best history biographies of all time

The 21 most captivating biographies of all time

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• Biographies illuminate pivotal times and people in history. 
• The biography books on this list are heavily researched and fascinating stories.
• Want more books? Check out the best classics , historical fiction books , and new releases.

For centuries, books have allowed readers to be whisked away to magical lands, romantic beaches, and historical events. Biographies take readers through time to a single, remarkable life memorialized in gripping, dramatic, or emotional stories. They give us the rare opportunity to understand our heroes — or even just someone we would never otherwise know. 

To create this list, I chose biographies that were highly researched, entertainingly written, and offer a fully encompassing lens of a person whose story is important to know in 2021. 

The 21 best biographies of all time:

The biography of a beloved supreme court justice.

"Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.25

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon who spent her life fighting for gender equality and civil rights in the legal system. This is an inspirational biography that follows her triumphs and struggles, dissents, and quotes, packaged with chapters titled after Notorious B.I.G. tracks — a nod to the many memes memorializing Ginsburg as an iconic dissident. 

The startlingly true biography of a previously unknown woman

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $8.06

Henrietta was a poor tobacco farmer, whose "immortal" cells have been used to develop the polio vaccine, study cancer, and even test the effects of an atomic bomb — despite being taken from her without her knowledge or consent. This biography traverses the unethical experiments on African Americans, the devastation of Henrietta Lacks' family, and the multimillion-dollar industry launched by the cells of a woman who lies somewhere in an unmarked grave.

The poignant biography of an atomic bomb survivor

"A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb" by Paul Glynn, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.51

Takashi Nagai was a survivor of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. A renowned scientist and spiritual man, Nagai continued to live in his ruined city after the attack, suffering from leukemia while physically and spiritually helping his community heal. Takashi Nagai's life was dedicated to selfless service and his story is a deeply moving one of suffering, forgiveness, and survival.

The highly researched biography of Malcolm X

"The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X" by Les Payne and Tamara Payne, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $18.99

Written by the investigative journalist Les Payne and finished by his daughter after his passing, Malcolm X's biography "The Dead are Arising" was written and researched over 30 years. This National Book Award and Pulitzer-winning biography uses vignettes to create an accurate, detailed, and gripping portrayal of the revolutionary minister and famous human rights activist. 

The remarkable biography of an Indigenous war leader

"The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History" by Joseph M. Marshall III, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.99 

Crazy Horse was a legendary Lakota war leader, most famous for his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn where Indigenous people defeated Custer's cavalry. A descendant of Crazy Horse's community, Joseph M. Marshall III drew from research and oral traditions that have rarely been shared but offer a powerful and culturally rich story of this acclaimed Lakota hero.

The captivating biography about the cofounder of Apple

"Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.75

Steve Jobs is a cofounder of Apple whose inventiveness reimagined technology and creativity in the 21st century. Water Issacson draws from 40 interviews with Steve Jobs, as well as interviews with over 100 of his family members and friends to create an encompassing and fascinating portrait of such an influential man.

The shocking biography of a woman committed to an insane asylum

"The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear" by Kate Moore, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $22.49

This biography is about Elizabeth Packard, a woman who was committed to an asylum in 1860 by her husband for being an outspoken woman and wife. Her story illuminates the conditions inside the hospital and the sinister ways of caretakers, an unfortunately true history that reflects the abuses suffered by many women of the time.

The defining biography of a formerly enslaved man

"Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $12.79

50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States, Cudjo Lewis was captured, enslaved, and transported to the US. In 1931, the author spent three months with Cudjo learning the details of his life beginning in Africa, crossing the Middle Passage, and his years enslaved before the Civil War. This biography offers a first-hand account of this unspoken piece of painful history.

The biography of a famous Mexican painter

"Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo" by Hayden Herrera, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $24.89

Filled with a wealth of her life experiences, this biography of Frida Kahlo conveys her intelligence, strength, and artistry in a cohesive timeline. The book spans her childhood during the Mexican Revolution, the terrible accident that changed her life, and her passionate relationships, all while intertwining her paintings and their histories through her story.

The exciting biography of Susan Sontag

"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $20.24

Susan Sontag was a 20th-century writer, essayist, and cultural icon with a dark reputation. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, archived works, and photographs, this biography extends across Sontag's entire life while reading like an emotional and exciting literary drama.

The biography that inspired a hit musical

"Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.04

The inspiration for the similarly titled Broadway musical, this comprehensive biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton aims to tell the story of his decisions, sacrifice, and patriotism that led to many political and economic effects we still see today. In this history, readers encounter Hamilton's childhood friends, his highly public affair, and his dreams of American prosperity. 

The award-winning biography of an artistically influential man

"The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke" by Jeffrey C Stewart, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $25.71

Alain Locke was a writer, artist, and theorist who is known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Outlining his personal and private life, Alain Locke's biography is a blooming image of his art, his influences, and the far-reaching ways he promoted African American artistic and literary creations.

The remarkable biography of Ida B. Wells

"Ida: A Sword Among Lions" by Paula J. Giddings, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.99

This award-winning biography of Ida B. Wells is adored for its ability to celebrate Ida's crusade of activism and simultaneously highlight the racially driven abuses legally suffered by Black women in America during her lifetime. Ida traveled the country, exposing and opposing lynchings by reporting on the horrific acts and telling the stories of victims' communities and families. 

The tumultuous biography that radiates queer hope

"The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" by Randy Shilts, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.80

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official in California who was assassinated after 11 months in office. Harvey's inspirational biography is set against the rise of LGBTQIA+ activism in the 1970s, telling not only Harvey Milk's story but that of hope and perseverance in the queer community. 

The biography of a determined young woman

"Obachan: A Young Girl's Struggle for Freedom in Twentieth-Century Japan" by Tani Hanes, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $9.99

Written by her granddaughter, this biography of Mitsuko Hanamura is an amazing journey of an extraordinary and strong young woman. In 1929, Mitsuko was sent away to live with relatives at 13 and, at 15, forced into labor to help her family pay their debts. Determined to gain an education as well as her independence, Mitsuko's story is inspirational and emotional as she perseveres against abuse. 

The biography of an undocumented mother

"The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story" by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $18.40

Born in Mexico and growing up undocumented in Arizona, Aida Hernandez was a teen mother who dreamed of moving to New York. After being deported and separated from her child, Aida found herself back in Mexico, fighting to return to the United States and reunite with her son. This suspenseful biography follows Aida through immigration courts and detention centers on her determined journey that illuminates the flaws of the United States' immigration and justice systems.

The astounding biography of an inspiring woman

"The Black Rose: The Dramatic Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black Female Millionaire" by Tananarive Due, available on Amazon for $19

Madam C.J. Walker is most well-known as the first Black female millionaire, though she was also a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and born to former slaves in Louisiana. Researched and outlined by famous writer Alex Haley before his death, the book was written by author Tananarive Due, who brings Haley's work to life in this fascinating biography of an outstanding American pioneer.

A biography of the long-buried memories of a Hiroshima survivor

"Surviving Hiroshima: A Young Woman's Story" by Anthony Drago and Douglas Wellman, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.59

When Kaleria Palichikoff was a child, her family fled Russia for the safety of Japan until the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima when she was 22 years old. Struggling to survive in the wake of unimaginable devastation, Kaleria set out to help victims and treat the effects of radiation. As one of the few English-speaking survivors, Kaleria was interviewed extensively by the US Army and was finally able to make a new life for herself in America after the war.

A shocking biography of survival during World War II

"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival" by Laura Hillenbrand, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $8.69

During World War II, Louis Zamperini was a lieutenant bombardier who crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1943. Struggling to stay alive, Zamperini pulled himself to a life raft where he would face great trials of starvation, sharks, and enemy aircraft. This biography creates an image of Louis from boyhood to his military service and depicts a historical account of atrocities during World War II.  

The comprehensive biography of an infamous leader

"Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.39

Mao was a Chinese leader, a founder of the People's Republic of China, and a nearly 30-year chairman of the Chinese Communist Party until his death in 1976. Known as a highly controversial figure who would stop at very little in his plight to rule the world, the author spent nearly 10 years painstakingly researching and uncovering the painful truths surrounding his political rule.

The emotional biography of a Syrian refugee

"A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival" by Melissa Fleming, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.33

When Syrian refugee Doaa met Bassem, they decided to flee Egypt for Europe, becoming two of thousands seeking refuge and making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. After four days at sea, their ship was attacked and sank, leaving Doaa struggling to survive with two small children clinging to her and only a small inflation device around her wrist. This is an emotional biography about Doaa's strength and her dangerous and deadly journey towards freedom.

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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

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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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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.

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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25 Best Biographies of All Time: Discover History’s Most Intriguing Characters

by Yen Cabag | 2 comments

Biographies are stories of a person’s life written by someone who has thoroughly researched that individual.

This genre offers a great opportunity to learn about important figures, study the time period they lived in, and even understand more about the human condition.

When you’re choosing a biography to read, consider the people you admire, as well as the individuals you’d like to better understand.

What Are the Best Biographies to Read?

We’ve compiled a list of the best biographies to add to your reading list, featuring the life stories of people from all walks of life.

A Beautiful Mind  by Sylvia Nasar

The award-winning film A Beautiful Mind took its inspiration and content from this biography of John Nash, a well-renowned mathematician.

Nasar expertly follows Nash’s career, starting from MIT to his work at RAND Corporation. She also explores his battle against schizophrenia, a disorder that deeply challenged his life.

Carry a Big Stick: The Uncommon Heroism of Theodore Roosevelt by George Grant

This biography of former US president Theodore Roosevelt is divided into three parts: the first follows major events in his life in chronological order; the second focuses on the values he held most important; and the third includes famous quotes from the great leader.

Because Grant highlights Roosevelt’s commitment to family and children, Carry a Big Stick will challenge you to prioritize the important things in life.

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Romanovs , Nicholas and Alexandra , and Peter the Great , showcases his writing prowess with this biography of Catherine the Great.

Massie follows the journey of this obscure German princess from a minor noble family role to empress of Russia.

She led the government, cultural development, and foreign policy of Russia for 34 years, facing foreign wars, domestic rebellion, and unmatched levels of violence and political change.

The author vividly brings many of Catherine’s family members and friends, enemies, and lovers to life in this fascinating narrative.

Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity by Robert Cwiklik

Robert Cwiklik writes about the life of Albert Einstein with a flair that will enchant both adults and children. He explores Einstein’s childhood and school experiences, luring readers into the emotional struggles that the young boy experienced.

Tracing his journey through college and adulthood, the book gives a good insight into the thought processes of this genius known for his unruly hair and ragged outfits.

Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill by Stephen Mansfield

Stephen Mansfield expertly portrays the life and works of respected historian Winston Churchill. With Churchill being among the few who called out the potential darkness in Adolf Hitler’s plans, Mansfield masterfully crafts the narrative behind the man’s thought processes.

The author traces Churchill’s difficult childhood of being unwanted by his father and needing to self-teach in order to advance in life.

Readers will learn how Churchill managed to beat the odds and rise to a position of influence that he wielded with unmatched skill and tenacity.

John Adams by David McCullough

Master historian David McCullough was probably the best person to write this riveting biography of America’s founding father. John Adams, who also became the second president of the United States, is a great inspiration to many young Americans.

McCullough reveals the man of brilliance through his powerful writing in this epic biography. Adams is known for not holding back when it came to his desire for the American Revolution, but he also kept his country from an unnecessary war.

This biography includes insights into politics, social issues, and war, as well as love, faith, friendship, and even betrayal.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow offers readers a look into the life of another primary figure in American history, Alexander Hamilton. This book is the first full-length biography on the man who helped shape America in its youngest years.

With Hamilton being one of the most controversial and misunderstood figures in American history, Chernow sets out to clear the facts about this man.

He presents the direct results of Hamilton’s unrelenting efforts to push his ideas, many of which were disputed greatly during his time.

The book starts with Hamilton’s childhood years as an illegitimate orphan who had much to learn on his own. Hailing from the Caribbean, he grew up to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the army.

Chernow shows Hamilton’s passion for patriotism, as well as his steady desire to build foundations for America’s growth and prosperity.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Former Time editor Walter Isaacson wrote this extraordinary biography of the legendary Steve Jobs through a series of more than 40 interviews that took place over two years.

Isaacson also took the time to interview more than 100 of Jobs’s family and friends, enemies and competitors, and colleagues.

The book traces the roller coaster journey of this amazing entrepreneur, highlighting his intense personality and unrivaled desire for perfection.

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Isaacson once again proves his writing prowess with this biography of one of history’s greatest artists, Leonardo da Vinci.

This book covers not only da Vinci’s great masterpieces, but also delves into the heart of a genius. He portrays the great artist as a self-confident, self-taught entrepreneur: da Vinci never stopped promoting his abilities to wealthy benefactors.

Mozart: A Life by Peter Gay

Historian and National Book Award winner Peter Gay delivers this amazing biography of the world’s greatest composer.

This story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart opens with an engaging narrative that delves into the personality of this musical genius. It also unveils many of the economic and political events that impacted his life.

Gay’s biography boldly tackles some of the myths around Mozart’s life. For example, rumors circulate that he was buried in a pauper’s grave and that he was poisoned by a musical rival.

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

Montefiore 2003 biography of Stalin explores what happens when leaders misuse and abuse their power. The writer boldly shows how Stalin came by his power through many violent, and even murderous, ways.

He includes several examples of how Stalin would initially reach out to others, such as fellow politicians or party members, but end up abandoning—or even eliminating them—as he pursued his own goals.

Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Greenblatt candidly explores the humble beginnings of this young man from a small provincial town who would take London by storm—and in a surprisingly short period of time, William rises to become the greatest playwright for generations.

The author gives readers insight to the boy’s highly sensitive nature, allowing us to experience the things he experienced in the richness of life in the Elizabethan era.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Henrietta Lacks, known among scientists as HeLa, did not know her cells would be so pivotal in the study of medicine, but in 1951, scientists took her cells and used them to develop a vaccine for polio and for intensive gene research.

Rebecca Skloot effectively explores the issues of race, ethics, and medicine by studying the life of this virtually unknown black tobacco farmer.

Her family remains in poverty, but scientists have bought and sold her cells by the billions. This biography also challenges readers with real questions from someone directly affected by genetic research.

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

Many biographers have undertaken a study of Abraham Lincoln’s life, but Doris Kearns Goodwin’s original take on Lincoln’s prowess in politics gives this biography a distinctive feel.

Goodwin traces Lincoln’s journey from congressman and prairie lawyer to his surprising rise over three great rivals in the national arena, as he became president of the United States. She delves into Lincoln’s character, which the author believes is key to his success.

Goodwin also honors Lincoln’s ability to empathize with others and feel compassion for their needs and desires, an important element in his ability to bring dissatisfied opponents to unity.

Norman Mailer: A Double Life by J. Michael Lennon

Celebrated public figure Norman Mailer was a journalist, novelist, filmmaker and biographer, and in this biography,  J. Michael Lennon effectively captures the ambition that drove this man.

Mailer dreamed not only of being one of the greatest writers in his generation, but to reach fame enough to rival Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.

Lennon describes Mailer, who prided himself as a novelist, as a gifted journalist who used his writing talent to dig into the American psyche. His 35 years of acquaintance with Mailer gave him an unusual look into the life of this driven man.

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House  by Jon Meacham

Jon Meacham wrote a remarkable biography of Andrew Jackson, the man often credited with creating the “modern” presidency.

The orphaned Jackson rose from nothing, fighting his way to the heights of power and inspiring the nation to embrace democracy.

In 1828, Jackson’s election paved the way for a new era wherein the people, instead of the elite group, guided American politics.

Meacham uses newly discovered family letters and documents to detail the drama that affected the family and Jackson’s inner circle of advisers.

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

Laura Ingalls Wilder is best known for her Little House on the Prairie series of children’s historical novels. In Prairie Fires, Caroline Fraser takes a deeper look into the true story of Wilder’s life.

Using a collection of letters, unpublished manuscripts, diaries, and legal documents, Fraser crafts a masterpiece biography. She explores the details of Wilder’s real life struggle with poverty, hinted at in the Little House books.

Fraser also deals with the difficult relationship between Wilder and her journalist daughter Rose Wilder Lane, and addresses questions of ghostwriting that have surrounded her books.

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

Generations ago, Professor James Murray led a team in the daunting task of collecting definitions to create the Oxford English Dictionary.

A man named Dr. W.C. Minor surprised the team by submitting more than 10,000 entries, but further astounded them when they learned that Minor was housed in an asylum for the criminally insane.

Simon Winchester shares the excellently researched life of two men driven by their obsessions, which led to the greatest contribution to American literary history.

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

Michael Finkel traces the journey of Christopher Knight, a shy 20-year-old who left his Massachusetts home back in 1986. After driving into Maine, Knight disappeared into the forest and did not meet another human being for the next thirty years.

The author conducted countless interviews with Knight in order to craft this detailed biography, exploring his motives and experiences.

His first foray back into civilization involved stealing food for survival, so Finkel also delves into these issues as he studied the life of the hermit.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand introduces us to Louis Zamperini, a stubborn delinquent boy who grew into an Olympic runner.

But World War II changes the trajectory of his life, with Zamperini becoming an airman and crashing into the Pacific Ocean one fateful day in May, 1943.

From a struggle in the open ocean, battling starvation and leaping sharks, Zamperini would show resourcefulness and resilience in the midst of hopelessness. Unbroken will inspire you to keep going despite the challenges of life.

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

British explorer Percy Fawcett became a legend when he went into the Amazon jungles in 1925 to search for a fabled civilization and never came back.

Expert journalist David Crann shares this narrative of Fawcett’s desire to find “The Lost City of Z,” where countless others likewise perished in their search for Fawcett and his party.

Through this book, he also unveils one of the greatest mysteries in 20th century exploration.

King of the World by David Remnick

When boxing legend Muhammad Ali, formerly known as Cassius Clay, stepped into the boxing ring in 1964, face to face with Sonny Liston, nobody knew he would emerge as the new world champion for heavyweight boxing.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Remnick, who also wrote Lenin’s Tomb, expertly captures the life of Ali, including all the drama that surrounds the life of this black man who ended up transforming America’s politics around race and culture.

He follows Ali’s matches throughout his career, giving us a glimpse into the courage, grace, speed, and humor of one of the world’s greatest athletes.

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

The Chinese Cultural Revolution sent ripple effects across the world, but few know the life story of this enigmatic Chinese leader.

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday spent a decade researching and interviewing Mao Zedong’s circle of friends and family in China—a group that has remained largely mum over the years.

This provides this authoritative biography with telltale details, such as what really drove Mao, insight into his relationship with Stalin, and how he resorted to tricks and blackmail to achieve his goals.

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

Remarkably attractive Rosemary, daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy, enjoyed attending exclusive schools and was even presented to the Queen of England as a debutante. But the family guarded an important secret: the girl was intellectually disabled.

Kate Clifford Larson compassionately unveils this much adored girl, piecing information together from Rose Kennedy’s correspondence and letters, doctors’ and school letters, plus interviews with the family.

The author shares the sensitive care Rosemary’s parents gave to her, but also deals with the complexity the family had to face with their rising fame and Rosemary’s limitations.

25. Of Courage Undaunted: Across the Continent with Lewis and Clark by James Daugherty

This unique rendering of the adventures of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark comes to life with James Daugherty’s prowess as both a Newbery and Caldecott Medal winner. The book excellently traces the expedition extending from St. Louis to the West. 

Drawing from original records of the expedition, the biography shows us a clear look at the challenges Lewis and Clark faced in the wilderness, including the possibility of attack from Native Americans, sudden natural disasters, and other hardships. 

What Is the Importance of Biography?

Reading a biography can transport you to the life and times of a certain person. You get to see their thought processes, experiences, how they responded to their environment, and what shaped them as an individual.

This is an excellent and often entertaining way to study history and learn from the successes and failures of others. But biographies aren’t your only option—you can also get firsthand accounts of fascinating lives in the best memoirs .

Do you have a favorite biography? Tell us about it in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:

• 20 Best Presidential Biographies to Read This President’s Day
• The 16 Best Memoirs to Read Right Now
• How to Write a Memoir: A Step by Step Guide
• 11 Best Books about History: Fascinating Reads for History Buffs

Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.

You really believe James Boswell’s “The Life of Samuel Johnson” doesn’t deserve a place here?

This is such an interesting mixture of biographies sure to provide great education. Thank you for creating it.

