz in The New Statesman . "There she was ambushed by police and taken to hospital against her will." A month later, the state of California placed the pop star under a "conservatorship" – a legal arrangement giving her father, Jamie, full control of her finances and personal life. For the next 13 years, Spears was "told what to eat, what medication to take, when she could see her children", even when she could and couldn't use the lavatory. Meanwhile, her father "paid himself a $6m salary" from the proceeds of her endless concerts and recordings. It's no surprise, in the circumstances, that Spears's memoir reads "like a dark fairy tale". Powerful and compellingly candid, it tells of how a "young girl, both adored and vilified for her beauty, talent and fame", was effectively "imprisoned" by her jealous and avaricious family.

The truth, of course, is that Spears had always been controlled and infantilised, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph . She became a "people-pleasing child performer" at a young age, supporting her family by appearing in theatrical musicals. Aged 16, male music executives moulded her into "America's teen pop princess" – and soon she was being taken advantage of by "narcissistic self-serving boyfriends", and "hounded by paparazzi". When she rebelled against her "powerlessness", her sanity was called into question – a process she "specifically likens to a witch trial". Her memoir, written without self-pity, is gripping and "forensically convincing". Finally, we know what it feels like to be the "madwoman in the attic of pop".

"Imagine a story of sex, drugs and secrets inside Downing Street. A story of a political wife accused of meddling, and a resignation honours list mired in scandal," said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian . But no, it's not the one you're imagining: this biography by Linda McDougall tells the "irresistible tale" of Marcia Williams, political secretary and "office wife" to Labour PM Harold Wilson. Baroness Falkender, as she became in 1974, was one of the most controversial and vilified political figures of the 1960s and 1970s. According to many, she was a "hysterical tyrant" with a "dark hold" over Wilson. McDougall offers a more nuanced portrait. Without ignoring Williams's flaws, she outlines the strains she must have been under, as a high-achieving woman with a troubled personal life living in rampantly sexist times. Her Williams, while "no heroine", is "fascinating".

Williams, the daughter of a Northamptonshire builder, first met Wilson in the mid-1950s, when she became a secretary at Labour HQ, said Frances Wilson in The Daily Telegraph . She began sending the then-shadow chancellor anonymous letters, alerting him to machinations within the party. She soon became Wilson's private secretary – at which point, McDougall admits, they probably had a brief affair. (She later allegedly told Wilson's wife, Mary: "I went to bed with your husband six times in 1956 and it wasn't satisfactory.") In 1964, when Wilson became PM, he appointed Williams his political secretary, a newly created role that made her one of Britain's first unelected political advisers. She stayed in it when Wilson lost power in 1970, and went with him back to Downing Street when he regained it in 1974.

It was then that Private Eye revealed that "Lady Forkbender" had a shocking secret, said Anne de Courcy in The Spectator . In 1968 and 1969, Williams had given birth to two children – the result of an affair with political journalist Walter Terry. The births had been hushed up; Williams concealed her pregnancies by wearing a baggy coat at work. Amid a public outcry, McDougall suggests, Williams resorted to taking amphetamine pills and Valium, "prescribed by Wilson's doctor", which contributed to the "hysterical outbursts" for which she became known. Further scandal followed in 1976, when it was revealed that Williams had hand-written Wilson's controversial resignation honours list (dubbed the "Lavender List") on a sheet of lilac paper. McDougall's sympathetic book is a "gripping" portrait both of an "extraordinary woman", and of the "emotional dynamics of Downing Street".

Lou Reed, the lead vocalist of the Velvet Underground, who died in 2013, already has a longish shelf of biographies. This one is the first to make use of his personal archive, "and it shows", said David Keenan in Literary Review . "It feels more like a coolly researched biography than one written by a passionate fan." What's more, Will Hermes tries to repackage the "violently aggressive, drug-huffing", gender-bending, "sexually unhinged" rock star to make him acceptable to the modern world: Reed and his circle were "nonbinary", Hermes informs us; he suggests that Reed was a troubled person who tried to become "someone good" (as he wrote in one of his best-loved songs, Perfect Day), not the sociopath that his behaviour suggested. The result is an "awkward love letter to the 20th century", but "the perfect biography of Lou Reed for 2023": a defensive depiction of a man whose stock in trade was "all that was difficult and dark and destructive in what it is to be human".