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The best biographies and autobiographies ever written

Our critics chose the greatest memoirs and biographies ever written, from the definitive biography of Winston Churchill to a dazzling graphic novel about a young girl's coming-of-age in Iran

Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius (c121AD)

Suetonius was private secretary to the emperor Hadrian and although this group biography of the lives of the 12 Caesars might need an occasional pinch of strict historical salt, it is full of racy decadence and colourful detail – such as Julius Caesar’s semi-baldness, and his use of a comb-over to disguise it. Buy Lives of the Caesars from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Experience  by Martin Amis (2000)

Easily Martin Amis’s best book, in which he leaves behind the struggle for effect, stops trying to say anything serious, and in doing so creates something effective and serious about his early life, his relations with his father, the death of his cousin, his various artistic rivalries, and, of course, those teeth.  Buy  Experience  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (posthumously 1964)

Published three years after his death, this is part road trip, part love letter to Paris, part study of his friendship with characters such as F Scott Fitzgerald, and wholly wonderful. It is a mystery how he remembered a moment of it, though, since he drinks so much alcohol, all the time. Try keeping up with him and you’ll be dead drunk by page four.  Buy  A Moveable Feast  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Life of Samuel Johnson   by   James Boswell (1791)

Less a biography and more an act of homage, this volume not only provides a close-up of the great lexicographer, in all his terrific wit and travels, it also brings to life an entire era. Often hugely funny – and Boswell omits no details.  Buy  The Life of Samuel Johnson  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Eminent Victorians  by Lytton Strachey (1918)

Written throughout the Great War – and some think thematically influenced by this cataclysm – this pioneering and witty group biography of major Victorians was the first to dissolve the popular image of that era’s morality and thought.  Buy  Eminent Victorians  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Goodbye to All That  by Robert Graves (1929)

Although Graves recounts the days of his childhood and the early years of his marriage, it is his chronicle of the First World War and his unflinching depiction of life in the trenches – the deadening banality of that horror – that gives this book its enduring force. His comrade Siegfried Sassoon was not happy about some of the descriptions.  Buy  Goodbye to All That  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Moon's a Balloon  by David Niven (1972)

These only semi-credible memoirs come from a seemingly happier, simpler time, and deal with the first half of the actor’s life as he made his way from Sandhurst to Hollywood. Packed with great stories, they are irresistibly charming.   Buy  The Moon's a Balloon  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Rings of Saturn  by WG Sebald (1995)

Ostensibly a memoir of Sebald’s walking tour around Suffolk, this extraordinary and profoundly haunting work is also about the echoes in landscape, the long shadows of history and the inescapability of the past – from sea-submerged villages to air force bases from which bombers flew in the war.  Buy  The Rings of Saturn  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup (1853)

A powerful tale of endurance, and a unique historical document. Solomon Northup, a free black man born in New York, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South for 12 years, until he was freed through the efforts of his friends and family. Northup's oral account of his life (dictated to the politician David Wilson) inspired an Oscar-winning 2013 film.  Buy  Twelve Years a Slave  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Diaries of Samuel Pepys  by Samuel Pepys (1660-69)

Probably as close as we can get to a time machine, Pepys famously witnesses the Great Fire of London; but more gripping throughout these hypnotically copious journals is the texture of life and love in 17th-century London. 

De Profundis  by Oscar Wilde (1897)

The Latin title translates as “from the depths”, and this 50,000-word letter addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas was written while Wilde was in jail. It examines their time together and details Wilde’s spiritual development during his incarceration.  Buy  De Profundis  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Diaries (Vol I)  by Alan Clark (1993)

Far exceeding anything he might ever have achieved in office, the late Tory MP’s diaries remain a classic of outspoken invective, political plotting, extramarital sex, vividly unpleasant character portraits and a relish-filled panorama of the snakepit that is Parliament.  Buy  Diaries (Vol I)  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas  by Gertrude Stein (1933)

About as modernist as one can get, this is actually art collector Gertrude Stein’s biography, written in the voice of her lover, Alice B Toklas. Stein was close friends with Picasso – he painted her in the manner of a stone idol – and was right at the centre of the Parisian art and literary vortex.  Buy  The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas   from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Seven Pillars of Wisdom  by T E Lawrence (1922)

An account of Lawrence’s experiences during the Arab Revolt of 1917 when he fought the Ottomans with Emir Faisal, capturing Aqaba and winning the Battle of Tafileh. The romanticism of the imagery captured in photographs – Lawrence in full Bedouin dress out in the desert – made him a sensation back in Britain.  Buy  Seven Pillars of Wisdom  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Testament of Youth   by Vera Brittain (1933)

In the Great War, Brittain was a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. She lost her fiancé on the Western Front, then her brother and then her two closest male friends. She vowed to write their stories, and about her war experiences, as a form of a memorial.  Buy  Testament of Youth  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

My Family and Other Animals  by Gerald Durrell (1956)

This account of naturalist Durrell’s childhood years in Corfu is an unforgettable blend of wonderful human comedy – the foibles of older relatives and family associates as seen through a child’s eyes – plus those same eyes looking in wonder at the abundance and variety of wildlife in the world around.  Buy  My Family and Other Animals  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Homage to Catalonia  by George Orwell (1938)

A memoir of a searingly intense time: Orwell’s months in Spain during the Civil War, when he fought the fascists alongside mountain peasants. Among many unforgettable images – the terror in Barcelona, the moment he was shot in the neck – was the pervasiveness of the lice, and their fondness for trousers. It's even better Orwell's more widely read Down and Out in Paris and London.  Buy  Homage to Catalonia  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Diary of a Young Girl  by Anne Frank (1947)

The story is so well rehearsed and yet the details still astound; not merely the fear and the claustrophobia, but the different shades of human behaviour and endurance. The nightmarish circumstances of her deportation and death in Bergen-Belsen mean that no matter how familiar her story may feel, no one should ever overlook it.  Buy  The Diary of a Young Girl   from the Telegraph Bookshop today

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  by Maya Angelou (1969)

The poet’s hugely influential biography (this was the first volume, dwelling on her early years) was on the US bestseller lists for two years. The story of her childhood is harrowing – the racism of the deep south and the trauma of rape. But it is also to do with the freedom that literacy and poetry brings.  Buy  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Wild Swans  by Jung Chang (1991)

Following the lives of three generations of the Chang family through the turmoil of 20th-century China, this biography is a personal account that casts incandescent light on the lives and experiences of ordinary Chinese people in extraordinary and often evil times.  Buy  Wild Swans  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects  by Giorgio Vasari (1550)

The biographical work that laid the foundations for Renaissance art history, Vasari's study made the reputations of many of the “Old Masters” but he also peppers his “lives” with vivid detail – including allegations that Andrea del Castagno murdered Domenico Veneziano, a claim that is still controversial today.  Buy  Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Walden  by Henry David Thoreau (1854)

Equal parts memoir, philosophical tract and wilderness how-to guide, Thoreau's masterpiece is an Arcadian account of two years pursuing the simple life, living in a cabin on a patch of woodland owned by his friend, the author Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Buy  Walden  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Life of Charlotte Brontë  by Elizabeth Gaskell (1857)

One great novelist delving into the mind of another. Gaskell may have glossed over a few details of her subject's life, but The Life of Charlotte Brontë – the first published study of the Jane Eyre author's life – remains the benchmark by which her later biographers' efforts are judged.  Buy  The Life of Charlotte Brontë  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Out of Africa  by Karen Blixen (1937)

First published under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen, Blixen's poetic, non-linear memories of life on a coffee plantation in British East Africa (now Kenya) caught the imagination of generations of readers. A 1985 film adaptation starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford won seven Oscars.  Buy  Out of Africa  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans (1941)

The lives of impoverished farmers during the Great Depression are captured in this remarkable coming together of word and image. Journalist and poet Agee's unconventional style of reportage finds the perfect mirror in Evans's searing black-and-white photographs.  Buy  Let Us Now Praise Famous Men  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Churchill: A Life  by Martin Gilbert (1991)

Winston Churchill has had many biographers, but few have matched the dogged determination and meticulous care of Martin Gilbert, whose official biography of the Prime Minister ran to 24 volumes and over nine million words. That may sound intimidating, but fear not: for this 1991 book Gilbert distilled all his research down to a single easily readible volume.  Buy  Churchill: A Life  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Six Minutes In May by Nicholas Shakespeare (2017)

While Gilbert covered the breadth of Churchill's career, Nicholas Shakespeare hones in on a single moment: the two-day parliamentary debate that led to him taking over from Neville Chamberlain. The story of how Churchill unexpectedly became prime minister in 1940 has never been told so amusingly, nor in such rich detail.  Buy  Six Minutes In May  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Double Helix  by James Watson (1968)

Watson's brief account of how he worked with Francis Crick to map out the structure of DNA – when he was still just 24 years old – not only captures the heady thrill of discovery, but also makes the science behind it readily comprehensible to the average reader.  Buy  The Double Helix  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Year of Magical Thinking  by Joan Didion (2005)

Five days before the writer John Gregory Dunne suffered a fatal cardiac arrest as he sat down to dinner with his wife, Joan Didion, the couple had been plunged, without preparation, into a nightmare. Their only child, Quintana, had entered a coma induced by septic shock, the end result of what had seemed like a normal winter flu. In his harrowing memoir, Didion's triumph is to show us that artifice – the shaping of prose, the arrangement of memory – need not strip the rawness of lived experience of its power.  Buy  The Year of Magical Thinking  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Peter the Great: His Life and World  by Robert K Massie (1981)

Massie's scrupulously researched 650-page tome is the definitive study of the great Tsar, highlighting the achievements of the cultural revolution he brought about in Russia. An equally impressive biography of Catherine the Great followed in 2012.  Buy  Peter the Great: His Life and World  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Maus  by Art Spiegelman (1991)

The first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize was inspired by Spiegelman's memories of the harrowing bedtime stories his grandfather would tell him “about life in the old country during the war”. In this magical realist vision of the Holocaust, his Jewish family are drawn as mice, fleeing from Nazi cats.  Buy  Maus  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius  by Dave Eggers (2000)

Despite the hubristic title, the American author's bitterly funny memoir is a study in self-deprecation. Blending elements of autobiography and fiction, it follows the author's attempts to care for his younger brother Toph after their parents' deaths. The movie rights were sold for $2 million, but Eggers's unique talent never translates easily to the screen; the film fizzled out in development hell.  Buy A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgård (2009-2011)

Knausgård poured his every waking thought – even his most uncomfortable moments – into this epic sequence of six autobiographical novels, which paints a vivid portrait of the Norwegian author's difficult relationship with his family. For its sheer candour and ambition, it is undeniably a modern classic.  Buy My Struggle  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (2011)

Steve Jobs' official biography is not the uncritical hagiography that many might expect; Jobs emerges as a complex, driven human being who made sacrifices to get to a position where he ran Apple, was on the board of Disney and arguably reinvented digital media. Isaacson traces the entrepreneur's obsessive personality back to his childhood, asking how being put up for adoption shaped his character.  Buy Steve Jobs  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Persepolis  by Marjane Satrapi (2000)

In simple, bold, black-and-white drawings, Satrapi's two-volume graphic novel (later adapted into an acclaimed film) tells the story of her childhood as the daughter of two well-meaning Marxists in revolutionary Iran. Through her six-year-old eyes, and later as a student, she recounts the experience of both the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq, and she does so with both seriousness and charm.  Buy Persepolis  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Anthony Blunt: His Lives   by Miranda Carter (2001)

When it was revealed in 1979 that Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, had been a Soviet secret agent, the news was incredible to most who knew him. In this exactingly researched biography, Miranda Carter shows how completely the facade disguised the truth, examining every aspect of Blunt's life, from schoolboy to disgraced spy. Buy Anthony Blunt: His Lives  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

Giving up the Ghost  by Hilary Mantel (2003)

In her moving but unsentimental memoir, the two-time Booker Prize-winner scrutinises her own history with the same sharp eye that she brought to the life of Thomas Cromwell in her novel Wolf Hall. Without self-pity, Mantel explains how she spent much of her life in crippling pain due to her undiagnosed endometriosis.  Buy Giving up the Ghost  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson (2018)

With scholarship of the highest class, this outstanding biography presents with utter clarity the life of a man who, he concludes, for all his faults, "saved the honour of France". De Gaulle did that in his supreme moment in June 1940, when he caught a ride on a plane to England as the Wehrmacht tore through France, and convinced Churchill to adopt him as a symbol of France's continuing fight after Pétain had capitulated to the Nazis.  Buy A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Hare with the Amber Eyes  by Edmund de Waal (2010)

The renowned potter retraces his family history through the story of his uncle Iggy's collection of Japanese netsuke figures, following the antique model hare of the title down a rabbit-hole of personal history that leads him to Odessa, Paris and Nazi-occupied Vienna.  Buy The Hare with the Amber Eyes   from the Telegraph Bookshop today

The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook by Michael Brooks (2017)

This strange and beautiful mixture of biography and physics describes how Jerome Cardano, an obscure 16th-century doctor and mathematician, invented modern probability theory. In a literary flourish, Brooks writes as if he is speaking directly to Cardano, visiting him in a jail-cell where he is being held by the Inquisition.  Buy The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook  from the Telegraph Bookshop today

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All Nominees • 169,518 votes total

2021 Rules & Eligibility

The 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards have two rounds of voting open to all registered Goodreads members. Winners will be announced December 09, 2021.

Opening Round: Nov 16 - 28

In the first round there are 20 books in each of the 15 categories, and members can vote for one book in each category.

Final Round: Nov 30 - Dec 05

The field narrows to the top 10 books in each category, and members have one last chance to vote!

2021 Eligibility

Books published in the United States in English, including works in translation and other significant rereleases, between November 18, 2020, and November 16, 2021, are eligible for the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards. Books published between November 17, 2021, and November 13, 2022, will be eligible for the 2022 awards.

We analyze statistics from the millions of books added, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads to nominate 20 books in each category. Opening round official nominees must have an average rating of 3.50 or higher at the time of launch. A book may be nominated in no more than one genre category, but can also be nominated in the Debut Novel category. Only one book in a series may be nominated per category. An author may receive multiple nominations within a single category if he or she has more than one eligible series or more than one eligible stand-alone book. Learn more

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75 Biographies to Read Before You Die

The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari:

Wallow in the majesty of the greatest Italian Renaissance artists, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo, Giotto, Brunellschi, and others of lofty, lasting influence.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi:

Renowned graphic artist and cartoonist Marjane Satrapi ruminates on her childhood during the Iranian Revolution, expatriate experiences in a less-than-loving Europe, and return to a militant regime.

Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker by Lynn Haney:

While known primarily as a vaudevillian and muse to the likes of Pablo Picasso, the fabulous Josephine Baker also stood up for Civil Rights and La Resistance and smashed glass ceilings for women of African descent in Europe and America.

Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith:

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith earned a Pulitzer for their look at the troubled life and ideologies behind the heavily influential abstract impressionist painter whose work was far, far more than "just drips."

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby:

As the editor-in-chief of Elle in France, Jean-Dominique Bauby chronicled the latest fashion triumphs and tragedies until a stroke rendered him largely catatonic. But his mind remained lucid, and he communicated using a system of blinks, which eventually led to this amazing biography of a fascinating, trendsetting life.

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin:

Comedy isn't easy, and some of the best, most influential practitioners worked hard and suffered worse in order to achieve even a sliver of what they have.

Just Kids by Patti Smith:

During the 1960s and 1970s, musician and poet Patti Smith and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe stood at the forefront of some major creative, political, and social changes, which the former chronicles in provocative and insightful detail.

Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal by John M. MacGregor:

Although this biography mostly covers the reclusive outsider artist's massive output of thousands of pages of illustrations and writing, his curious life story and almost magical energy for creation fully deserve contemplation.

Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France by Leonie Frieda:

The art world's most famous patroness and cultural icon of the Renaissance era frequently attracted as many scorching detractors as she did ardent admirers, so a rich stew of myths managed to engulf her with time. But once the right historian launched a painstaking inquiry into her personal letters, the reality eventually emerged.

Philip Johnson: The Architect in His Own Words by Hilary Lewis and John O'Connor:

In a series of intimate interviews, a veritable supernova of architectural significance selects his 20 favorite works and explains the thought process behind them and why he considers them so personally and professionally important.

The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait by Frida Kahlo:

Beloved, passionate Frida Kahlo and her tragic, tumultuous life come to readers in her own unique voice and artwork, placing her laudable oeuvre in its proper context.

The Quitter by Harvey Pekar and Dean Haspiel:

Underground comics juggernaut Harvey Pekar of American Splendor fame shows fans the origins of his notoriously negative, but always provocative and insightful, outlook on life.

Cash: The Autobiography by Johnny Cash:

Only the Man in Black himself could perfectly translate his transcendent badassitude from real life onto the printed page.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain:

Culinary arts still qualify as arts! Anthony Bourdain's deliciously snarky, candid autobiography explains his passionate relationship with food as well as the realities of working in a fancy-pants restaurant.

If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell:

Bruce Campbell wrote up a refreshing and fun glimpse into the Hollywood life from the perspective of a man perpetually in the throes of cult status — and, of course, absolutely loving every minute of it!

Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman:

This Pulitzer winner sees the acclaimed artist interviewing his father about his harrowing Holocaust experiences and eventual impact on his later family life.

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller:

Most people know the story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, the teacher who believed in her despite her visual and hearing impairments, but they don't always know about her later career as a hard-hitting activist campaigning for equal rights.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs:

Both Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery and Frederick Douglass' The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass obviously deserve reading for insight into the experiences of slaves in America, but Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl exists as one of the only surviving autobiographies uniquely exploring the atrocities from a female perspective.

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCort:

Ireland's saddening history of crushing poverty pops into startling life in this story of a Depression-era family struggling beneath a father whose alcoholism renders his wife and children desperate and an overarching sociopolitical climate with few opportunities to escape.

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung:

Loung Ung lived a charmed life thanks to her father's political clout, but the rise of the despotic Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge dismantled and destroyed everything when she was only five. Her family split, with the children forced into excruciating manual labor.

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford:

Members of the Armed Forces didn't just fight against the Iraqis during the first Gulf War — they also struggled against intense psychological, mental, emotional, and physical pressure almost as damaging as enemy fire.

Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsebet Bathory by Kimberly L. Craft:

Hungary's "Blood Countess" spawned a plethora of legends about her insatiable predilection for murder and possible vampirism (sorry, Twilight fans, but vampires aren't real) receives a more thorough investigation here, with primary documents either dispelling or confirming some of her more egregious crimes.

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank:

During her family's stint hiding from Nazis in a cramped, Netherlands-based attic, 13-year-old (15 at the time of capture) Anne Frank kept a journal meant to bolster her spirits and attempt to make sense of a rapidly crumbling world.

Confessions by Saint Augustine:

Theological heavyweight St. Augustine of Hippo knew a thing or two about sinning, and his reflections on the past came to leave a huge impact on Catholicism. Which, in and of itself, has left a huge impact (for better and for worse) on world history.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne:

Witness the downfall of the Comanche peoples through the eyes of their courageous, dedicated chief who just couldn't stand up to the raw power of firearms.

Comfort Woman: A Filipina's Story of Prostitution and Slavery Under the Japanese Military by Maria Rosa Henson:

During World War II, the Japanese armed forces imprisoned women from occupied territories and oppressed and raped them as prostitutes and sex slaves. At 15, Maria Rosa Henson found herself chained to such dehumanizing horrors, which she suppressed for nearly five decades before publishing.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah:

12-year-old Ishmael Beah came of age pressed into forced service as a child soldier as Sierra Leone's civil war swelled. He fought for the government, brainwashed and trained to murder rebels with an AK-47 if they dared to challenge the overarching authority.

Night by Elie Wiesel:

One of the most acclaimed, popular autobiographies of all time follows the author's survival at Auschwitz and subsequent trauma of losing everyone and everything he held dear.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky:

Without the humble cod providing sustenance on long sea voyages, imperialism's reach never would have stretched as far as it did. Even non-humans leave enough of an impact on history to warrant biographies; they just don't make for the most engaging interview subjects.

Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery:

The headstrong, hyperintelligent daughter of Teddy Roosevelt never let the prevailing arbitrary expectations of women stand in the way of her enjoyment of everything life had to offer — and not shying away from offering her opinions, either!

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou:

From a small Arkansas town to the streetcars of San Francisco, one of America's most beloved poets ruminates on the life that led her to such a stellar writing career.

Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces by Cory MacLauchlin:

The tragic, complex story behind A Confederacy of Dunces ‘ author and his posthumous publication is as incredible as the Pulitzer-winning novel itself.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway:

Ernest Hemingway's time amongst the expatriates of Paris between World Wars is immortalized here, with stories of his friendships with Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, and famously F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein:

Rather than penning a straight-up autobiography, celebrated modernist Gertrude Stein chose to reflect upon her life surrounded by the intellectual and creative elite through the lens of her secretary and lover Alice B. Toklas.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King:

Both an autobiography and a pretty handy-dandy guide to not writing terribly, the master of horror delivers a necessary read for English majors especially. Though, of course, anyone can benefit from his advice!

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi:

Half autobiography, half literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran explores how reading groups kept a professor and her female students together as the Ayatollah Khomeini's rule suppressed their rights to an education.

Why be Happy when You Could be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson:

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit , a landmark of LGBTQIA literature, pulled considerably from author Jeanette Winterson's own personal traumas as the lesbian daughter of radically Pentecostal missionaries.

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov:

This non-chronological memoir explores the controversial, but still beloved, writer's life in Russia prior to his American immigration.

Why this World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser:

Celebrated existentialist and modernist Clarice Lispector's unusual life saw her transition from the struggling child of Ukranian immigrants to a quirky and beloved Brazilian literary superstar.

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running by Haruki Murakami:

Some of the greatest works of contemporary literature, like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles , Sputnik Sweetheart , and After Dark , burst into existence thanks to their author's passion for marathon training.

I.Asimov: A Memoir by Isaac Asimov:

Even readers who dislike science-fiction still witness Isaac Asimov's thumbprint in the popular culture surrounding them, so it pays to stay in the know about his life, works, and philosophies.

Rent Girl by Michelle Tea:

The Mission District in San Francisco serves as the piquant backdrop for the irreverent, hilarious, and honest writer Michelle Tea's straightforward memoir of prostitution, drug abuse, and the girlfriend who led her down that path.

Lucky: A Memoir by Alice Sebold:

During her freshman year at Syracuse, this bestselling author suffered a horrific rape by a stranger, and she frankly discusses both the trauma and the resulting painful healing and criminal justice process here.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers:

David Eggers' curious memoir mimics the natural state of memory, with plenty of bluntly admitted edits and embellishments meant to illustrate an overarching theme of veracity versus storytelling.

The Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain:

Learn all about how one of the literary world's most razor-sharp wits approached his own writing and perceived the world around him with almost eerily keen insight.

The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto "Che" Guevara:

Before his rise to power as a Marxist guerilla in Argentina, this history-making medical student toured South America with a friend, an experience which eventually forged his political ideologies.

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama:

Long before he even considered running for president (much less actually winning!), Senator Barack Obama wrote a memoir regarding his upbringing as a mixed-race child in America, and the father he barely knew.

Gandhi: An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi:

Without ever once resorting to violence, Gandhi drove the British out of India and inspired later peaceful movements — most famously (in America, anyways) the Civil Rights era of the 1960s.

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

After a fundamentalist terrorist threatened the author with murder, she fled oppression in order to speak out about women's rights under theocratic regimes — specifically Muslim — around the world.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Clayborne Carson:

Historian Clayborne Carson compiled together the Civil Rights icon's own works into one revealing glimpse into his ideologies personal history.

Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert:

Seeing as how he kinda sorta led Great Britain through World War II, it's probably safe to assume that Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood as a rather important historical and political figure.

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela:

South Africa's first democratically-elected president formed one of the cornerstones of the anti-apartheid movement, eventually freeing indigenous peoples from the tyranny of European subjugation.

Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel:

With or without China standing poised to swell into the next great hegemonic entity, it pays to know the political forces that shaped its current form. After Mao Zedong, nobody impacted the nation during the 20th century like Deng Xiaoping, who fronted the Communist Party of China and eventually dismantled the very economic system he fought so hard to implement.

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

Prior to his shocking assassination, one of America's very first openly gay politicians worked tirelessly to ensure equal rights for his fellow San Franciscans back in the mid-1900s, setting the foundation for today's LGBT movements.

Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens:

Razor-sharp, undeniably inflammatory political commentator Christopher Hitchens reveled in his frequently diametric views, and he dissects the origins of his myriad (not to mention vocal!) opinions here.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley:

One of the all-time bestselling memoirs hails from the American Civil Rights movement, where leader Malcolm X challenged the social injustices allowing for racism and segregation to keep perpetuating their ugly selves.

Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie:

Peter the Great began ruling Russia at only ten years of age in 1682, eventually instigating a cultural overhaul inspired by Western Europe's Renaissance ideologies.

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

Nobody symbolizes the painful struggle for Burmese democracy at the international level like this courageous woman and politico. Her extraordinary life has taken her around the world, earned her an Oxford education, numerous humanitarian awards (including the Nobel Peace Prize!), and famously involved a 15-year house arrest before the peoples voted her into Parliament in April 2012.

Barbara Jordan: An American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers:

As both an African-American and a woman, Barbara Jordan broke ground as a politician in the South — a region not exactly applauded for its history of racial tolerance and equality.

John Adams by David McCullough:

Although this Founding Father quite loathed politics, he still wound up the second American president and an influential statesman whose ideologies persist on into today.

Science and Technology

My inventions: the autobiography of nikola tesla by nikola tesla:.

Only recently did this brilliant, ahead-of-his-time inventor start receiving his proper due, and anyone wanting to play catch-up should check out his eloquent discussion of his early life and eventual inspirations.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard Feynman:

Even factoring out the whole "one of the most brilliant physicists of all time" thing, Richard Feynman definitely led an incredibly interesting life. Who else can brag about painting a naked toreador?

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

Together, they discovered radium and polonium, won the Nobel Prize, and furthered humanity's understanding of what radiation meant and what it could do for numerous industries.

Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist by Adrian Desmond and James Moore:

Explore the experiences of one of the most unfairly controversial figures in the biological sciences far beyond the boundaries of his famed voyage with the H.M.S. Beagle , with keen insight into the Victorian culture what shunned and reviled him and the vestiges of that mindset remaining today.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch:

Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch used his final trip to the podium before pancreatic cancer claimed his life to deliver a message of hopes, dreams, and legacies.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot:

Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951, and a literally undying culture made from her cells eventually led to hundreds of astounding medical discoveries — including the polio virus. She never knew, nor did her family ever receive any financial compensation, and her startling legacy remained largely unknown until recently.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl:

Miraculously exiting Auschwitz, Kaufering, and Turkheim alive led to humanistic psychology juggernaut Viktor Frankl to establish some of the most significant social science theories established during the 20th century.

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnik with William L. Simon:

After breaking into some of the most sophisticated networks in the world, Kevin Mitnik decided to play with the FBI's encryption, leading to both a digital chase of crazy proportions and a lucrative partnership.

Find where the Wind Goes: Moments from My Life by Mae Jemison:

The very first African-American woman in space also impressed her contemporaries (and the general public!) with additional success as a physician, professor, dancer, actress, and entrepreneur; she's a fantastic role model for any kid or adult who doesn't take too kindly to pigeonholing!

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson:

His name and visage may remain a staple of pop culture iconography, but average readers might not as know much of Albert Einstein's interesting life and contributions to science and humanity as they probably should.

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor:

After suffering from a devastating stroke wreaking havoc on the left half of her brain, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor considered the condition a uniquely first-person opportunity to research how the body's most important organ repairs itself after such a major and frightful trauma.

The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics by Robin Marantz Henig:

Genetics research continues pushing its way into the headlines as more and more researchers delve into the body's scientific coding, and it all started with a humble Moravian experimenting with the pea plants in his garden.

Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton by Richard S. Westfall:

Sir Isaac Newton's contributions to science, technology, and mathematics make him seem almost a myth than a man, but biographer Richard S. Westfall infuses his biography with plenty of very human moments to counteract this perception.

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks:

Stereotypes continue accusing the mentally ill of incompetence and inferiority, a frankly stupid mindset USC psychology and law professor Elyn R. Saks has devoted her entire career to dismantling. Herself a schizophrenic, she speaks of these dangerous perspectives from personal and professional angles alike in both her memoir and her body of academic work.

The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson:

Copious charm, humor, and intelligence have all established Neil deGrasse Tyson's status as a beloved popular science figurehead who makes the mindbending realities of astrophysics accessible to a wider audience. His engaging autobiography delves into how he first discovered a passion for how the universe keeps a-spinnin' and eventually parlayed it into a career he just plain loves.

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..

The Best Historical Biographies of Influential Figures and Events

From Ulysses S. Grant to Juneteenth, Sylvia Plath to James Baldwin, here are biographies that make you think again about famous historical events and trailblazers.

I was pondering—as one does—what makes history come alive, and I noticed listeners often say, “This is the biography X deserves!” when they love a title. Sometimes biographies are about multiple people or a famous event, but a great biography manages through deep research and narrative arc to provide a fresh take on a familiar subject. Here, I’ve curated my favorite biographies that reveal a “household name” in a whole new way in audio; all of them feature rich historic detail and unpausable, stellar narration. Enjoy!

Jesus Christ

By Reza Aslan

Narrated by Reza Aslan

A fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth....

To look at the historical Jesus within the context of Roman-occupied Palestine seems to fascinate everyone: Christians, atheists, and adherents to other religions. The author’s narration adds to the experience of Zealot .

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

By Jack Weatherford

Narrated by Jonathan Davis, Jack Weatherford

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400....

It took an anthropologist—who spent years learning Mongolian, living on the steppes for a part of each year, and listening for the truth of Genghis Khan’s life—to flesh out a biography of a man whose life may actually have been bigger than his myth.

George Washington

You Never Forget Your First

By Alexis Coe

Narrated by Brittany Pressley, Alexis Coe

With irresistible style and warm humor, You Never Forget Your First combines rigorous research and lively storytelling that will have listeners - including those who thought presidential biographies were just for dads - inhaling every word....

The father of our country, up close and personal. Alexis Coe delves into primary sources to assemble a picture of Washington that includes but is not limited to the truth about those wooden teeth, his complex and loving relationship with family members, the enslaved people he owned, and of course his political and military wisdom.

Ulysses S. Grant

By Ron Chernow

Narrated by Mark Bramhall

Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant....

The Civil War didn’t win itself, people. Grant was a brilliant military supply problem-solver who inspired the loyalty of those he commanded, and he was an underrated president too. Ron Chernow’s prose and Mark Bramhall’s narration are both sublime!

On Juneteenth

By Annette Gordon-Reed

Narrated by Karen Chilton

The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth’s integral importance to American history, as told by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Texas native....

Almost everyone has heard of Juneteenth, but it took Annette Gordon-Reed’s essays to drive home the deep and multifaceted meaning of the holiday. Growing up in Texas, she shares how Juneteenth history is a part of her state’s, and our nation’s, history.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Prairie Fires

By Caroline Fraser

Narrated by Christina Moore

Since her wholesome familial autobiographies are almost universally read and nearly synonymous with her name, you might think you know all there is to know about Laura Ingalls Wilder. But through the unfiltered eye of an outsider, Prairie Fires brings the dramatic and tumultuous life of America’s most famous pioneer girl into full light for the first time. As the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series , author Caroline Fraser is perhaps more familiar with Ingalls Wilder than anyone else alive. Meanwhile, narrator Christina Moore’s broad background in children’s lit (you may recognize her as the voice behind classics like Practical Magic , Go Ask Alice , and Julie of the Wolves ) makes her the perfect selection to illuminate the woman behind one of the world’s most treasured storybook collections.

I love the Little House books, although they aren’t perfect. Prairie Fires explores how the real Ingalls family was playing a pioneer game they couldn’t win, and how Laura Ingalls Wilder overcame and transmuted her personal grief into beloved, and flawed, works of fiction.

Winston Churchill

The Splendid and the Vile

By Erik Larson

Narrated by John Lee, Erik Larson

John Lee is known for narrating some epic books: Ken Follet's Kingsbridge novels, Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers , and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. He's a narrator, actor, and producer who has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine. With over 500 audiobooks under his belt, he has plenty of experience narrating everything from epic fantasy to fascinating nonfiction.

I tried not to be a fan of this book (I was Churchill-ed out, I guess), but Editor Kat’s interview with Erik Larson, and John Lee’s narration, brought out the greatness of the story. I got chills when I listened to Churchill’s 1941 Christmas Eve speech (included in the audiobook), and to know what was behind it.

Nazi Scientist Diaspora

Operation Paperclip

By Annie Jacobsen

Narrated by Annie Jacobsen

Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into one of the most complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secrets of the 20th century....

Annie Jacobsen draws upon declassified American and German documents to sketch out Operation Paperclip, the government program to repatriate (formerly?) Nazi scientists from the defunct Third Reich to America after World War II.

Alan Turing

Alan Turing: The Enigma

By Andrew Hodges

Narrated by Gordon Griffin

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) saved the Allies from the Nazis....

The genius of Alan Turing is as much about what he overcame as about what he accomplished. Bonus: This is the book upon which the film was based!

Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By Rebecca Skloot

Narrated by Cassandra Campbell, Bahni Turpin

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences....

Henrietta Lacks wasn’t a household name when I was growing up, but she is now, thanks to this riveting bio. It traces the all-too-brief life of a poor Black mother with cancer, whose cells were used without her consent to pave the way for breakthroughs from the polio vaccine to cancer treatments.

Ethel Rosenberg

By Anne Sebba

Narrated by Orlagh Cassidy

New York Times best-selling author Anne Sebba's moving biography of Ethel Rosenberg, the wife and mother whose execution for espionage-related crimes defined the Cold War and horrified the world....

Executed after her conviction for conspiracy to commit espionage (not even actual espionage!), Ethel Rosenberg was more than a possible spy. Through her prison correspondence and other primary sources, she comes to life as a wife, a mother, an idealist, and a tragic personal story.

Sylvia Plath

By Heather Clark

Narrated by Laura Jennings

The highly anticipated new biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art....

Red Comet was a revelation to me, the first biography of Sylvia Plath that centered the story on her artistic development, not her mental illness. It was a joy to get to know the poet as the beloved daughter of an immigrant family, an earnest aspiring artist, and—to paraphrase Virginia Woolf—“a mind that consumed all impediments” in her art.

James Baldwin

Begin Again

By Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Narrated by Eddie S. Glaude

James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race....

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. wrote so much more than a mere biography of James Baldwin. His appreciation for Baldwin’s crucible in the “after-times” of post-civil rights America taught me a lot about Baldwin’s life, and even more about how Baldwin’s lived experience can inform my own path as an ordinary citizen striving for a just society.

Charles Manson

By Tom O'Neill, Dan Piepenbring

Narrated by Kevin Stillwell

Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people. Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up....

Helter Skelter was a great story, but it’s not the end of the story, or even the whole story! Chaos puts Manson in context against the backdrop of a drug-soaked youth culture, the Hollywood power structure, and CIA investigations. 20 years in the making and worth the wait!

Jimmy Carter

His Very Best

By Jonathan Alter

Narrated by Michael Boatman

Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure....

Jonathan Alter collected thousands of hours of interviews with the Carter family and colleagues to assemble a rich, evenhanded, groundbreaking look at the life of a complex president. Amazingly, there’s no other comprehensive bio that covers Carter’s early life, his Navy career, his presidency, and his post-presidential humanitarian contributions. This one sounds like a novel.

And the Band Played On

By Randy Shilts

Narrated by Victor Bevine

And the Band Played On is both a tribute to these heroic people and a stinging indictment of the institutions that failed the nation so badly....

Victor Bevine’s narration brings to life the widespread grief and hard-won triumphs of the era when AIDS burst upon the world scene. Randy Shilts tells the heroic stories of individuals in science, politics, public health, and the gay community who struggled to alert the nation to the enormity of the danger it faced.

By Walter Isaacson

Narrated by Dylan Baker

From the author of the best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, this is the exclusive biography of Steve Jobs....

Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson explores the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

Summitting Mount Everest

Into Thin Air

By Jon Krakauer

Narrated by Philip Franklin

Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author who was there (and luckily safe), Jon Krakauer. It’s the comprehensive “biography” of a tragedy, start to finish.

By Dave Cullen

Narrated by Don Leslie

"The tragedies keep coming. As we reel from the latest horror..."  So begins a new epilogue, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders". It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers....

What really happened on April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene and spent 10 years on this book, which is widely recognized as the definitive account of the Columbine High School massacre. 

The Best Biography Audiobooks to Educate, Fascinate, and Inspire

We’ve rounded up the most impressive subjects, the best authors, and some expert narrators to bring you the best biography audiobooks available on the market.

100 Years Later, Uncovering the Truth About the Tulsa Race Massacre

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 was one of the most despicable moments in US history, and it remained obscured for decades. In a growing selection of new books and podcasts, the story of what truly happened is coming to light.

•   50 best autobiographies & biographies of all time

50 best autobiographies & biographies of all time

Enlightening and inspiring: these are the best autobiographies and biographies of 2024, and all time. .

Reading an autobiography can offer a unique insight into a world and experience very different from your own – and these real-life stories are even more entertaining, and stranger, than fiction . Take a glimpse into the lives of some of the world's most inspiring and successful celebrities , politicians and sports people and more in our edit of the best autobiographies and biographies to read right now.

• New autobiographies & biographies
• Inspiring autobiographies & biographies
• Sports autobiographies & biographies
• Celebrity autobiographies & biographies
• Political & historical autobiographies
• Literary autobiographies & biographies

The best new autobiographies and biographies

Sociopath: a memoir, by patric gagne.

The most unputdownable memoir you’ll read this year, Sociopath is the story of Patric Gagne, and her extraordinary life lived on the edge. With seering honestly, Patric explains how, as a child she always knew she was different. Graduating from feelings of apathy to petty theft and stalking, she realised as an adult that she was a sociopath, uncaring of the impact of her actions on others. Sharing the conflict she feels between her impulses, and her desire to live a settled, loving life with her partner, Sociopath is a fascinating story of one woman’s journey to find a place for herself in the world. 

Charles III

By robert hardman.

Meet the man behind the monarch in this new biography of King Charles III by royal expert and journalist Robert Hardman. Charting Charles III’s extraordinary first year on the throne, a year plighted by sadness and family scandal, Hardman shares insider details on the true nature of the Windsor family feud, and Queen Camilla’s role within the Royal Family. Detailing the highs and lows of royal life in dazzling detail, this new biography of the man who waited his whole life to be King is one of 2024’s must-reads. 

Naked Portrait: A Memoir of Lucian Freud

By rose boyt.

When Rose Boyt finds her old diary in a cardboard box in the summer of 2016, she is transported back to 1989 and her teenage years, a time she never remembered as especially remarkable. However, as Rose reads her accounts of sitting for her father, the painter Lucian Feud, she begins to realise how extraordinary and shocking her experiences truly were. In Naked Portrait: A Memoir of Lucian Freud , Rose Boyt explores her relationship with her father with fresh eyes, painting a vivid portrait of the brilliant, complex man he was. 

Air and Love

By or rosenboim.

When Or Rosenboim was growing up, she knew little of her family’s complex history, with her memories of family instead rooted in the traditional dishes her grandmothers prepared with love. After they had both passed away, she began to explore their recipe books, full of handwritten notes for how to make kneidlach balls in hot chicken broth, cinnamon-scented noodle kugel and stuffed vine leaves. There, Or learned of their shared past, one fraught with displacement and change. Interspersing her family’s story with their cherished recipes, Or Rosenboim’s Air and Love is a memoir about food, migration and family.

Lisa Marie Presley's memoir

By lisa marie presley.

Lisa Marie Presley was never truly understood . . . until now. Before her death in 2023, she’d been working on a raw, riveting, one-of-a-kind memoir for years, recording countless hours of breathtakingly vulnerable tape, which has finally been put on the page by her daughter, Riley Keough.

Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary

By nina stibbe.

Ten years after the publication of the prize-winning  Love, Nina  comes the author’s diary of her return to London in her sixty-first year. After twenty years, Nina Stibbe, accompanied by her dog Peggy, stays with writer Debby Moggach in London for a year. With few obligations, Nina explores the city, reflecting on her past and embracing new experiences. From indulging in banana splits to navigating her son's dating life, this diary captures the essence of a sixty-year-old runaway finding her place as a "proper adult" once and for all.

Literature for the People

By sarah harkness.

When Daniel and Alexander Macmillan moved to London from the Scottish Highlands in 1830, little did they know that the city was on the brink of huge social change, and that they would change publishing forever. This is the story of the Macmillan brothers who, after an impoverished, working-class childhood, went on to bring Alice in Wonderland and numerous other literary classics and ideas to the world. Through meticulous research and highly entertaining storytelling, Sarah Harkness brings to life the two men who founded a publishing house which has stood the test of time for almost two centuries. 

Hildasay to Home

By christian lewis.

The follow-up to his bestselling memoir Finding Hildasay , in Hildasay to Home Christian Lewis tells the next chapter of his extraordinary journey, step by step. From the unexpected way he found love, to his and Kate's journey on foot back down the coastline and into their new lives as parents to baby Marcus, Christian shares his highs and lows as he and his dog Jet leave Hildasay behind. Join the family as they adjust to life away from the island, and set off on a new journey together. 

Life's Work

By david milch.

Best known for creating smash-hit shows including NYPD Blue and Deadwood, you’d be forgiven for thinking that David Milch had lived a charmed life of luxury and stardom. In this, his new memoir, Milch dispels that myth, shedding light on his extraordinary life in the spotlight. Born in Buffalo New York to a father gripped by drug-addiction, Milch enrolled at Yale Law befire being expelled and finding his true passion for writing. Written following his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s in 2015, in Life’s Work Milch records his joys, sadnesses and struggles with startling clarity and grace. 