It's "the only Lou Reed bio you need to read", said Stephen Metcalf in The Washington Post . It's really two biographies: one of Lewis Allan Reed, the sensitive, middle-class, midcentury music fan; and one of the louche, sardonic, drug-addled persona he invented and inhabited. From Reed's early days with Andy Warhol to his breakthrough as a solo star, with a little help from David Bowie, it's all there, written up with a judicious blend of "love and scepticism". Hermes doesn't conceal the evidence that Reed became a pampered celeb who could be as obnoxious to waiters as he was to journalists. But he's good on Reed's "musically confrontational" yet "unabashedly romantic" songwriting. The book gets the balance between the person and the poseur "exactly right".

This "devastatingly good" memoir recounts how its author "swapped a love of Jesus for a love of Class-A drugs", said The Daily Telegraph . Following his strict evangelical upbringing in Swansea, Hill won a scholarship to Harrow and then went to Oxford – where he became addicted to heroin. The themes of this book are not exactly original, said The Guardian . But it proves "propulsive" and "brilliant" – thanks to Hill's black humour and his "lacerating candour".

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Read These Books on the Menendez Brothers If You Want More Details After Watching “Monsters”

Written from the perspective of jury members to Los Angeles Times reporters.

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

If you’ve found yourself binge-watching the new Netflix crime series Monsters: The Menendez Brothers , you’re not alone. The show garnered 12.3 million views over its first weekend on the platform, according to reporting by The Wrap . The brothers, and subjects of the series, Erik and Lyle Menendez , quickly became notorious in 1989 for murdering their parents: José , a successful entertainment executive, and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez . The news of how the two were shot to death in their Los Angeles home led to national interest and the boys’ highly televised trial in the early 1990s.

The case intertwined with Hollywood connections, shocking secrets, and gruesome evidence. The brothers cited a history of emotional and sexual abuse as the exact reason why they killed their parents and were each sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. The national obsession has spawned no shortage of TV shows, documentaries, and books. If you want to learn more about the brothers in the wake of the renewed interest caused by the show, consider these books, now available on Amazon.

BenBella Books “The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation” by Robert Rand

Robert Rand is a reporter for The Miami Herald who covered both trials and the original investigation for nearly 30 years, and his book is a deep dive into the secrets of childhood abuse up until the brother’s murder conviction. It’s a number one new release in crime and criminal biographies and is available on Kindle, audiobook, or paperback.

Temple University Press “Hung Jury: The Diary of a Menendez Juror” by Hazel Thornton

Hazel Thornton, who served for seven months as Juror #9 on the first Mendendez brothers’ murder trial, republished her book — Hung Jury: The Diary of a Menendez Juror — in 2018. The read (available on Kindle, as a paperback and audiobook) includes Thorton’s perspective on the case, including her observations on the second trial.

Phoenix Books “The Private Diary of Lyle Menendez: In His Own Words” by Lyle Menendez

This audiobook is intriguing because it comes directly from the source: Lyle Menendez himself. The story highlights the brothers’ thought process behind the murders. It’s another first-hand account that will inspire you to dive deeper into the trials and dark life of the Menendez family.

Amazon “The Menendez Brothers’ Story” by Laura D. Everett

If you’re looking for a more updated account of the Menendez brother’s story, this paperback or Kindle book is it. Published in 2024, this story covers everything from the early lives of Lyle and Erik to the night of the murders to their current reflections and plans for reduced sentences and prison reform advocacy.

Graymalkin Media “Blood Brothers: The Inside Story of the Menendez Murders” by Ron Soble and John Johnson

From two Los Angeles Times reporters who covered the case, this book gives in-depth details on the rollercoaster that was the trial of the Menendez murders. You can shop it in Kindle or paperback format to learn more of a comprehensive overview of the family and the harrowing details that led to the brothers’ prosecution.

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Books for Fans of Country Music

If you love country music, these books are a perfect match. This mix of fiction and non-fiction dives into the world of country, featuring biographies of your favorite artists, the rich history of the genre, and romantic tales with a country twist. Whether you’re looking for real-life stories of the legends who shaped country music or sweet romances set in small towns and wide-open landscapes, these books capture the heart and soul of country living. From the wholesome to the wild, these reads are sure to feed your country soul after the Country Music Awards.

Run, Rose, Run by Dolly Parton, James Patterson

A new singer named AnnieLee Keyes arrives in Nashville, brimming with talent, beauty, and ambition, but haunted by a dangerous past. When country star Ruthanna Ryder, who’s retired but still writes music in secret, hears AnnieLee perform, she decides to help her. However, this mentorship may also expose AnnieLee’s hidden secrets, putting her life and her dreams of stardom at risk.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage

Clementine “Emmy” Ryder feels like she’s accomplished everything she needs to after leaving her small town of Meadowlark, Wyoming, going to college, and making a career out of riding horses. But when an accident takes it all away from her, she returns home, needing an escape. Upon her return, she walks into the bar of notorious bad-boy and bachelor Luke Brooks, who finally sees her as more than just his best friend’s little sister. Does Emmy have too much on her plate, or will the two create a spark that changes their lives forever?