Will You Care If I Die?

By nicolas lunabba.

In a world where children murder children, and where gun violence is the worst in Europe, Nicolas Lunabba's job as a social organizer with Malmö's underclass requires firm boundaries and emotional detachment. But all that changes when he meets Elijah – an unruly teenage boy of mixed heritage whose perilous future reminds Nicolas of his own troubled past amongst the marginalized people who live on the fringes of every society. Written as a letter to Elijah,  Will You Care If I Die?  is a disarmingly direct memoir about social class, race, friendship and unexpected love.

The best inspiring autobiographies and biographies

By yusra mardini.

After fleeing her native Syria to the Turkish coast in 2015, Yusra Mardini boarded a small dinghy full of refugees headed for Greece. On the journey, the boat's engine cut out and it started to sink. Yusra, her sister, and two others took to the water to push the overcrowded boat for three and a half hours in open water, saving the lives of those on board. Butterfly is Yusra Mardini's journey from war-torn Damascus to Berlin and from there to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Game. A UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and one of People magazine's 25 Women Changing the World, discover Yusra and her incredible story of resilience and unstoppable spirit.

Finding Hildasay

After hitting rock bottom having suffered with depression for years, Christian Lewis made an impulsive decision to walk the entire coastline of the UK. Just a few days later he set off with a tent, walking boots and a tenner in his pocket. Finding Hildasay tells us some of this incredible story, including the brutal three months Christian Lewis spent on the uninhabited island of Hildasay in Scotland with no fresh water or food. It was there, where his route was most barren, that he discovered pride and respect for himself. This is not just a story of a remarkable journey, but one of depression, survival and the meaning of home. 

The Happiest Man on Earth

By eddie jaku.

A lesson in how happiness can be found in the darkest of times, this is the story of Eddie Jaku, a German Jew who survived seven years at the hands of the Nazis. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, and a Jew second. All of that changed in November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. But through his courage and tenacity he still came to live life as 'the happiest man on earth'. Published at the author turns one hundred, The Happiest Man on Earth is a heartbreaking but hopeful memoir full of inspiration. 

Don't Miss

3 lessons to learn from Eddie Jaku

I know why the caged bird sings, by maya angelou.

A favourite book of former president Obama and countless others, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , recounts Angelou’s childhood in the American south in the 1930s. A beautifully written classic, this is the first of Maya Angelou's seven bestselling autobiographies. 

I Am Malala

By malala yousafzai.

After speaking out about her right to education almost cost her her life, Malala Yousafzi refused to be silenced. Instead, her amazing story has taken her all over the world. This is the story of Malala and her inspirational family, and of how one person's voice can inspire change across the globe. 

In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin

By lindsey hilsum.

In her job as a foreign correspondent, Marie Colvin reported from some of the most dangerous places in the world. It was a job that would eventually cost her her life. In this posthumous biography of the award-winning news journalist, Lindsey Hilsum shares the story of one of the most daring and inspirational women of our times with warmth and wit, conveying Colvin's trademark glamour. 

The best memoirs

This is going to hurt, by adam kay.

Offering a unique insight into life as an NHS junior doctor through his diary entries, Adam Kay's bestselling autobiography is equal parts heartwarming and humorous, and oftentimes horrifying too. With 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions and a tsunami of bodily fluids, Kay provides a no-holds-barred account of working on the NHS frontline. Now a major BBC comedy-drama, don't miss this special edition of This Is Going To Hurt including a bonus diary entries and an afterword from the author. 

The Colour of Madness

By samara linton.

The Colour of Madness  brings together memoirs, essays, poetry, short fiction and artworks by people of colour who have experienced difficulties with mental health. From experiencing micro-aggressions to bias, and stigma to religious and cultural issues, people of colour have to fight harder than others to be heard and helped. Statistics show that people from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds in the UK experience poor mental health treatment in comparison to their white counterparts, and are more likely to be held under the Mental Health Act. 

Nothing But The Truth

By the secret barrister.

How do you become a barrister? Why do only 1 per cent of those who study law succeed in joining this mysterious profession? And why might a practising barrister come to feel the need to reveal the lies, secrets, failures and crises at the heart of this world of wigs and gowns? Full of hilarious, shocking and surprising stories,  Nothing But The Truth  tracks the Secret Barrister’s transformation from hang ‘em and flog ‘em, austerity-supporting twenty-something to a campaigning, bestselling, reforming author whose writing in defence of the law is celebrated around the globe.

Is This Ok?

By harriet gibsone.

Harriet spent much of her young life feeding neuroses and insecurities with obsessive internet searching and indulging in whirlwind ‘parasocial relationships'. But after a diagnosis of early menopause in her late twenties, her relationship with the internet took a darker turn, as her online addictions were thrown into sharp relief by the corporeal realities of illness and motherhood. An outrageously funny, raw and painfully honest account of trying to find connection in the age of the internet,  Is This Ok? is the stunning literary debut from music journalist, Harriet Gibsone. 

A Letter to My Transgender Daughter

By carolyn hays.

This moving memoir is an ode to Hays' transgender daughter – a love letter to a child who has always known herself. After a caseworker from the Department of Children and Families knocked on the door to investigate an anonymous complaint about the upbringing of their transgender child, the Hays family moved away from their Republican state. In A Girlhood, Hays tells of the brutal truths of being trans, of the sacrificial nature of motherhood and of the lengths a family will go to shield their youngest from the cruel realities of the world. Hays asks us all to love better, for children everywhere enduring injustice and prejudice.

by Michelle Obama

This bestselling autobiography lifts the lid on the life of one of the most inspiring women of a generation, former first lady Michelle Obama. From her childhood as a gifted young woman in south Chicago to becoming the first black First Lady of the USA, Obama tells the story of her extraordinary life with humour, warmth and honesty. 

Kitchen Confidential

By anthony bourdain.

Regarded as one of the greatest books about food ever written, Kitchen Confidential lays bare the wild tales of the culinary industry. From his lowly position as a dishwasher in Provincetown to cooking at some of the finest restaurants across the world, the much-loved Bourdain translates his sultry, sarcastic and quick-witted personality to paper in this uncensored 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine' account of life as a professional chef. Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.

Everything I Know About Love

By dolly alderton.

Dolly Alderton, perhaps more than any other author, represents the rise of the messy millennial woman – in the very best way possible. Her internationally bestselling memoir gives an unflinching account of the bad dates and squalid flat-shares, the heartaches and humiliations, and most importantly, the unbreakable female friendships that defined her twenties. She weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age. This is a memoir that you'll discuss with loved ones long after the final page. 

The best sports autobiographies and biographies

By chris kamara.

Presenter, commentator, (sometimes masked) singer, footballer, manager and campaigner, Kammy's action-packed career has made him a bona fide British hero. Kammy had a tough upbringing, faced racism on the terraces during his playing career and has, in recent years, dealt with a rare brain condition – apraxia – that has affected his speech and seen him say goodbye to Sky Sports. With entertaining stories of his playing career from Pompey to Leeds and beyond; his management at Bradford City and Stoke; his crazy travels around the world; of  Soccer Saturday  banter; presenting  Ninja   Warrior ; and the incredible friendships he's made along the way,  Kammy  is an unforgettable ride from one of Britain's best-loved broadcasters.

Alone on the Wall

By alex honnold.

In the last forty years, only a handful of climbers have pushed themselves as far, ‘free soloing’ to the absolute limit of human capabilities. Half of them are dead. Although Alex Honnold’s exploits are probably a bit  too  extreme for most of us, the stories behind his incredible climbs are exciting, uplifting and truly awe-inspiring. Alone on the Wall  is a book about the essential truth of being free to pursue your passions and the ability to maintain a singular focus, even in the face of mortal danger. This updated edition contains the account of Alex's El Capitan climb, which is the subject of the Oscar and BAFTA winning documentary,  Free Solo .

On Days Like These

By martin o'neill.

Martin O’Neill has had one of the most incredible careers in football.   With a story spanning over fifty years, Martin tells of his exhilarating highs and painful lows; from the joys of winning trophies, promotion and fighting for World Cups to being harangued by fans, boardroom drama, relegation scraps and being fired. Written with his trademark honesty and humour,  On Days Like These  is one of the most insightful and captivating sports autobiographies and a must-read for any fans of the beautiful game.

Too Many Reasons to Live

By rob burrow.

As a child, Rob Burrow was told he was too small to be a rugby player. Some 500 games for Leeds later, Rob had proved his doubters wrong: he won eight Super League Grand Finals, two Challenge Cups, three World Club Challenges and played for his country in two World Cups. In 2019 though, Rob was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given just two years to live. He went public with the news, determined to fight it all the way. Full of love, bravery and kindness, this is the story of a man who has awed his fans with his positive attitude to life.

With You Every Step, a celebration of friendship by Rob Burrow and Kevin Sinfield

At home with muhammad ali, by hana yasmeen ali.

Written by his daughter Ali using material from her father's audio journals, love letters and her treasured family memories, this sports biography offers an intimate portrait of one of boxing's most legendary figures, and one of the most iconic sports personalities of all time. 

They Don't Teach This

By eniola aluko.

In her autobiography, footballer Eni Aluko addresses themes of dual nationality, race and institutional prejudice, success, gender and faith through her own experiences growing up in Britain. Part memoir, part manifesto for change, They Don't Teach This is a must-read book for 2020. 

The best celebrity autobiographies and biographies

By adrian edmondson.

From brutal schooldays to 80s anarchy, through The Young Ones and beyond, Berserker! is the one-of-a-kind, fascinating memoir from an icon of British comedy, Adrian Edmondson. His star-studded anecdotes and outrageous stories are set to a soundtrack of pop hits, transporting the reader through time and cranking up the nostalgia. But, as one would expect, these stories are also a guaranteed laugh as Ade traces his journey through life and comedy. 

Beyond the Story

In honor of BTS's 10th anniversary, this remarkable book serves as the band's inaugural official release, offering a treasure trove of unseen photographs and exclusive content. With Myeongseok Kang's extensive interviews and years of coverage, the vibrant world of K-pop springs to life. As digital pioneers, BTS's online presence has bridged continents, and this volume grants readers instant access to trailers, music videos, and more, providing a comprehensive journey through BTS's defining moments. Complete with a milestone timeline, Beyond the Story stands as a comprehensive archive, encapsulating everything about BTS within its pages.

Being Henry

By henry winkler.

Brilliant, funny, and widely-regarded as the nicest man in Hollywood, Henry Winkler shares the disheartening truth of his childhood, the difficulties of a life with severe dyslexia and the pressures of a role that takes on a life of its own. Since the glorious era of  Happy Days  fame, Henry has endeared himself to a new generation with roles in such adored shows as  Arrested Development and  Barry , where he’s revealed himself as an actor with immense depth and pathos. But Being Henry  is about so much more than a life in Hollywood and the curse of stardom. It is a meaningful testament to the power of sharing truth and of finding fulfillment within yourself.

What Are You Doing Here?

By floella benjamin.

Actress, television presenter, member of the House of Lords – Baroness Floella Benjamin is an inspiration to many. But it hasn't always been easy: in What Are You Doing Here?   she describes her journey to London as part of the Windrush generation, and the daily racism that caused her so much pain as a child. She has gone on to remain true to her values, from breaking down barriers as a Play School presenter to calling for diversity at the BBC and BAFTA to resisting the pressures of typecasting. Sharing the lessons she has learned, imbued with her joy and positivity, this autobiography is the moving testimony of a remarkable woman.

A Funny Life

By michael mcintyre.

Comic Michael McIntyre specialises in pin-sharp observational routines that have made him the world's bestselling funny man. But when he turns his gaze to himself and his own family, things get even funnier. This bracingly honest memoir covers the highs, lows and pratfalls of a career in comedy, as Michael climbs the greasy pole of success and desperately attempts to stay up there.

by Elton John

Elton John is one of the most successful singer/songwriters of all time, but success didn't come easily to him. In his bestselling autobiography, he charts his extraordinary life, from the early rejection of his work to the heady heights of international stardom and the challenges that came along with it. With candour and humour, he tells the stories of celebrity friendships with John Lennon, George Michael and Freddie Mercury, and of how he turned his life around and found love with David Furnish. Me is the real story of the man behind the music. 

And Away...

By bob mortimer.

National treasure and beloved entertainer, Bob Mortimer, takes us from his childhood in Middlesborough to working as a solicitor in London in his highly acclaimed autobiography. Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The book covers his numerous misadventures along his path to fame but also reflects on more serious themes, making this both one of the most humorous and poignant celebrity memoirs of recent years. 

by Walter Isaacson

Based on interviews conducted with Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson's biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is filled with lessons about innovation, leadership, and values and has inspired a movie starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet and Seth Rogen. Isaacson tells the story of the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized the tech industry. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written and put nothing off limits, making this an unflinchingly candid account of one of the key figures of modern history.

Maybe I Don't Belong Here

By david harewood.

When David Harewood was twenty-three, his acting career began to take flight and he had what he now understands to be a psychotic breakdown. He was physically restrained by six police officers, sedated, then hospitalized and transferred to a locked ward. Only now, thirty years later, has he been able to process what he went through. In this powerful and provocative account of a life lived after psychosis, critically acclaimed actor, David Harewood, uncovers a devastating family history and investigates the very real impact of racism on Black mental health.

Scenes from My Life

By michael k. williams.

When Michael K. Williams died on 6 September 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. At the time of his death, Williams had nearly finished his memoir, which traces his life in whole, from his childhood and his early years as a dancer to his battles with addiction. Alongside his achievements on screen he was a committed activist who dedicated his life to helping at-risk young people find their voice and carve out their future. Imbued with poignance and raw honesty,  Scenes from My Life  is the story of a performer who gave his all to everything he did – in his own voice, in his own words.

The best political and historical autobiographies

The fall of boris johnson, by sebastian payne.

Sebastian Payne, Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times, tells the behind-the-scenes story of the fall of former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. After being touted saviour of the Conservative Party, it took Johnson just three years to resign after a series of scandals. From the blocked suspension of Owen Patterson to Partygate and the Chris Pincher allegations, Payne gives us unparalleled access to those who were in the room when key decisions were made, ultimately culminating in Boris's downfall. This is a gripping and timely look at how power is gained, wielded and lost in Britain today.

by Sung-Yoon Lee

The Sister , written by Sung-Yoon Lee, a scholar and specialist on North Korea, uncovers the truth about Kim Yo Jong and her close bond with Kim Jong Un. In 2022, Kim Yo Jong threatened to nuke South Korea, reminding the world of the dangers posed by her state. But how did the youngest daughter of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, his ‘sweet princess’, become the ruthless chief propagandist, internal administrator and foreign policymaker for her brother’s totalitarian regime? Readable and insightful, this book is an invaluable portrait of a woman who might yet hold the survival of her despotic dynasty in her hands.

Long Walk To Freedom

By nelson mandela.

Deemed 'essential reading for anyone who wants to understand history' by former US President, Barack Obama, this is the autobiography of one of the world's greatest moral and political leaders, Nelson Mandela. Imprisoned for more than 25 years, president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, the Nobel Peace Prize winner's life was nothing short of extraordinary. Long Walk to Freedom vividly tells this story; one of hardship, resilience and ultimate triumph, written with the clarity and eloquence of a born leader. 

The Diary of a Young Girl

By anne frank.

No list of inspiring autobiographies would be complete without Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl . Charting the thirteen-year-old's time hiding in a 'Secret Annex' with her family to escape Gestapo detection, this book (which was discovered after Anne Frank's death), is a must-read, and a testament to the courage shown by the millions persecuted during the Second World War. 

The best literary autobiographies

Winner of Pulitzer Prize in Memoir, Stay True  is a deeply moving and intimate memoir about growing up and moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging. When Hua Hsu first meets Ken in a Berkeley dorm room, he hates him. A frat boy with terrible taste in music, Ken seems exactly like everyone else. For Hua, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to – the mainstream. The only thing Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, and Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the US for generations, have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them. 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By rebecca skloot.

Born to a poor black tobacco farmer in rural Virginia in 1920, Henrietta Lacks died of cancer when she was just 31. However, her story does not end there, as her cancer cells, taken without permission during her treatment continued to live on being used for research all over the world and becoming a multi-million dollar industry, with her family only learning of her impact more than two decades after her death. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman who never knew of her lifesaving impact and asks: do we ever really own our bodies? 

A Fortunate Woman

By polly morland.

Funny, emotional and imbued with great depth, A Fortunate Woman is an exploration of the life of a country doctor in a remote and wild wooded valley in the Forest of Dean. The story was sparked when writer and documentary maker Polly Morland found a photograph of the valley she lives in tucked inside a tattered copy of John Berger’s  A Fortunate Man . Itself an account of the life of a country doctor, the book inspired a woman doctor to follow her vocation in the same remote place. And it is the story of this woman that Polly Morland tells, in this compelling portrait of landscape and community.

Father and Son

By jonathan raban.

On 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body. Learning to use a wheelchair in a rehab facility outside Seattle and resisting the ministrations of the nurses overseeing his recovery, Raban began to reflect upon the measure of his own life in the face of his own mortality. Together with the chronicle of his recovery is the extraordinary story of his parents’ marriage, the early years of which were conducted by letter while his father fought in the Second World War.

Crying in H Mart

By michelle zauner.

This radiant read by singer, songwriter and guitarist Michelle Zauner delves into the experience of being the only Asian-American child at her school in Eugene, Oregon, combined with family struggles and blissful escapes to her grandmother's tiny Seoul apartment. The family bond is the shared love of Korean food, which helped Michelle reclaim her Asian identity in her twenties. A lively, honest, riveting read.

The Reluctant Carer

By the reluctant carer.

The phone rings. Your elderly father has been taken to hospital, and your even older mother is home with nobody to look after her. What do you do? Drop everything and go and help of course. But it's not that straightforward, and your own life starts to fall apart as quickly as their health. Irresistibly funny, unflinching and deeply moving, this is a love letter to family and friends, to carers and to anyone who has ever packed a small bag intent on staying for just a few days. This is a true story of what it really means to be a carer, and of the ties that bind even tighter when you least expect it. 

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The 100 best non-fiction books of all time, the best sports books and autobiographies, must reads: 50 best books of all time.

• The 60 Best History Books of All Time (to Read at Any Age)

​“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana wrote in 1905. As humans, we can only remember our own past, but we’ve also invented a mind-blowing technology: books. Because others wrote down their past right after it happened, we can “remember” a lot more than just what we’ve experienced ourselves. That’s why history books are some of the most interesting, important, and valuable reads of all — and if you’re here for an overview of the best ones, I say come in, take a seat, and get comfortable!

A good history book will transport you to a time and place in which you’ll never live and introduce you to people you’ll never get to meet. Best of all, it’ll drop you off back home safely and in time for dinner! Whether you’re curious, care about society and our planet, or want to be successful, you could do worse than to start with the history section in the library. Ray Dalio , CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund, credits studying history for his great understanding of macroeconomics — reading history books literally made him a billionaire!

So, if you’re ready to explore how humans came to be the dominating species, what pros and cons different political systems have, or which technological innovations have had the biggest impact on humanity, we’ve got just the curriculum for you. After summarizing over 1,000 books , we’ve hand-selected the absolute best titles in the history category for you.

In order to make this list easy to navigate, we’ve sorted the best history books into several groups:

Best History Books Overall

• America and the United States
• India, China, and the East
• Space, Time, and the Universe
• The Evolution of Humans
• Global Politics
• Civilization and Society
• Nation States and Political Systems
• The Evolution of Philosophy
• Climate Change & Population Growth

Best History Books With a Self-Help Angle

• Important People

For each book, we’ve included our favorite quote, a one-sentence-summary of the book, why you might want to read it, and three key takeaways. We’ve also added links to read the free summary of the book on Four Minute Books or buy a copy for yourself on Amazon. Just use the buttons below each title. Lastly, use the clickable table of contents below to quickly jump to any book or category . There should also be an arrow in the bottom right corner that you can use to come back up here at any time!

Alright, the class is in session! Let’s dive deep into the world’s best history books!

Table of Contents

1. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

2. the lessons of history by will & ariel durant, 3. the dawn of everything by david graeber & david wengrow, 4. the evolution of everything by matt ridley, 5. factfulness by hans rosling, 6. enlightenment now by steven pinker, 7. a people’s history of the united states by howard zinn .

• 8. Common Sense by Thomas Paine 

9. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

10. the warmth of other suns by isabel wilkerson, 11. orientalism by edward w. said, 12. restart by mihir s. sharma, 13. age of ambition by evan osnos, 14. napoleon the great by andrew roberts.

• 15. The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson 

16. A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

17. salt: a world history by mark kurlansky, 18. homo deus by yuval noah harari, 19. how we got to now by steven johnson, 20. the third wave by steve case.

• 21. At Home by Bill Bryson 

22. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

23. a brief history of time by stephen hawking, 24. the double helix by james d. watson, 25. the selfish gene by richard dawkins, 26. sex at dawn by christopher ryan, 27. a splendid exchange by william j. bernstein, 28. capitalism by james fulcher, 29. narrative economics by robert j. shiller, 30. a world in disarray by richard haass, 31. prisoners of geography by tim marshall, 32. the power of myth by joseph campbell, 33. the republic by plato, 34. caste by isabel wilkerson, 35. the social contract by jean-jaques rousseau, 36. capitalism and freedom by milton friedman.

• 37. The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek 

38. Socialism by Michael W. Newman

39. fascism by madeleine k. albright, 40. on liberty by john stuart mill, 41. how democracies die by steven levitsky.

• 42. Discourses by Epictetus 

43. The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo

• 44. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker 
• 45. Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes 

46. The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

47. lives of the stoics by ryan holiday, 48. the sixth extinction by elizabeth kolbert, 49. the uninhabitable earth by david wallace-wells, 50. empty planet by darrell bricker & john ibbitson.

• 51. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli 

52. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

53. the 48 laws of power by robert greene, 54. alexander the great by philip freeman, 55. benjamin franklin: an american life by walter isaacson, 56. the autobiography of malcolm x by malcolm x, 57. steve jobs by walter isaacson, 58. the immortal life of henrietta lacks by rebecca skloot, 59. a woman of no importance by sonia purnell, 60. long walk to freedom by nelson mandela, other book lists by topic, other book lists by author.

Favorite Quote

“History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.” — Yuval Noah Harari

The Book in One Sentence

Sapiens  is your guide to becoming an expert on the entire history of the human race as it reviews everything our species has been through from ancient ancestors to our dominating place in the world today.

Why should you read it?

This might be the most comprehensive, all-in-one history book out there. It is jam-packed with fascinating facts and details, making it an essential read for anyone interested in human history.

Key Takeaways

• The ability to think gave early humans language, which eventually led to agricultural advances allowing them to grow exponentially. 
• Improvements in trade were only possible with the invention of money and writing.
• With better economic and communication means, scientific progress gave our race the abilities necessary to get to where we are today.

If you want to learn more, you can read our free four-minute summary or get a copy for yourself.

“You can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.” — Will & Ariel Durant

The Lessons of History describes recurring themes and trends throughout 5,000 years of human history, viewed through the lenses of 12 different fields, aimed at explaining the present, the future, human nature, and the inner workings of states.

If you want a concise overview of the causes behind major events throughout history, read this book. It will change the way you view society, politics, culture, and even personal relationships. You’ll learn how to see the world through a different lens and finally understand why things happen as they do.

• Humans are unequal by nature, fighting that would mean giving up freedom.
• The evolution of humans was a social one, not a biological one.
• War is a more natural state than peace.

“We are projects of collective self-creation. What if we approached human history that way? What if we treat people, from the beginning, as imaginative, intelligent, playful creatures who deserve to be understood as such?” — David Graeber & David Wengrow

The Dawn of Everything uses archaeological evidence to argue the case that human history did not follow a linear path but emerged from a big, complex network of individual, decentralized communities.

This book puts history on its head, arguing against much of what is taken for granted in schools and universities across the globe. The last book written before Graeber’s sudden death in 2020, it will challenge your very understanding of history, thus making it a top read in the category.

• There is no single original form of human society; many different versions have developed independently over millennia.
• There are three ways to dominate in human societies: sovereignty, bureaucracy, and politics.
• Instead of complaining about inequality, we should ask ourselves how we lost the flexibility and political creativity we once used to have.

“The things that go well are largely unintended; the things that go badly are largely intended.” — Matt Ridley

The Evolution of Everything compares creationist to evolutionist thinking, showing how the process of evolution we know from biology underlies and permeates the entire world, including society, morality, religion, culture, economics, money, innovation, and even the internet.

This could almost qualify as a self-help book. The distinction between creationist and evolutionist thinking, and learning how to spot them both everywhere, will change your life and allow you to make progress in almost any situation.

• Evolutionist and creationist thinking are two opposing views, and creationist thinking dominates the Western world.
• Culture, economics, and technology all progress through evolution.
• Money changed from evolutionist to creationist subject, and the same might happen with the internet.

“There’s no room for facts when our minds are occupied by fear.” — Hans Rosling

Factfulness  explains how our worldview has been distorted with the rise of new media, which ten human instincts cause erroneous thinking, and how we can learn to separate fact from fiction when forming our opinions.

This book will help you fight your many biases. Through easy-to-understand research and engaging examples, you’ll learn to see the truth rather than just the media’s spin on things. If Bill Gates can learn something from this book, I think so can you and I.

• There is no such thing as “the East and the West.” We only have one world.
• Population growth will eventually level off, despite our perception of increasing numbers.
• To see the world accurately, you always need multiple perspectives.

“There can be no question of which was the greatest era for culture; the answer has to be today, until it is superseded by tomorrow.” — Steven Pinker

Enlightenment Now describes how the values of the Enlightenment — science, reason, humanism, and progress — keep improving our world today, making it a better place day by day, despite the negative news.

This book is a welcome antidote against fake news, media manipulation, and populism. If you need to regain your faith in humanity or want some hope, this title will show you that not everything is as bad as it seems to be in the news.

• Wealth has increased not just in the West but around the globe, all while decreasing poverty and inequality.
• The United Nations bring humanism to a global scale, which has made our lives safer than ever.
• We still have problems, such as AI, terrorism, and the environment, but we must face them with reason.

Best History Books About America and the United States

“The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.” — Howard Zinn

A People’s History of the United States will give you a better understanding of the true, sometimes shameful, sometimes inspiring, story of America’s rise to power.

Historically, the US has been terrible at being honest about how it got to where it is. Then again, so are most countries. History is written by the winners, as they say. That’s why it’s so important to get the other side of the story, and that’s what this book delivers. Just be careful not to let your anger keep you from focusing on a better future rather than the not-so-nice past.

• The founding fathers set up the US government to benefit wealthy landowners, who still have power today.
• The Civil War wasn’t as much about ending slavery as it was about advancing political interests.
• The US has repeatedly used war as a way to improve their economic situation.

8. Common Sense by Thomas Paine  

“Time makes more converts than reason.” — Thomas Paine

Common Sense is a classic piece of US history that will show you the importance of societies coming together to form a fair governmental system, and how these ideas paved the way for the American revolution.

This book helped kickstart the American Revolution. If you want to know what it takes to write a compelling manifesto, this book is a great place to start. It’ll also show you how to collaborate well and lead great teams by getting people to rally around a shared cause.

• We depend on each other to survive and thrive, and this means that we need society and rules to guide us.
• Having kings and queens is a bad idea, it’s better to elect representatives to enact laws that the people want.
• Just like a teenager preparing to leave home, America came to a point where it had to separate from its mother country.

“A real democracy would be a meritocracy where those born in the lower ranks could rise as far as their natural talents and discipline might take them.” — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Team of Rivals explains why Abraham Lincoln rose above his political rivals despite their stronger reputations, and how he used empathy to unite not just his enemies but an entire country.

If you want to know more about how Abraham Lincoln managed to do what he did — see through the abolition of slavery — this book is a must. It’s also a good primer on how to work with your enemies rather than against them, something that’s especially needed in today’s times of division and extremism. Bill Gates thinks it’s the best book about leading a country there is.

• Lincoln’s many hardships as a child shaped his ambitions and strengthened his resolve to succeed as an adult.
• Due to his brief track record in politics, Lincoln was the most unlikely choice as a presidential candidate.
• After Lincoln’s assassination, both the North and South felt the country had suffered a tragic loss, since his leadership was extraordinary.

“They did what human beings looking for freedom, throughout history, have often done. They left.” — Isabel Wilkerson

The Warmth of Other Suns is the story of how and why millions of Black Americans left the South between 1915 and 1970 to escape the brutality of the Jim Crow Laws and find safety, better pay, and more freedom thanks to what is known today as The Great Migration.

Through multiple stories from several perspectives, this book will teach you empathy and a better understanding of the history of Black people in America.

• The Great Migration happened for many different reasons, and people left from and went to diverse places throughout it.
• Ida Mae and her family were just one example of a Black family leaving the South to become safer and earn more money.
• Settling in Chicago, Ida Mae entered the workforce, but like many others, she didn’t see all of the benefits she had hoped moving would bring.

Best History Books About India, China, and the East

“Our role is to widen the field of discussion, not to set limits in accord with the prevailing authority.” — Edward W. Said

Orientalism reveals why false Western assumptions about Eastern countries have prevailed for over 200 years, and how they still affect how we view the Eastern world today.

Asian cultures in Western countries are some of the most discriminated against minorities today, and if you care about racism, or rather, want to take a stand against it, this book will show you how to do that when it comes to the Eastern nations of the world.

• Western people fabricated views of Eastern nations, telling stories in ways that would benefit Western nations. 
• The inroads of Orientalism made it difficult for even those with a genuine interest in the East to see it truthfully.
• Although the name has faded, three key characteristics still govern modern Orientalism today.

“Better people are possible to create, even in Delhi.” — Mihir S. Sharma

Restart tells the story of India’s almost-leadership of the world’s economy, showing why and how it instead succumbed to problems from the past, how those problems still hold it back today, and what the country might do about them.

If you know little about India or want to learn more about your country’s history, this book is for you. It’s also a good read if you are or want to go into politics or economics.

• India struggles in part because of its inadequate infrastructure, which results from cultural beliefs affecting manufacturing practices.
• Unemployment is a big problem in India because there aren’t enough industrial jobs available, and farms are unprofitable.
• The government puts too much power in the private sector, but if they didn’t, things could improve.

“Hope is like a path in the countryside: originally there was no path, but once people begin to pass, a way appears.” — Evan Osnos

Age of Ambition explains how China has gone from impoverished, developing country to a world superpower and economic powerhouse in just 30 years.

This book will get you up to speed on China, but it’ll also show you that normal people still have the power to make a big difference in and for their nation. If you’re fascinated with China’s rise to power, this is the book for you.

• Politics didn’t cause China’s rise to power, it was the average, everyday peasant class.
• The Chinese people are ambitious for success.
• Freedom of choice in China hasn’t always been strong, but the country’s increasing individuality is making it easier.

Best History Books About Europe

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” — Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon the Great is the definitive, modern biography of legendary leader, French idol, and European visionary Napoleon Bonaparte, detailing his life from his early years as an immigrant to his rise through the military ranks, all the way to his greatest battles, political achievements, and ultimate exile.

If you ever wanted to learn more about Napoleon Bonaparte and his life, look no further than this very detailed book. It is an easy read yet full of information, much better than reading his Wikipedia page. Plus, the book will show you that if you’re ambitious enough, you can achieve great things in life.

• Napoleon was (almost) an immigrant, which turned out to be a huge advantage.
• He had a truly Stoic philosophy about life.
• Like all great leaders, Napoleon was ahead of his time.

15. The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson  

“The most outstanding personal qualities may sometimes require exceptional circumstances and world-shattering events to come to fruition.” — Niall Ferguson

The House of Rothschild examines the facts and myths around the wealthiest family in the world in the 19th century, and how they managed to go from being outcast and isolated to building the biggest bank in the world.

One of the aspects of being good at making and handling money is knowing its history, but this book is for more than just investors. If you’re curious about the history of banking or want to break into an industry that’s hard to crack, this book is a must-read.

• In business, use whatever industry is available to you as a springboard into the next one.
• If the best solution isn’t good enough, build your own.
• Expect the 80/20 rule to apply, even in the most extreme cases.

Best History Books About Food

“Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.” — Tom Standage 

A History of the World in 6 Glasses will teach you the origins and impact of the world’s six favorite drinks: beer, wine, spirits, tea, coffee, and soda.

If you enjoy a good drink or “Feierabendbier,” as we call our post-work beer here in Germany, this book is for you. It’ll teach you more about the origins of your favorite beverage, as well as reveal how different drinks have become dominating forces in various cultures. Fascinating!

• Beer is much older than you might think and had a major part in the move of our ancestors to farming instead of hunting and gathering.
• The Middle Ages brought the existence of coffee, which was originally most useful for intellectuals like scientists.
• Coca-Cola’s original purpose was medicinal, but Americans began drinking it for pleasure and it quickly spread worldwide.

“The Roman army required salt for its soldiers and for its horses and livestock. At times soldiers were even paid in salt, which was the origin of the word salary and the expression ‘worth his salt’ or ‘earning his salt.’” ― Mark Kurlansky

Salt: A World History explores how the everyday mineral we know as table salt has shaped human civilization for centuries, causing wars and even the rise and fall of entire empires.

If you’re the kind of person who tends to miss the obvious that’s right in front of them, this book is for you. It is a “well-seasoned,” riveting narrative about what seems to be a boring everyday product, showing how it lies at the heart of some of history’s biggest conflicts. Includes lots of illustrations too!

• One of the wealthiest, ancient, unknown people is the Celts, who built their empire on salt.
• The demand for salt fueled and escalated the conflict between young America and Great Britain into a full-blown revolutionary war.
• The salt industry has caused much environmental damage, but the tax levied on it has concentrated power in the hands of a few big players.

Best History Books About Technology

“This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies.” — Yuval Noah Hariri

Homo Deus illustrates the history of the human race from how we came to be the dominant species to what narratives are shaping our lives today, all the way to which obstacles we must overcome next to continue to thrive.

Sapiens is Harari’s take on the past — Homo Deus offers a glimpse into the future. If you care about where the world is headed and want to know which paths might spell our utopia or doom, this is a great read!

• Shared narratives are what allow us to collaborate at a large scale and, thus, dominate as a species.
• The most prevalent, current narrative is humanism.
• Algorithms could eventually replace us, depending on which future narrative takes over.

“Sometimes the way a new technology breaks is almost as interesting as the way it works.” — Steven Johnson

How We Got to Now explores the history of innovation, how different inventions connect to one another, and what we can do to create an environment in which change and innovation blossom.

Innovation is a complex process, but this book makes it terrific fun to learn more about it. If you want a brief overview of history’s most important inventions or feel like you can’t change the world on your own, this book is a must-read.

• Innovations can create an environment for more change, rather than just a change on their own.
• One innovation can act as a springboard for another, unexpected one, and even change the legal situation.
• Some innovations highly depend on the person creating them and their rich background.

“We’ll realize that what’s emerging is the much broader Internet of Everything.” — Steve Case

The Third Wave lays out the history of the internet, including why it’s about to permeate everything in our lives, as well as what it takes for entrepreneurs to make use of this mega-trend and thrive in an omni-connected, always-online world.

If you feel like you need to get up to speed with the internet (no judgements here), this book is for you. It’ll also show you the potential the internet (still) has, so if you want to build an online business, this is also a great read!

• The internet will soon permeate everything on this planet.
• You must embrace disruption to thrive in a Third Wave world.
• Cooperate with Second Wave incumbents to succeed.

21. At Home by Bill Bryson  

“It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.” — Bill Bryson

At Home takes you on a tour of the modern home, reminiscing about the history and traditions of each room, thus revealing how the everyday amenities and comforts you now take for granted have come to be.

Everything we take for granted today was once a life-changing innovation. It’s important to not forget how hard-won the things we consider normal originally were. We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants, and this book will help you remember that.

• Fighting harder for longer: food didn’t come easily until very recently.
• Rodents and rings made sleep much less regenerative 100 years ago.
• There are two very different reasons why there’s a salt and a pepper shaker on every kitchen table.

Best History Books About Space, Time, and the Universe

“If you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.” — Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything explains everything we’ve learned about our world and the universe so far, including how they formed, how we learned to make sense of time, space, and gravity, why it’s such a miracle that we’re alive, and how much of our planet is still a complete mystery to us.

This book will have you laughing out loud one minute and scratching your head in wonderment the next. If you don’t stop to realize that life is an amazing miracle at least once a week, I fully recommend this book to you!

• Most of the universe was created in a single, three-minute moment.
• Given the odds of a planet being livable, it’s a miracle we’re here at all.
• Every day that the world keeps turning is a gift, because there are many things that could potentially end it.

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” — Stephen Hawking

A Brief History of Time is Stephen Hawking’s simple way of explaining the most complex concepts and ideas of physics, such as space, time, black holes, planets, stars, and gravity, so that you and I can better understand where our planet came from, and where it’s going.

Stephen Hawking had one of the fastest-traveling minds of anyone who’s ever lived, and yet, he always managed to convey his incredibly complex insights in the simplest of words. Any minute spent reading a page of one of his books is a minute well spent.

• Theories can never be proven.
• Time is not fixed, due to the speed of light.
• There are three reasons why time can likely only move forward.

Best History Books About the Evolution of Humans

“One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.” — James D. Watson

The Double Helix tells the story of the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of the most significant scientific findings in all of history, by outlining the struggles and rivalries of the prideful scientific community, as well as other roadblocks James Watson faced en route to the breakthrough of a lifetime.

If you’re obsessed with something, be it art, business, or a mysterious natural phenomenon, this book is for you. That’s what James Watson and Francis Crick shared: an obsession with DNA. In this fascinating account of the discovery and analysis of the basic Lego block of life, you’ll be reassured that your passion can take you very far — if only you stick with it!

• Our recent advancements in our understanding of DNA began with a team of chemists in the 1950s.
• Things got tough as they competed with others who were also studying DNA.
• Through perseverance and errors of their competition, Watson and Crick made breakthroughs in the study of genetics that won them a Nobel Prize.

“Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” — Richard Dawkins

The Selfish Gene explains the process of evolution from the perspective of genes, showing how they manifest in the form of organisms, what they do to ensure their own survival, how they program our brains, which of their strategies have worked best throughout history, and what makes humans so special in this context.

If you’ve ever wondered about whether we have free will, this book is for you. Beyond catching you up on everything important you missed while snoozing in biology class, it asserts a shocking theory: What if humans are just the “carriers” of genes, and it’s really the genes running the show? A trippy and yet extremely insight-dense book!

• Sometimes, mutually altruistic behaviors benefit the genes of two different organisms.
• Humans have managed to splice off culture with its own evolutionary process.
• Our ability to simulate and foresee allows us to overcome the downside of our selfish genes.

“The bigger the society is, the less functional shame becomes.” — Christopher Ryan

Sex at Dawn challenges all conventional views on sex at once by diving deep into our ancestor’s sexual history and the rise of monogamy, as well as delivering starting points for thinking over our understanding of what sex and relationships should really be like.

If you’re shy about sex or know that, deep down, you’re too uptight about it, this book will help. You’ll learn to not stress about sex so much, see it for the biological impulse that it is, and understand that it’s merely a remnant of our distant past, not to be worried about but to be enjoyed.

• Agriculture marked the beginning of monogamy, and not in a good way.
• Women want sex just as much as men but are conditioned to play it down.
• Our bodies have evolved to thrive in sexual competition.

Best History Books About Economics

“Few other historical inquiries tell us as much about the world we live in today as does the search for the origins of world trade.” — William J. Bernstein

A Splendid Exchange outlines the history of global trade, revealing how it has enabled the progress of civilization, and how it continues to change the world on a daily basis.

All day long, you’re trading. You’re trading your time for money, your money for goods and services, and goods and services for quality moments with your family. Getting better at transacting is something we can all benefit from, and so whether you want to improve your business, become a better investor, or spend money more meaningfully, this book lives up to its title: your time will be well spent in acquiring its knowledge.

• One of the earliest trades in history dealt with stones.
• You never just trade the items you exchange.
• Not all innovations that helped foster global trade were about transporting goods.

“Leisure as a distinct non-work time, whether in the form of the holiday, or evening, was a result of the disciplined and bounded work time created by capitalist production.” — James Fulcher 

Capitalism outlines the origins and future of the world’s most popular and, arguably, successful economic system to show you how money actually makes the world go ’round.

The first step to making more money is to understand the way it works, and this book is a great place to start. That said, if you want to know how money can corrupt and how it impacts countries at scale, this is also a good read.

• Using money to make more of it is the core of capitalism.
• Although it’s hard to pinpoint the exact birth of this system, the roots of it began in medieval Europe.
• One feature of capitalism is financial crises, and we need to fix this. 

“Trying to understand major economic events by looking only at data on changes in economic aggregates runs the risk of missing the underlying motivations for change. Doing so is like trying to understand a religious awakening by looking at the cost of printing religious tracts.” — Robert J. Shiller

Narrative Economics explains why stories have a massive influence on the way our economies operate, analyzing in particular the rise of Bitcoin, several stock market booms and busts, and the nature of epidemics.

If you’re a stay-in-the-loop kind of person, this book is for you. It’s also for you if you’re an investor or entrepreneur, as narratives dramatically shape our economic landscape all the time. To anyone who wants to learn why certain topics dominate our conversations where others don’t: read this book.

• Bitcoin is the perfect example of how stories affect economics.
• Epidemics and economic narratives have a lot in common.
• If we want to be ready for the future, we need to understand the narratives of the past.