A Little Bit Country by Brian D. Kennedy

In this heartfelt and funny YA contemporary romance inspired by Dollywood, debut author Brian D. Kennedy tells the story of two boys who fall in love at a country music-themed amusement park. Seventeen-year-old Emmett dreams of being country music’s biggest gay superstar, while Luke, who hates country music due to his family’s painful past, takes a job at the park out of necessity. As sparks fly between them, a long-buried secret threatens to derail their budding romance, leaving them to face whether their love will be another sad country song or something more.

Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner

Recommended by Emily Henry as a “story of love, healing, and second chances,” this novel follows Colton Gentry, a struggling country musician who moves back to his rural Kentucky hometown after his career and marriage implode. Still reeling from the trauma of losing his best friend to a mass shooting, Colton unexpectedly reconnects with his high school sweetheart, Luann, who has also reinvented herself. Through alternating timelines, Colton Gentry’s Third Act explores grief, redemption, and the hope of second chances.

 The Farewell Tour by Stephanie Clifford

Set against a richly detailed historical backdrop, The Farewell Tour follows country music star Lillian Waters on her final tour in 1980 as she confronts the choices that shaped her life. Spanning key eras—The Depression, World War II, and the rise of Nashville—the novel captures her struggles in a male-dominated industry. With evocative settings and a powerful exploration of ambition, creativity, and sacrifice, it tells the story of a woman seeking redemption.

All I Want for Christmas by Maggie Knox

Two rival reality-star country singers, Sadie and Max, must fake a relationship to stay in the competition on “Starmaker”. Their onstage chemistry sends fans into a frenzy, and the network insists they keep up the act offstage. With their big Nashville break on the line, will their phony romance turn real by the holiday finale?

Forever and Ever Amen by Randy Travis

Forever and Ever, Amen tells the personal story of country music icon Randy Travis, chronicling his rise from a working-class background to stardom with over 25 million albums sold. Despite his success, Randy’s life took a dark turn in 2009 with personal struggles, financial ruin, and public scandals, followed by a life-threatening stroke. The memoir captures his miraculous recovery and redemption, highlighted by his emotional return to the stage to sing “Amazing Grace” during his 2016 Country Music Hall of Fame induction.

Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be by Marissa R. Moss

Her Country chronicles how women like Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, and Kacey Musgraves have transformed country music over the past two decades, defying an industry dominated by men. Despite limited radio play, they achieved success with crossover hits, Grammy wins, and by pushing for inclusivity. Written by Marissa R. Moss, the book reveals how these trailblazers broke the rules, reshaped the genre, and changed country music for the better.

My Black Country by Alice Randall

In My Black Country , Alice Randall, the first Black woman to co-write a number-one country hit, reflects on her connection to country music and its Black pioneers like DeFord Bailey and Charley Pride. The book celebrates the contributions of Black artists to the genre and explores their resilience, joy, and influence on American culture. As country music experiences a renaissance with new Black artists, Randall’s work offers a fresh perspective for both longtime fans and newcomers.

Me & Patsy Kickin’ Up Dust by Loretta Lynn

Me & Patsy Kickin’ Up Dust tells the untold story of the deep friendship between country music icons Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Loretta shares their bond, celebrating their rebellious spirit and defiance against societal norms, up until Patsy’s tragic death. Set in 1960s Nashville, this memoir offers a heartfelt look at their influence on country music and their lasting legacy.

Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics by Dolly Parton and Robert K. Oermann

Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics is a rich exploration of Dolly Parton’s extraordinary career, told in her own words and through 175 of her most iconic songs. Featuring personal stories, candid insights, and never-before-seen photos, it offers readers a deep dive into her songwriting and the memories behind her music. This book is a must-have for fans of Dolly Parton and lovers of music history, celebrating over 60 years of her contributions to both country music and pop culture.

She Watches Bonus

If you’re looking for some country music vibes, but need a quick watch over a book, check out Torn Hearts . Written by author of Stone Cold Fox and screenwriter Rachel Koller Croft  this film follows two country music stars on the rise who seek the mentorship and collaboration with a country music legend. But things go from a dream come true to a nightmare in a movie described as Misery meets country music.

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About the author: courtnie deckwa.

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