Best History Books About Global Politics

“Managing a situation in a manner that fails to address core issues can be preferable to attempting to bring about a solution sure to be unacceptable to one or more of the parties.” — Richard Haass

A World in Disarray will open your mind to new ways of making the world a more peaceful place by guiding you through the major changes in global affairs since World War II.

If you’re a pacifist, chances are, this title is for you. If you want to know what it takes to keep world peace and where we’re about to fail to do so, read this book.

• Things have been relatively peaceful since World War II because of power balances, nuclear weapons, and economic agreements.
• New policies concerning intervention in international events were born when the world stood by during the tragedies in Rwanda. 
• The three major superpowers must thrive and cooperate if we want to have a peaceful world.

“Why do you think your values would work in a culture you don’t understand?” — Tim Marshall

Prisoners of Geography explains how the location of a country dramatically affects its success and the amount of power it has in the world, as well as why and how geography has determined t he outcomes of major world events for centuries.

This book will show you why the world is the way it is. Why is America so powerful and Africa so poor? Why is Russia always worried about war? A fascinating theory with really sound arguments.

• Russia could get invaded from the West; that’s why they have a strong presence in the Baltics. 
• The United States is nearly invulnerable because of where it’s located.
• Southern Europe suffers while its northern countries flourish, simply because of geography.

Best History Books About Civilization and Society

“We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.” — Joseph Campbell

The Power of Myth is a book based on Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer’s popular 1988 documentary of the same name, explaining where myths come from, why they are so common in society, how they’ve evolved, and what important role they still play in our ever-changing world today.

If you wonder why we’re here or what happens after death, read this book. It’ll show you that myths are useful beyond being good stories, and it’ll also teach you how to tell better stories yourself.

• Myths are stories that unite people in communities, identify the beginnings of cultures and giving people a common identity.
• As guidelines for community members, legends give a framework for people to think and act.
• The power of myth helps us make sense of life, appreciate it, and even prepare to die.

“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.” — Plato

The Republic is one of the most important works about philosophy and politics in history, written by Plato, one of Socrates’ students in ancient Greece, as a dialogue about justice and political systems between Socrates and various Athenian citizens.

If you feel like your country’s judicial system isn’t working, this book is for you. It’ll also show you why it’s difficult to rule others, no matter what form that takes. Even a middle manager could benefit from reading this book. It’s hard to go wrong with such a classic.

• Justice must be looked at on an individual as well as a city level.
• Both cities and souls can be divided into three distinct parts.
• Philosophers trying to rule others justly will face lots of difficulty.

“The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when no one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse.” — Isabel Wilkerson

Caste unveils the hidden cultural and societal rules of our class system, including where it comes from, why it’s so deeply entrenched in society, and how we can dismantle it forever to finally allow all people to have the equality they deserve.

Whether you believe you are suffering from the social class system, want to know more about it, or hope to understand what alternative structures society could use to function better, this is the book for you.

• There are eight foundational pillars of a caste system, and the first four are Divine Will and Laws of Nature, Heritability, Endogamy, and Purity vs Pollution.
• The last four pillars of the caste system deal with hierarchy, dehumanization, terror, and superiority.
• We can dismantle the caste with monuments and memorials and support all who try to break it down.

Best History Books About Nation States and Political Systems

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Social Contract is a political piece of writing that serves as a roadmap for the democracies of today, outlining the elements of a free state in which people agree to coexist with each other under the rules of a common body that represents the general will.

Most of us aspire to be sovereign citizens in a free state, but we have no idea what that even means. This all-time classic of philosophy will show you.

• A state becomes legitimate only if its citizens accept to live in it.
• The general will of the people should be the law of any legitimate state.
• People should meet often to express their will and communicate more for better governance.

“To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them.” — Milton Friedman

Capitalism and Freedom   helps you understand some of the most important factors protecting your liberty by outlining the government’s role in economics and explaining how things go best when political entities are small and stay out of the flow of money in a country.

For better or for worse, capitalism is impossible to ignore or do away with in our current civilization. If you want to better understand free markets and the benefits and advantages of fully enabling those vs. going with more regulated, government-steered systems, this book is for you.

• Freedom, both political and economic, is healthier when government is small and decentralized.
• When the feds mess with the economy, things get worse even though politicians are trying to make them better.
• A negative income tax, among other measures, should replace the current inefficient social welfare systems.

37. The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek  

“To act on behalf of a group seems to free people of many of the moral restraints which control their behavior as individuals within the group.” — Friedrich Hayek 

The Road to Serfdom makes a case for keeping our freedom and individuality by rejecting socialism, identifying its risks to turn into totalitarianism, and highlighting the socialist dynamics taking a hold in global politics after WWII.

This book will show you how much control a government should have — and what happens when it oversteps its boundaries. If you’re worried about various governments’ increasing interventions in our day-to-day lives, read this one.

• Socialism doesn’t enable personal freedom, it smothers it.
• Corrupt people end up in power in totalitarian, socialist systems.
• The socialist parts of the world struggled after World War II, but the freer countries thrived because of their freedom.

“Today’s utopia often becomes tomorrow’s reality.” — Michael W. Newman

Socialism outlines the history of the governmental theory that everything should be owned and controlled by the community as a whole, including how this idea has impacted the world in the last 200 years, how its original aims have been lost, and in what ways we might use it in the future.

If you feel like socialism might be the answer to all our problems, read this book. It’ll show you that it started from good intentions but later spiraled off the virtuous path — but also what we might be able to learn form and do with this system in the future.

• There might not be a single, simple definition of socialism, but the different forms it’s had over the years share common characteristics. 
• Nineteenth-century capitalism paved the way for socialism, and from there, it divided into two different schools of thought. 
• If we learn from the mistakes of the past, socialism can actually bring a promising future.

“The real question is: who has the responsibility to uphold human rights? The answer to that is: everyone.” — Madeleine Albright

Fascism explores what lies behind its titular, far-right, authoritarian ideology, from how it can rise to power in uncertain times to why it still poses a serious threat against even our most established democratic systems today.

If you think a few skinheads here and there probably won’t be a big problem, read this book. It’s a fascinating account of how quickly extremism can spiral out of control if left unchecked, and what are the right ways to keep it in check without trying to choke it altogether and thus be as bad as outright fascists themselves.

• Authoritarian parties often rise to power through democratic means.
• We can always expect fascism to find its way back, history says.
• Democracy is fragile, and we should defend it.

“One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests.” — John Stuart Mill

On Liberty is a philosophy classic that laid the foundation of modern liberal politics, applying the concept of utilitarianism to societies and countries in order to create a working system between authority and liberty.

This is a classic but not easy to read, yet if you truly want to understand democracy and freedom, and why one doesn’t automatically lead to the other, this may be worth a few hours of concentrated studying.

• Democracy alone does not guarantee personal freedom.
• The only reason to limit liberty should be to save people from harm.
• False opinions are not only good, they’re important.

“Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders — presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.” — Steven Levitsky

How Democracies Die lays out the foundational principles of working democracies by looking at historical events, especially in Latin America, that show how democracies have failed in the past, how it could happen again, and how we can protect democracy from threats like bad leadership, inequality, and extremism.

If you live in a democratic country, you probably take your political process and inclusion for granted. This book shows that it can all end rather quickly, and before we know it, we won’t have a say at all. To learn more about the pitfalls of democracy and how we can avoid them, read this book.

• A democracy needs solid gatekeepers to protect it.
• With the arrival of Donald Trump in the political arena, the future of our democracy depends on our leadership. 
• We can resist authoritarianism by holding fast to democratic norms.

Best History Books About Ethics

42. discourses by epictetus  .

“What else is freedom but the power to live our life the way we want?” — Epictetus

Discourses is a transcription of the lectures of ancient philosopher Epictetus, resulting in a series of lessons and tales that help us make sense of what’s happening around and to us, including hardship, challenges, and life events that will ultimately make our character stronger.

This book will make you more resilient in the face of failure, rejection, and adversity. Written as mostly easily digestible, informal lectures Epictetus gave to his students, you’ll find plenty of little bits of inspiration in this classic.

• Without life’s challenges, we wouldn’t feel the need to grow and evolve. 
• Everything that is great in life takes time and effort to build.
• If you can’t control it, don’t stress over it.

“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.” — Philip Zimbardo

The Lucifer Effect explains why you’re not always a good person, identifying the often misunderstood line between good and evil that we all walk by recounting the shocking results of the author’s Stanford Prison Experiment that show anyone can be made to do evil under the right (or wrong) circumstances.

Dividing the world into “good people” and “bad people” is easy. Realizing anyone has great capacity for both is hard — but it’s the truth we need, and that’s what this book is for. Shocking and much needed, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to be a good person or who’s curious as to why even some of the best people in the world turn evil.

• Your personality changes depending on the situation you’re in.
• The Stanford prison experiment is a shocking example of just how bad everyday people can get in the right, or wrong, circumstances.
• Don’t worry about being permanently evil; you can always choose to be a hero and act morally.

44. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker  

“As one becomes aware of the decline of violence, the world begins to look different. The past seems less innocent; the present less sinister.” — Steven Pinker

The Better Angels of Our Nature argues that we live in the most peaceful time in history by looking at what motivates us to behave violently, how these motivators are outweighed by our tendencies towards a peaceful life, and which major shifts in history caused this global reduction in crime and violence.

If you need a break from bad news and doombait, this is the one to grab. Well-researched and uplifting, it’ll show you that the world is better than it seems — and there’s always more we can do to make it even better!

• Ideologies always start out with good intentions but can quickly deteriorate into horrific proponents of violence.
• The Flynn effect increases our ability to reason over time, which makes us less violent.
• With the invention of the printing press, humanitarian philosophy could spread and further decrease violence across the board.

Best History Books About the Evolution of Philosophy

45. meditations on first philosophy by rené descartes  .

“Dubium sapientiae initium — doubt is the origin of wisdom.” — René Descartes

Meditations on First Philosophy is the number one work of philosophy of the Western world, written by René Descartes in 1641, abandoning everything that can be doubted and then starting to reason his way from there.

If you often find yourself stricken with doubt and wish it weren’t so, this book is for you. It reveals the upside of doubt and how it can help us challenge our own assumptions and improve. This book will teach you to apply your knowledge in a scientific manner rather than just take things at face value. 

• Your senses don’t always tell the truth.
• The fact that you think proves that you exist.
• There are three levels of truth in the world.

“Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.” — Will Durant

The Story of Philosophy profiles the lives of great Western philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, and Nietzsche, exploring their contemplations on governance, religion, the meaning of life, and other philosophic concepts from their individual lifetimes of research, thought, and diligent study.

If you want a comprehensive but quick overview of history’s most important philosophers and how their ideas shaped the world, read this book.

• Ancient Greek philosophers paved the way for philosophy, science, and a new form of governance.
• Philosopher Spinoza helped decipher the hidden meanings in religion.
• Voltaire was partially responsible for the French revolution and the improvement of political systems around the world.

“There is no better definition of a Stoic: to have but not want, to enjoy without needing.” — Ryan Holiday

Lives of the Stoics is a deep dive into the experiences and beliefs of some of the earliest philosophers and followers of stoic virtues like justice, courage, and temperance.

This book covers both the tenets of Stoic philosophy itself as well as its most prominent proponents. The chapters are short and written in an easy-to-digest style, so for anyone looking to improve their lives, this is a good pick!

• Stoicism came about as a result of extreme hardship. 
• Not everyone who followed Stoicism lived up to its standards. 
• Marcus Aurelius was a Roman whose practice of Stoicism helped him lead with compassion and humility.

Best History Books About Climate Change & Population Growth

“As soon as humans started using signs and symbols to represent the natural world, they pushed beyond the limits of that world.” — Elizabeth Kolbert

The Sixth Extinction  summarizes how human activity has contributed to the mass extinction of species and points out ways to mitigate our biggest environmental problems.

Instead of just doling out more blame to humans for destroying the planet, this book focuses on facts, which makes it refreshing. If you want a book about the environment that makes you feel less guilty and more empowered to act, go for this one.

• There are several ways in which the human race is responsible for the sixth mass extinction.
• Homo sapiens has been encouraging the extinction of various species long before the industrial era.
• There are many ideas for what we can still do to save at least some species.

“We think of climate change as slow, but it is unnervingly fast. We think of the technological change necessary to avert it as fast-arriving, but it is deceptively slow judged by how soon we need it.” — David Wallace-Wells

The Uninhabitable Earth  explains how humanity’s complacency and negligence have put this world on a course to soon be unlivable unless we each do our small part to improve how we care for this beautiful planet we live on.

While I would recommend balancing this book with something a little less depressing, it provides a fantastic overview of all the factors contributing to global warming. So if you want to know where we can start digging in to save the planet and our future, this one’s for you!

• Even enacting all the policy changes agreed to in Paris, we will still exceed the threshold where climate disaster begins.
• Without emissions reduction, we will see our oceans rise to fatal levels, putting major cities underwater.
• Unless we change our ways, bacteria of ancient diseases in melting Arctic ice sheets will begin a global health crisis.

“Will we struggle to preserve growth, or accept with grace a world in which people both thrive and strive less?” ― Darrell Bricker & John Ibbitson

Empty Planet explains why overpopulation alarmists are wrong, and how depopulation poses the more imminent threat to the happiness and success of humanity.

Whether you want to have kids or not, this book will change your perspective on the common notion that “there are already too many people on the planet,” showing that we might soon suffer from the opposite of this problem. An enlightening and contrarian read!

• The forces that cause fertility to drop, such as urbanization, education, and secularization, only increase.
• A falling population threatens human quality life in a variety of ways, both materially and culturally.
• Population decline is likely to happen even more quickly than predictions suggest.

51. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli  

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” — Niccolò Machiavelli

The Prince is a 16th century political treatise, famous for condoning, even encouraging evil behavior amongst political rulers in order for them to stay in power.

If you secretly lust for power, this book is for you. It’ll show you how to get and keep that power, sure, but also how to use it well and how to avoid becoming a “Machiavellian prince” who gets completely consumed by their own desire for more.

• Countries can be easy to conquer but hard to rule or vice versa – and markets are the same.
• To protect a country it needs its own army, not mercenaries. The same holds true for businesses.
• If you want to run a business, you have to assemble your advisors and know when to listen to them.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Viktor Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning  details holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s horrifying experiences in Nazi concentration camps, along with his psychological approach of logotherapy, which is also what helped him survive and shows you how you can – and must – find meaning in your life.

If you’ve ever felt hopelessness and despair, this book is for you. It’ll show you that there’s a way out of any situation, no matter how grim — even if that way is just accepting the situation as it is and waiting for it to pass. A must-read for almost anyone.

• Sometimes the only way to survive is to surrender to death.
• Your life has its own meaning, and it’s up to you to find it.
• Use paradoxical intention to make your fears go away.

“Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.” — Robert Greene

The 48 Laws of Power draws on many of history’s most famous power quarrels to show you what power looks like, how you can get it, what to do to defend yourself against the power of others, and, most importantly, how to keep it and use it well.

This book will show you how to get ahead in life thanks to some uncomfortable but important truths. Each law comes with a short story about an interesting person, so it’s a nice pastime book as well.

• Always make superiors look smarter than you.
• Confuse competitors by acting unpredictably.
• Don’t force others to do what you want, seduce them instead.

Best History Books About Important People

“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.” — Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great is the definitive biography of the life of the ancient Macedonian king, who would extend his empire from a little slide of land in Greece through Persia, Egypt, and all the way to India, forming the greatest empire the ancient world had ever seen.

Whether you’re looking to fill a gap in your knowledge or just want an absolutely epic story, this book will deliver both. It’ll reveal the origins of Christianity as well as detail one young man’s dramatic conquest of the world, and you’ll feel both entertained and informed.

• Bundle your energy.
• Always do the unexpected.
• Without Alexander the Great, Christianity wouldn’t exist.

“Knowledge is obtained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue.” — Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life takes a thorough look at the life of one of the most influential humans who ever lived and explains how he could achieve such greatness in so many different fields and areas.

Walter Isaacson might be the best biographer alive today, and any book of his feels more like a novel than a boring list of accomplishments. Whether you want to be creative, succeed in business, or learn more about the history of the US and its important people, this book is a great place to start!

• Benjamin Franklin was a self-improvement nerd.
• If you really want to learn something, you’ll find a way.
• Don’t be afraid to be 20 years ahead of your time.

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” — Malcolm X

The Autobiography of Malcolm X chronicles the life and work of one of the most influential members of the civil rights movement in the United States, Malcolm Little, aka Malcolm X.

If you want to get a real sense of how difficult it was for the civil rights movement to succeed, and what it truly takes to bring about change in the world, you’ll love this book.

• What happens in your childhood will leave a mark on you for life.
• Sometimes, you have to get totally lost to find yourself.
• Even the best of us can get it wrong.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” — Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs  is the most detailed and accurate account of the life of the man who created Apple, the most valuable technology company in the world.

Do you want to build a business? Create great technology? Change the world? Look no further. Jobs’ story has it all, and, given how recently it all happened, this is one of the most relevant biographies to read in the 21st century.

• Steve Jobs’s team invented a name for his most important skill, the reality distortion field.
• The Apple name was chosen for a very specific reason.
• Apple didn’t make Steve Jobs a billionaire, Pixar did.

“Henrietta’s were different: They became the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory.” — Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks reveals the previously unknown story of a woman with extraordinary cells that still live today, and how they have contributed to dozens of medical breakthroughs.

If you want to better understand how consent works in healthcare while discovering the inspiring story of a forgotten but extremely impactful individual, this is the one to grab off the shelf.

• Henrietta Lacks was a poor Black woman who died of aggressive cervical cancer at a young age, but her immortal cells lived on. 
• Even though her cells were famous, most people didn’t know of Henrietta and her family until recently. 
• The use of Hela cells has raised questions about privacy and ethics in cell donation.

“Valor rarely reaps the dividends it should.” — Sonia Purnell

A Woman of No Importance tells the fascinating story of Virginia Hall, an American who became one of the best spies for the Allies in World War II, thus significantly contributing to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

This book will make you feel empowered to choose your own way in life. Hall’s life reads like a movie, and if you hear the call to adventure but are hesitant to follow it, this might be the little push you need to live your best life despite all the difficulties it might bring.

• Too independent to marry, Hall went on to study in Europe and pursue a political career even though she lost a leg in a terrible accident.
• After multiple failed attempts to join the war efforts, she finally became a member of the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, almost by accident. 
• Virginia’s work helped in many different ways during World War II, including the vital preparations for D-Day.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” — Nelson Mandela

Long Walk to Freedom is the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, South African anti-apartheid activist, national icon, and the first Black South African president, elected in the first fully democratic election in the country.

If you’ve ever wondered how someone might survive more than 20 years in a tiny jail cell without going insane, make this your next read. Mandela’s story is one of the most inspiring ones I’ve ever learned about, and I’m sure his story will make you feel stronger and more courageous too.

• Your best bet at finding true freedom is education.
• If you want to be remembered, you must learn to challenge authority.
• It’s most important that you don’t give up right after your biggest setback.

That concludes our list of the best history books. Don’t let its size intimidate you. History is a large field, and you just have to start somewhere that interests you! Pick the first book that jumps out at you, read its free summary on Four Minute Books, and then perhaps order a copy for yourself to dive in deeper later.

There is nothing new under the sun — but if we don’t study past sunrises and sunsets, we won’t see what’s coming, and everything, from pandemics to recessions to political tensions, will shock us into paralysis. When we study history, we are always prepared, even for the unexpected. Understand the past, master the future. That’s how it works — there’s no better day to start than today.

Looking for more of the best books on various topics? Here are all the book lists we’ve made for you so far:

• The 60 Best Business Books of All Time (Will Forever Change How You Think About Organizations)
• The 20 Best Entrepreneurship Books to Start, Grow & Run a Successful Business
• The 14 Best Finance Books of All Time
• The 21 Best Habit Books of All Time to Change Any Behavior
• The 33 Best Happiness Books of All Time That Everyone Should Read
• The 7 Best Inspirational Books That Will Light Your Inner Fire
• The 40 Best Leadership Books of All Time to Help You Become a Truly Inspiring Person
• The 31 Best Motivational Books Ever Written
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Blog – Posted on Friday, Aug 07

30 best memoirs of the last century.

We’ve swung back round to the 20s, and they’re not exactly off to a roaring start. So, what better time to take a look back at some of the best memoirs of the last century? Whatever you’re here for — to escape , to search for hope, or to clear your head with a good cathartic cry — we’ve got you covered! 

Unlike an autobiography, which tells the story of the author’s life chronologically, memoirs dive deep into the nitty-gritty of their most intimate memories, exploring emotional truths and the way these make them feel. For this reason, there’s no better way to step into someone else’s shoes.

Some books on this list will take you back in time — to cafes in 1920s Paris or the 70s in downtown New York — while others will push you to new and unfamiliar frontiers of thought. We’ve included several famous memoirs, but we’ve also made some room for a few underrated ones. Whichever books make it onto your reading list, prepare yourself to be kicked right in the feels: tears will be spilled, guts will be wrenched, and lives will be changed. 

1. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (1933)

Orwell, a penniless writer in his 20s, exposes the underworld of these glamorous cities in a memoir of two parts. First, a swanky restaurant in Paris, where he slaves for subsistence wages at the bottom of the culinary food chain. Then London, where he tramps the streets among the most desperately poor, going between workhouses and prison-like ‘spikes’ for a few hours’ sleep in a bug-infested bunk. Lacking in self-pity but brimming with compassion, Orwell gives his audience an unprecedented look at the unrelenting drudgery of life in poverty. Despite its publication date, this readable and sometimes even humorous memoir remains an enduring reminder of the trappings of class systems.

2. West with the Night by Beryl Markham (1942)

In 1936, Beryl Markham took off from England aiming to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic solo , and the first pilot to fly westward against the winds. 20 hours later, Markham crash-landed in Nova Scotia and became an instant celebrity. But she was much more than just a record-breaking pilot: her memoir tells the spellbinding story of her life in Kenya as a bush pilot and racehorse trainer. And though she wasn’t wholly beyond the racism of her day, Markham was out of step with her times, and shows skepticism towards the European tendency to exoticize and flatten Africa. After reading West with the Night , Hemingway famously wrote to his editor saying, “She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer.”

3. Black Boy by Richard Wright (1945)

This powerful memoir about a black man’s coming-of-age in the Jim Crow South evokes the struggle for African-American identity in the bitter decades before civil rights. In the first of Wright’s arresting vignettes, he’s four years old and “angry, fretful, and impatient” as he sets fire to his family home. Deserted by his father and at odds with his sick mother, Richard continues on the path of “rejection, rebellion, and aggression.” This, he declares, was the only way to be real in a world of white hostility and subjugation. Propelled by his pursuit of knowledge, Wright goes on to seek justice north. Black Boy is a difficult but important read that has fully earned its position among the best memoirs for its stark depiction of racial tension.

4. Night by Elie Wiesel (1956)

In his memoir Night , Elie Wiesel recounts his experience in the Nazi death camps that eviscerated his family. In unsentimental detail he describes the dehumanising power of hunger, the conditions that strained his identity, and a profound crisis of faith. Just 15-years-old when he was sent to Auschwitz, Wiesel writes through the eyes of a teenager plunged into an unprecedented moral hinterland. His innocence, but also his courage, shines from every page as he stares, unfaltering, into the countenance of the Nazi’s virulent anti-Semitism. Night is an essential companion to The Diary of Anne Frank , one of the most famous memoirs of the Second World War: “Where Anne Frank’s book ends,” Wiesel once said, “mine begins.”

5. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (1964)

In 1956, at the end of his career, Hemingway was spurred into reminiscence by the rediscovery of some old notebooks. The memories he puts to page in this beloved memoir are of his life as an unknown author in 1920s Paris. Scintillating with the romance of the city and studded with stars including F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce, this memoir is a must-read for fans of 20th century literature. Though it was written when Hemingway was in a state of terminal decline, one of the most remarkable things about A Moveable Feast is how sure and hopeful it seems. His Paris sketches are affectionate, fun, and full of wit.

6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969)

The first volume of Maya Angelou’s memoirs depicts her life from the ages of three to sixteen, spent mostly in the Deep South during the Depression-wracked 1930s. Angelou and her brother endure the ache of abandonment as well as the prejudice of the “powhitetrash” when they are sent to live with their grandmother in a “musty little town” in Arkansas. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings traces Angelou’s growth as she finds the inner strength to struggle against the shackles of racism and misogyny. Angelou also discovers the empowering quality of books in this testament to the ability of storytelling to bridge divides and heal wounds.

7. Conundrum by Jan Morris (1974)

Best remembered as one of the first accounts of gender transition, Conundrum is perhaps the most extraordinary journey that travel writer Jan Morris has taken her readers on. As a reporter in England and Egypt, Morris went everywhere and met everyone. She climbed mountains and crossed deserts. She also had a long marriage and four children. Morris regarded every second of her life as a grand adventure, including the difficult decision to bring her hidden world into the open, undergo hormone treatment, and eventually risk the experimental surgery that turned her into the woman she truly was. “To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial,” she writes. “It was a melody that I heard within myself.”

8. This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff (1989)

Wolff’s prose lights up this boyhood memoir set in 1950s America, which reads and entertains as easily as a novel. Divorced mother and son hit the road, fleeing a violent boyfriend, trying to change their luck and maybe get rich as uranium prospectors. But Wolff’s mom soon links up with another man, and Wolff finds himself in a battle of wills with a hostile stepfather. So begins an escalation of various schemes, which lead to an act of outrageous self-invention that releases him into a new world of possibility. In clear and hypnotic language, Wolff re-creates the frustrations, cruelties, and joys of adolescence, managing to be both poignant and humorous.

9. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (1991)

Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans : a gripping tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of survival. Published two years after the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, this harrowing memoir arrived at the perfect time to satisfy a readership hungry for insight into life under the Chinese Communist party. Across three generations of women — her grandmother given to a warlord as a concubine, her Communist mother, and herself — Chang captures the cycles of violent drama visited on her family and millions of others during the terrible history of China’s twentieth century. Breathtaking in its scope and unforgettable in its writing, Wild Swans belongs among the best memoirs of all time.

10. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy (1994)

When Lucy Grealy was nine years old, she was stricken with a virulent form of bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma and had to undergo radical surgery to remove half of her jaw. For twenty years, Lucy endured the searing pain of peer rejection, the paralysing fear of never being loved, and a heartbreaking sense of disfigurement.  Despite her struggle to come to terms with her appearance, Grealy writes without self-pity or sentimentality. Full of wit, style, and class, this powerful memoir is a moving meditation on beauty and the premium we put on a woman’s face.

11. The Liars' Club by Mary Karr

Karr’s childhood in a swampy East Texas refinery town features a hard-drinking, fist-swinging father, an oft-married mother whose outlaw spirit tips over into psychosis, and a grandma who carries a hacksaw in her handbag. Yet what makes this memoir so extraordinary is that The Liars’ Club is often very funny. Karr paints a harsh world with raw and often painful honesty, but she does so with intelligent humour, comic vividness, and poetically slangy prose. Packed with eccentrics, this classic is eccentric in its own right — one of the best memoirs ever written about growing up in America.

12. The Color of Water by James McBride (1995)

McBride explores his mother’s past and his own upbringing in this powerful and poignant memoir. Ruth McBride was born Rachel Shilsky — the daughter of a failed Orthodox Jewish rabbi who fled Poland for Virginia. A self-declared “light-skinned” woman, Ruth adopted Christianity and founded a black Baptist church in her Red Hook Living room. She demanded good grades from her brood of 12 and commanded their respect. “God is the color of water,” she taught, firmly convinced that life’s blessings and values eclipse race. And though issues of race and religion are present throughout this memoir of mother and son, its triumph is that it transcends those issues to be a story of family love.

13. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (1996)

This Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir tells the bittersweet tale of McCourt’s childhood in the slums of Limerick and tenements of Brooklyn.  “Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood,” McCourt writes. “Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.” With too many children and too little money, McCourt’s unforgettable family is constantly brought to the brink of disaster by his father’s drinking habits. Yet, in the face of overwhelming odds, this is a story of survival, strength, and the love that can emerge from personal pain. Every page of Angela’s Ashes is imbued with McCourt’s humour and compassion, giving it the vitality of a work of fiction.

14. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby (1997)

In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the glamorous and witty editor-in-chief of French Elle , suffered a catastrophic stroke and lapsed into a coma. Bauby was left paralysed and speechless — a victim of locked-in syndrome. His mind, however, was unimpaired. Using his only functioning muscle — his left eyelid — Bauby painstakingly dictated his best-selling memoir by blinking in response to a recited alphabet. By turns wistful, mischievous, angry, and witty, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly records Bauby’s lonely existence, but also his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had done in his body.

15. Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel (2003)

When she was 19, Mantel began suffering not only the pain of illness, but also the pain of misdiagnosis. One after another, doctors gave her several new identities: neurotic, malingerer, and, eventually, hysterectomy patient. As a result of endometriosis, the dreamy child, destined to become a knight errant, received a new personality — dark and jittery — and a new, much bigger body, too. Mantel's ghosts are the ones that prevented her from ever settling on a version of herself that felt right: her stepfather, the daughter she never had, and nameless remnants of lives she never led. In Giving Up the Ghost, Mantel attempts “to seize the copyright in myself.” She does so with a fine ear and a furious intelligence.

16. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003)

In simple and expressive lines, Satrapi’s graphic memoir tells the story of her childhood in Tehran during the turbulent years that saw the overthrow of the Shah, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the ensuing Iran-Iraq war. Satrapi’s child’s-eye view of the revolution and the rise of fundamentalism, as well as of her brutal family history, achieves a stark and shocking impact. Just as powerful, however, are the moments of childhood: the warmth of her family, her complicated relationship with religion, and her penchant for challenging hypocrisy. Personal yet political, humorous yet haunting, Persepolis is a wholly original book, and an essential read.

17. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)

Joan Didion, an exemplar of cool, brilliant aloofness, unravels in this troubled and meditative memoir about the sudden loss of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and the frightening illness of her daughter, Quintana. The Year of Magical Thinking explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of marriage and an account of loss that will speak to anyone who has ever loved and lost. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion, Didion’s memoir has quickly become a classic on grief and mourning.

18. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (2006)

Alison Bechdel’s darkly funny memoir, told with the help of her gothic artwork, is an elaborately layered account of life and artifice that sprung from her father’s suicide. Bechdel’s father was a distant parent, a historic preservation expert, a funeral home director, a high school English teacher, and a closeted homesexual hiding erotic relationships with his students (as well as the family babysitter). Ultimately, Bechdel herself comes out as a lesbian — a revelation she renders as both funny and heartbreaking. Fun Home is a deeply moving coming-of-age story that swims along literary lines, honoring the works of authors who nourished Bechdel, including Kate Millet, Proust, and Oscar Wilde.

19. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (2007)

Is this how wars are fought now — by children, hopped up on drugs and wielding AK-47s? Beah’s memoir stands as a vivid testament to his time as one of 300,000 nameless and faceless child soldiers around the world. When Sierra Leone descended into a brutal civil war, Ishmael was inducted into a government corps of child soldiers. As Beah takes us through a life of battles, promotions, and unfathomable acts of cruelty, we almost forget he is just a boy. It’s only when we catch a glimpse of his childish innocence that the horror and despair of the situation hits home. A Long Way Gone admonishes us to recognise how war and violence consumes everything in society, especially children.

20. Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010)

In 1967, Patti Smith — a young, aspiring poet — headed to New York with nothing in her purse. She found a job in a bookstore, where she met budding artist Robert Maplethorpe. Equally inspired and determined, their chance meeting led to a romance and a lifelong friendship that would carry each to international success they’d never dreamed of. Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, flows through downtown New York in all its energy and squalor, from the Chelsea Hotel to Max’s Kansas City, and follows an endless supply of captivating subjects — literary lights, musicians and artists — to whom she is genuinely devoted. Even for someone with no interest in the renaissance woman of the punks, this beautifully written memoir is a masterpiece of social observation and self-scrutiny.

21. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson (2011)

“Why be happy when you could be normal?” is the question Jeanette’s adoptive mother, Mrs Winterson, asked her daughter as she evicted her for taking up with a second girlfriend. This abusive, Pentecostal giantess will be familiar to readers of Jeanette’s 1985 autobiographical novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit , which Jeanette now calls a cover story: a painful past written over and repainted. In Why Be Happy she tells readers how this past rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. Turbulent and moving, but wriggling with humor, this has to be one of the best memoirs about the search for somewhere to belong.

22. Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala (2013)

Deraniyagala’s memoir opens inside a literal wave: the tsunami that swept onto the southern coast of Sri Lanka in 2004, killing her husband, her two sons, and her parents. Deraniyagala  miraculously survived, but the loss plunged her into darkness. In the first months following the disaster, she had to be constantly protected against the danger of harming herself as she grappled with the horror of her reality. Wave is the engrossing and poised account of grief that follows Deraniyagala on her journey back through the life she’s mourning. Gradually, she learns to find the difficult balance between the unbearable reminders of her loss and the need to keep her family alive in her memory —  and begins to find some light herself through the very act of writing

23. Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (2013)

In this harrowing memoir, novelist Jesmyn Ward pays tribute to five young black men in her life who died over the span of just four years, lost to suicide, drugs, or accidents. She describes with tenderness the lives these men lived before they were devoured by her Mississippi hometown, “pinioned beneath poverty and history and racism.” Their fates twine with her own childhood of instability and hardship — then later, the survivor’s guilt that washes over her in the wake of their premature deaths. This deeply felt and heartbreaking memoir is also a powerful investigation into the terrible risks inherent in simply trying to live as a young black man in the rural south. But Ward never allows her subjects to become symbolic: instead, she renders them individual and irreplaceable.

24. H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014)

Since childhood, Helen Macdonald has been obsessed with birds of prey. So when her father dies suddenly on a London street, she seeks to escape her grief by training one of nature’s most vicious predators — a goshawk. With unflinching honesty, Macdonald grapples with the kind of thoughts most of us reserve for 4am: the finality of death, the paralysis of self-doubt, the loss of the natural world, and… the raptor lurking in the other room. She comes to understand that her bond with the hawk is partly due to a desire to find her father, as hawks are often thought to be messengers to a world beyond. But as the bird matures into a confident hunter, Macdonald makes a new discovery: that moving forward means leaving things behind. This beautiful, erudite, and very British book takes its rightful place among the greatest memoirs of all time.

25. Negroland by Margo Jefferson (2015)

More a state of mind than a physical location, Jefferson’s title refers to “a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty.” Jefferson was born in 1947 into upper-crust black Chicago — a world of exclusive networks and clubs, where skin color and hair texture were relentlessly evaluated alongside scholarly and professional achievements. They saw themselves as representatives of a “Third Race, poised between the masses of Negroes and all classes of Caucasians,” and insisted on exceptionalism. A brilliant, freewheeling memoir, that has been compared to jazz , Negroland opens an unflinching, introspective eye on the American black bourgeoisie mindset.

26. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson (2015)

In one of the best memoirs of the 21st century, Nelson applies literary and analytical theory to her own love story with fluidly-gendered artist Harry Dodge. Told non-linearly in brief, loaded fragments, The Argonauts chronicles the way Nelson’s body is made “more ‘female’” by pregnancy while Dodge’s body — transformed by surgery and testosterone — becomes “more and more ‘male.’” However, to confine bodies to these labels is reductive, Nelson goes on to explain. Offering fresh and fierce reflections on queer desire, queer family making, and the limits of the gender binary , as well as on motherhood and feminism, this is a timely and hugely enlightening read.

27. Barbarian Days by William Finnegan (2015)

New Yorker writer William Finnegan has been roaming the world’s outer reaches for over 40 years, chronicling everything from drug cartels in Mexico to billionaire mining tycoons in Australia. The constant thread throughout all of these journeys? Waves.  Barbarian Day s is a soaring ode to his one great love and obsession — surfing. To devotees, surfing is much more than a sport: it’s a demanding study, a joy-drenched, adrenaline-fueled addiction, and a passionate way of life. Finnegan is a magnificent writer, as adept at conjuring waves from memory as he is at describing the friendships between disciples of the ocean. This account of his full, wind-chapped life is one of the most outstanding sporting memoirs you’ll encounter.

28. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016)

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing his training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. When Breath Becomes Air was written in the final 22 months of his life and published posthumously. Facing his own mortality just as he and his wife are bringing new life into the world, Kalanithi is forced to examine a question that “possessed” him as a medical student: “What, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life?” Deftly identifying universal truths amidst emotional devastation, this is a devastating yet inspiring memoir about terminal illness, and a profoundly rewarding read.

29. Hunger by Roxane Gay (2017)

In Hunger , Roxane Gay casts an insightful eye on her young life — including the devastating abuse that acted as the catalyst for her weight gain — and brings readers into her present: the reality of living as a sizable woman in today’s world. By bravely confronting her emotional and psychological struggles, Gay taps into our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health, and elicits a compassionate response. Writing with vulnerability and authority, she explores the tension between desire and denial, self-comfort and self-care, and shows us how to be decent to ourselves, and to one another.

30. Heavy by Kiese Laymon (2018)

The final installment on our list of the 30 best memoirs, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets and lies does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on moral collapse. This gorgeous and gutting book begins with Laymon’s childhood in Mississippi and continues through twenty-five years of abuse, anguish, sex, writing, and fraught relations with both his family and himself. In this fearless memoir, Laymon illuminates national failures with a personal narrative, reflecting with piercing intellect on both the state of American society and his own experience growing up within it.

Want to read about more extraordinary people? Check out our post on the 30 best biographies ! Or, if you’ve been inspired to change your life, we’ve got you covered with 35 inspirational books that’ll do just that!

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The Best Books of 2022

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The Ten Best History Books of 2022

Our favorite titles of the year resurrect forgotten histories and illuminate how the nation ended up where it is today

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

For many, 2022 was a year of momentous change and loss, marked by events that will undoubtedly be discussed in history books for generations to come. Russia invaded Ukraine , launching a war that shows few signs of slowing. Elizabeth II, the long-reigning British queen, died at age 96 , marking the end of an era for a once-unparalleled empire. The global death toll for Covid-19 surpassed six million , and in June, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade , dealing a significant blow to reproductive rights across the United States.

This year, the ten history books we’ve chosen to highlight serve a dual purpose. Some offer a respite from reality, transporting readers to such varied locales as Renaissance Italy, the Nile River and Yellowstone National Park. Others reflect on the fraught nature of the current moment, detailing how the nation’s past—including the military’s racist treatment of Black World War II soldiers and the government’s collaboration with a Mexican dictator—informs its present and future. From a searing exploration of slavery’s lasting consequences to a dual biography of two European queens, these are some of Smithsonian magazine’s favorite history books of 2022.

River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard

Where does the Nile, the world’s longest river, begin? It’s a question that’s sparked debate for some 2,000 years, prompting speculation from Herodotus, Alexander the Great and Victorian scientists. Even today, the source of the Nile River remains elusive , with at least one contemporary scholar suggesting the Semliki River over the more commonly cited Lake Victoria .

In River of the Gods , author Candice Millard traces arguably the most famous search for the river’s fabled origins: a series of mid-19th-century expeditions led by polymath Richard Francis Burton and army officer John Hanning Speke . While previous narratives have focused largely on these friends-turned-enemies, Millard’s book adds another central character to the mix: Sidi Mubarak Bombay , a formerly enslaved waYao explorer who played a crucial role in the quest.

Told in the readable style of Millard’s previous books, River of the Gods transports audiences to East Africa, where Burton, Speke, Bombay and their companions faced disease, violence and aggressive wildlife. In one vivid scene , the author recounts how Speke deafened himself while trying to dig a burrowing beetle out of his ear with a pen knife.

Whether these trials were worth it depends on who you ask. As the Washington Post notes in its review, a “fundamental disagreement” over the Nile’s source “would poison the remainder of each explorer’s life.” Speke died in a probable hunting accident (speculated by some to be suicide) in 1864, at age 37, while Burton died in relative obscurity in 1890, at age 69. Bombay died in Africa in 1885 at age 65.

River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile

The harrowing story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time and its complicated legacy.

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland

When Jonathan Freedland was 19 years old, he attended a London showing of Shoah , Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 Holocaust documentary. Listening to nine hours of testimony from witnesses to the genocide, Freedland was especially struck by Rudolf Vrba , who’d escaped Auschwitz at age 19, becoming one of the few to successfully evade recapture by the Nazis.

Imprisoned for nearly two years, Vrba and fellow escapee Alfred Wetzler broke out of Auschwitz by hiding under a woodpile (laced with petrol-soaked tobacco to throw guard dogs off their scent) near the camp’s edge for three days. The men eventually made their way back home to Slovakia, surviving the arduous trek with help from Polish peasants and resistance members. From there, they turned their attention to informing the world of the atrocities occurring at Auschwitz and other Nazi extermination centers.

More than two decades after he first saw Shoah , Freedland, a British journalist who writes thrillers under the pseudonym Sam Bourne, decided to revisit Vrba’s story, which he deemed prescient for this “age of post-truth and fake news.” Drawing on personal papers, photographs, and interviews with Vrba’s first and second wives, Freedland meticulously outlines his subject’s life and surprisingly controversial legacy.

Vrba, born Walter Rosenberg, believed he could save Hungary’s Jews —the last major group of European Jews to face deportation—by revealing what awaited them at Nazi death camps. “If the Jews knew what was coming,” asks Freedland in The Escape Artist , “what sand might they be able to throw in the gears of the machine that was poised to devour them?”

Wetzler and Vrba wrote a report detailing the Nazis’ carefully orchestrated system of mass murder. Contrary to Vrba’s admittedly naive expectations , the Vrba-Wetzler report failed to spark widespread resistance or prevent the deportations of more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews . The report’s impact was limited by delays in distribution; what Vrba perceived as inadequate responses by Jewish leaders; and Hungarian Jews’ refusal “to believe in the possibility of their own imminent destruction, even, perhaps especially, when that destruction is certain,” according to Freedland.

In the years after the Holocaust, scholars and the Jewish community alike viewed Vrba with a skeptical eye, in part due to his refusal to “serve up a morally comfortable narrative in which the only villains were the Nazis,” writes Freedland. Reminiscing on the night he first heard of Vrba, Freedland writes, “I left the cinema that night convinced that the name of Rudolf Vrba deserved to stand alongside Anne Frank, Oskar Schindler and Primo Levi in the first rank of stories that define the Shoah. That day may never come. But maybe, through this book, [he] might perform one last act of escape: Perhaps he might escape our forgetfulness and be remembered.”

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World

The incredible story of Rudolf Vrba—the first Jew to break out of Auschwitz, a man determined to warn the world and pass on a truth too few were willing to hear.

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

On the surface, Sarah and Angelina Grimke had little in common with their brother Henry. Ardent abolitionists who abandoned their Southern roots in favor of the more sympathetic streets of Philadelphia, the sisters abhorred slavery and racial inequality. Henry, on the other hand, was a “notoriously violent and sadistic” enslaver who showed little regard for the three sons he’d fathered with an enslaved woman, writes historian Kerri K. Greenidge in her sweeping biography of the Grimke family.

The siblings may have held vastly different views on slavery. But as Greenidge argues in The Grimkes , Sarah and Angelina couldn’t have adopted such a fervent antislavery stance if not for their “complicity in the slave system they so eloquently spoke against.” After all, the money that funded both their move to Philadelphia and their lifestyle in the new city came directly from their slaveholding relatives. And while the sisters espoused progressive ideals, they certainly didn’t view Black people as equals—a contradiction underscored by Sarah and Angelina’s relationships with their Black nephews , Archibald , Francis and John.

The sisters only learned of their nephews’ existence after the Civil War, but upon doing so, they decided to fund the young men’s education and help usher them into the ranks of the Black elite . This aid came with caveats that Francis, in particular, chafed at, deeming his white relatives “unaccustomed to the ways of colored people.” Two of the brothers, Archibald and Francis, later found fame as activists and intellectuals. But their ties to Sarah and Angelina became strained, with Francis eventually turning down his aunts’ financial support.

Greenidge’s book isn’t the first to profile the Grimke family. But it takes a more critical approach than previous offerings, questioning the rosy view of the sisters as faultless abolitionists and spotlighting lesser-known members of the family like Archibald’s daughter, also named Angelina , a poet, playwright and journalist.

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

A stunning counternarrative of the legendary abolitionist Grimke sisters that finally reclaims the forgotten Black members of their family.

The Divorce Colony: How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier by April White

When Blanche Molineux arrived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on November 16, 1902, she had a singular goal in mind: securing a divorce from her husband, Roland. Like other wealthy white women at the turn of the 20th century, she’d settled on Sioux Falls—home to what the press dubbed the “ divorce colony ”—due to South Dakota’s lax divorce laws . While New York required proof of adultery to end a marriage, this frontier state had far fewer limitations; crucially, it also had some of the shortest residency requirements in the U.S., allowing women to divorce after calling South Dakota home for between 90 days and six months.

Blanche, for her part, had a good reason for wanting a divorce. Aside from the fact that she wasn’t in love with Roland, there was the small matter of her husband’s suspected involvement in two murders, including the killing of Blanche’s onetime lover.

The tangled tale of Blanche’s quest for a divorce is one of four central threads in The Divorce Colony , published by journalist and former Smithsonian editor April White . Filled with lurid details from contemporary newspapers, which breathlessly covered the most salacious divorce cases, the book cleverly examines how these bids for marital freedom reflected broader societal changes in Gilded Age America.

As White writes, Blanche and her fellow divorce-seekers “were not activists. For each of them, the decision to end her marriage was a private one. But what might have been a quiet act of personal empowerment and self-determination became, in the glare of the national spotlight, a radical political act.”

The Divorce Colony: How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier

A fascinating account of the daring 19th-century women who moved to South Dakota to divorce their husbands and start living on their own terms.

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

In this masterful biography of J. Edgar Hoover, historian Beverly Gage draws on declassified documents, private papers and the FBI director’s own “ Official and Confidential Files ” to paint a more nuanced portrait of the polarizing public figure. The product of more than a decade of research, G-Man is the first major biography of Hoover in 30 years; at 864 pages, it’s also one of the most comprehensive .

Hoover, who headed the FBI for 48 years , from 1924 until his death at age 77 in 1972, arrived at the agency when it was a “law enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal and failure and controversy,” writes Gage. Under his leadership, the FBI became “a political surveillance force without precedent in American life,” continuously reshaped “according to his own priorities and in his own image.”

A lifelong bureaucrat who sought to protect the FBI from partisan politics, Hoover espoused racist and sexist views that pushed him to exclude women and Black people from the law enforcement agency’s ranks. He treated civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Black Panther Fred Hampton as threats to national security, monitoring them illegally through his Cointelpro program.

Yet Hoover had a softer side, too, particularly when it came to his constant companion and rumored lover, FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson . Ultimately, Gage concludes, Hoover was both “a confused, sometimes lonely man” and someone who “did as much as any individual in government to contain and cripple movements seeking social justice, and thus to limit the forms of democracy and governance that might have been possible.”

G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner): J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, & Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernández

The latest book from historian Kelly Lytle Hernández takes its title from a disparaging nickname coined by Mexican President Porfirio Díaz , who served seven terms between 1876 and 1911 . Bestowed upon a revolutionary group headed by anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón , the label malos Mexicanos belied the movement’s noble aims, including securing justice for the country’s most marginalized citizens : “poor men and women, mostly miners, farmworkers and cotton pickers, many of them displaced from Mexico when President Díaz gave their land to foreign investors,” according to Lytle Hernández.

Better known as the magonistas , Magón’s followers defied Díaz’s dictatorial regime, objecting to his emphasis on American investment over the well-being of his people. In Bad Mexicans , Lytle Hernández outlines these rebels’ activism and how it paved the way for the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920. Drawing on long-overlooked archival records that center the voices of Indigenous people and women, Bad Mexicans argues that the magonistas and the revolution they helped spark also shaped the United States. The influx of refugees escaping Díaz’s wrath marked the beginning of what has been a century of Mexicans seeking economic opportunity across the northern border.

Lytle Hernández writes, “The history of the United States as a global power cannot be told without Mexico. … The expansion of U.S. economic and political might was hatched in Mexico and, from there, projected across the Americas and, from there, around the world. Díaz’s Mexico was the ‘laboratory’ of U.S. imperialism.”

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, & Revolution in the Borderlands

The dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States.

Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew Delmont

On July 17, 1944, an explosion rocked a port in California’s Bay Area, killing 320 sailors and civilians in the deadliest home-front disaster of World War II. Two-thirds of the dead were enlisted Black sailors—men who’d been forced to load heavy munitions onto ships bound for the Pacific without receiving adequate training. After the disaster, when 50 Black sailors refused to continue the dangerous work, the military responded by placing them on trial and sentencing each to up to 15 years in prison.

Half American , by Dartmouth College historian Matthew Delmont , discusses the Port Chicago tragedy as part of a broader exploration of the challenges faced by Black soldiers during World War II. Discriminated against by the very country they’d risked their lives to protect, some of these men and women fought back, going on strike or refusing to comply with “racially unjust orders from officers, military police or local sheriffs,” writes Delmont. Encyclopedic in scope, this immersive tome readily lives up to the description offered by its publisher, emerging as a clear contender for “the definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective.”

Instead of prompting a racial reckoning, Black soldiers’ protests often resulted in court-martials and convictions—a trend that led a prominent Black newspaper, the Chicago Defender , to observe, “From slavery to slave labor has been the fate of the Negro who becomes a soldier or sailor. As a slave, the Negro revolted—fought, bled and died to break the chains that bound him. As slave labor in the Army and Navy, he is doing no less.”

Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad

The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective.

Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America by Megan Kate Nelson

2022 was a momentous year for Yellowstone , the United States’ first national park. Established 150 years ago, on March 1, 1872, Yellowstone marked this milestone with a slate of anniversary programming and fundraising campaigns . Then, in June, extreme flooding devastated the park, closing it to the public for the first time in 34 years .

Against this backdrop, Saving Yellowstone , the latest work from historian Megan Kate Nelson , a Pulitzer Prize finalist, offered readers the historical context necessary to understand the park’s significance, as well as the challenges it currently faces.

Told from the perspectives of three central figures—geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden , Lakota leader Sitting Bull and Northern Pacific Railroad financier Jay Cooke —Nelson’s book expertly weaves together explorations of Native sovereignty , environmental preservation and racial tensions in Reconstruction America. Underlying each of these threads is a sense of wonder regarding Yellowstone, whose “exploding mud volcanoes and cliffs made of glass and huge thundering waterfalls” rendered it a “place that was unique in the world,” Nelson tells the Colorado Sun .

Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America

The captivating story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in the years after the Civil War.

Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality by Tomiko Brown-Nagin

In 1962, attorney Constance Baker Motley became the first Black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, defending James Meredith in his quest to gain admission to the University of Mississippi. A protégée of Justice Thurgood Marshall , Motley wrote the original complaint for Brown v. Board of Education , defended Martin Luther King Jr. on contempt of court charges and won nine of the ten civil rights cases she presented to the court.

Before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson referred to Motley as a source of inspiration , relatively few people outside of the judiciary knew of her—a trend that author Tomiko Brown-Nagin , dean of Harvard Radcliffe Institute , hopes to rectify with the first major biography of Motley. The book, excerpted in Smithsonian magazine earlier this year, offers a new perspective on the civil rights movement, showing how Motley navigated criticism from both white lawyers and Black activists who accused her of being “ weak and accommodationist .” While Motley may not have been as radical as Malcolm X , Brown-Nagin argues that she was just as effective as her more outspoken peers.

“So intent on highlighting King, many historians pay too little attention to the legal strategies that helped the movement succeed,” writes Brown-Nagin. “We see a fuller, truer portrait of the civil rights movement when we view it through Motley’s work, which spanned the worlds of lawyering and activism.”

Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality

The first major biography of one of our most influential judges—an activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary—that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th century.

Blood, Fire and Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici by Estelle Paranque

The 16th-century contemporaries Catherine de’ Medici and Elizabeth I had much in common. Both wielded power in an age dominated by men. Both had at-times tense relationships with Mary, Queen of Scots . And both showed a single-minded determination to do what they deemed best for their respective kingdoms of France and England.

Still, there were crucial differences between the two. While Elizabeth was the daughter of a king, Catherine was not of royal blood. She “was not born to be queen,” historian Estelle Paranque told Smithsonian earlier this year. “She was not born into power.” The Protestant Elizabeth ruled England in her own right; the Catholic Catherine ruled on behalf of her sons as an unofficial regent. Perhaps most significantly, Catherine dedicated her life to the promotion of her family and, by extension, the preservation of the Valois dynasty. Elizabeth, meanwhile, famously rejected even the possibility of family, remaining an unmarried “ virgin queen ” until her death in 1603 at age 69.

In Blood, Fire and Gold , Paranque deftly shows how these experiences shaped the women rulers’ relationships with their subjects, advisers and each other. Placed in a unique position that few others could understand, “they might have been rivals, but they were also united in their power, each admiring the force of the other.” Paranque concludes, “Both of them brave and intelligent women, they were unlike any other rulers of the age, and while this might divide them, it would also bring them closer together.”

Blood, Fire & Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I & Catherine de Medici

A brilliant and beautifully written deep dive into the complicated relationship between Elizabeth I and Catherine de Medici, two of the most powerful women in Renaissance Europe who shaped each other as profoundly as they shaped the course of history.

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Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's associate digital editor, history.

The 40 Best Westerns of All Time, Ranked

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The Western genre has been a defining hallmark of cinema ever since it first rose to prominence as far back as the 1930s. Reaching its pinnacle in the 50s and 60s, it became emblematic of American film, with screen icons like John Wayne , Jimmy Stewart , and Gary Cooper being prolific stars of the genre. However, with the advent of Italy's spaghetti Westerns, which surged in popularity through the 60s, the Western has become a cherished pillar of cinema's identity on the global stage.

One of the strengths of the Western, and the reason for its evergreen timelessness, has been its willingness to constantly evolve, with each new generation of filmmakers able to re-align the genre to contemporary sensitivities. As such, the Westerns' greatest films span across the better part of a century. From pioneering classics of the 30s and 40s to modern-day iterations of the genre, and everything in between, the 25 best Westerns of all time make up some of cinema's most iconic and enduring achievements .

40 'El Dorado' (1966)

Directed by howard hawks.

Featuring two major stars in John Wayne and Robert Mitchum , 1966’s El Dorado is representative of the last days of the classical American Western in old Hollywood. Cole Thornton (Wayne) is a mercenary who refuses to help a crooked rancher run out the honest MacDonald family. However, when he later learns that the town’s Sheriff has become an alcoholic and the rancher is hiring other gunmen, Thornton returns to the town to offer his help to the MacDonalds.

While it didn’t reinvent the genre, El Dorado can still be celebrated as an earnest example of Western entertainment complete with likable heroes, wry humor, and a riveting climactic shootout worth waiting for. Also a fine display of Howard Hawks ’ technical excellence as a filmmaker and visual storyteller, El Dorado is Hollywood Western cinema at its most comfortable and familiar .

Watch on Paramount+

39 'Winchester '73' (1950)

Directed by anthony mann.

One of Jimmy Stewart’s finest efforts in his Western filmography , Winchester ’73 sees the iconic leading man portray Lin McAdam, a cowboy on the hunt for a notorious outlaw, Dutch Henry Brown ( Millard Mitchell ). When Dutch ambushes McAdam, and steals a prized Winchester rifle he won in a shooting contest, the cowboy sets out to reclaim his gun and kill Dutch once and for all, putting the two men on an inevitable collision course sure to end in an epic gunfight.

With a runtime of just 92 minutes, Winchester ’73 is a brisk and high-tempo film, offering plenty of thrills and action along the way . Furthermore, it’s immense cast – including the likes of Rock Hudson , Shelley Winters , Tony Curtis , and Dan Duryea – imbues it with a vibrancy and energy that feeds into its engaging spectacle. It is undeniably Stewart’s film though, with the bold foray into Western cinema re-branding the actor as a hero of the frontier for years to come.

Watch on Starz

38 'My Darling Clementine' (1946)

Directed by john ford.

John Ford ’s take on the legend of Wyatt Earp (played in this case by Henry Fonda ), My Darling Clementine might just be the acclaimed filmmaker’s most underrated movie. Fleshing out the story behind the famous O.K. Corral shootout, it follows Earp as he arrives in Tombstone with his brothers, only to awaken the next morning to find one of them dead and their cattle stolen. While the Earp brothers seek revenge, Wyatt sparks a romantic interest in Clementine Carter ( Cathy Downs ), the former lover of Doc Holliday ( Victor Mature ).

Fonda turned in a truly iconic cowboy performance while Mature had a career-best outing as the ailing Doc Holliday. With the film displayed in the brand of epic, cinematic grandiosity that defined many of John Ford’s greatest pictures, it remains a true Western classic and one of the best depictions of Wyatt Earp ever put to screen .

My Darling Clementine

Rent on Apple TV

37 'Johnny Guitar' (1954)

Directed by nicholas ray.

Despite being released to mixed and uncertain domestic reviews, Johnny Guitar became an instant hit in the European market and has endured as a progressive and captivating classic that has earned greater praise over time. Starring Joan Crawford , it follows an abrasive saloon owner as the sympathy she extends to a wounded outlaw sees her become the target of a lynch mob spurred on by her arch nemesis.

Unafraid of breaking genre conventions, Johnny Guitar makes an immediate impression with its rich sense of style, its bold and blistering narrative and characters , and its lyrical dialogue that few Westerns have embraced quite so eagerly. Hinging on Crawford’s performance, the film has become a true classic of the genre, even receiving a stage musical adaptation in 2004 as a testament to its long-running popularity.

Rent on Amazon

36 'The Rider' (2017)

Directed by chloé zhao.

Marking the second feature from Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao , 2017’s The Rider stands as an underrated modern Western even with critics heaping praise upon the character drama. It follows a rodeo rider who suffers a serious head injury that leads doctors to advise him against further riding. While he struggles to come to terms with the diagnosis, he takes a job at a local grocery store to help his poverty-stricken family which is struggling under the burden of their alcoholic and gambling-addicted patriarch.

Despite being a hard-hitting narrative film, Zhao strayed away from using trained actors, instead opting to cast real Lakota people as fictionalized versions of themselves, including star Brady Jandreau who did suffer a serious head injury as a horse trainer. Completely natural, evocative, and profoundly human, The Rider is a highlight of understated drama and is a film that explores complicated notions of masculinity while posing as a criminally underrated modern Western.

35 'Dances with Wolves' (1990)

Directed by kevin costner.

Kevin Costner ’s directorial debut, Dances with Wolves is an overawing visual spectacle that encompasses the sheer vastness of the frontier and the emotional might that can be found in American history. With Costner also starring , it follows a Civil War veteran who is assigned to a remote western outpost and forms a tight bond with the local Sioux tribe. His new relationships with the tribe members are tested when Union soldiers arrive to take their land.

While it is easy to criticize the movie for the simplicity with which it addresses its cultural focuses, Dances with Wolves maintains an arresting and rousing grandiosity that has seen it, as a whole, age admirably even if some of its parts haven’t. In addition to having a significant impact upon release, it also won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Costner.

Dances With Wolves

*Availability in US

34 'Fort Apache' (1948)

While its impact today is perhaps underappreciated, Fort Apache is an important landmark in the Western genre as one of the first mainstream Westerns to cast a sympathetic light on the Native Americans and the plights they faced as the frontier expanded. It focuses on the hostile relationship between a respected Civil War veteran, who is the new commander of Fort Apache, and his level-headed deputy, with the two men clashing over a planned attack on the Native Americans in the area.

Director John Ford was able to use the film to elaborate on a world-weary and contemplative view on interpersonal and racial conflicts, and even warfare itself, that would become a defining point of his greatest films going forward. Linked to the legend of General Custer ’s cavalry charge, Fort Apache finds its brilliance in its ambiguity and complexity , while Ford’s directorial precision is a feature, as are the performances of John Wayne and Henry Fonda .

Fort Apache (1948)

33 'the proposition' (2005), directed by john hillcoat.

While Westerns typically make use of the vast, open ranges of America and the frontier, Australia has established itself as an adequate substitute with its barren outback and its sun-scorched landscapes. Dubbed “meat pie Westerns,” Australia has produced a number of excellent films in the genre, with 2005’s The Proposition one of the best and most brutal.

Featuring an all-star cast, it follows a criminal who is given an ultimatum when he and his younger brother are arrested; he can bring his sadistic older brother in to be hanged, or his comparatively innocent younger sibling will face the noose in his stead. All the while, the policeman in charge struggles with the moral ramifications and what he is doing as the force around him take issue with his idea. Gritty, violent, and loaded with complicated characters at breaking strain, The Proposition is an underrated Western and one of the best examples of the genre in the 21st century.

The Proposition

32 'red river' (1948).

An underrated John Wayne film compared to some of the Western icon’s other acclaimed pictures in the genre, Red River excels as a character-driven drama with a neat, focused story. It follows Texas rancher Thomas Dunson (Wayne) and his adopted son Matt Garth ( Montgomery Clift ) as they embark on a cattle drive to Missouri as the Civil War rages on. The further they trek, the more hostile their relationship grows.

With esteemed director Howard Hawks at the helm, the film is an exemplary Western rich with awe-inspiring, sweeping visuals and an arresting emotional journey of desperation and tragedy . It maybe sacrifices some of the exhilarating thrills associated with Western stories in pits pursuit of a more grounded depiction of a bleak chapter in American history, but it is a stronger, more powerful film for it. Wayne’s portrayal of Dunson also remains one of the best and most nuanced performances of his career.

Watch on Fubo

31 'Tombstone' (1993)

Directed by george p. cosmatos and kevin jarre.

A sleek and stylish Western that was strikingly modern upon release and has endured admirably with its immaculate cast, Tombstone has to be the huckleberry of every 90s Western fan. A dramatized retelling of Wyatt Earp ’s ( Kurt Russell ) exploits, it follows the famous gunman as he and his brothers settle in the Arizona town of Tombstone where they find themselves opposed to a band of outlaws known as “the Cowboys.”

The ensemble cast features A-listers like Sam Elliott , Bill Paxton , Powers Boothe , and Michael Biehn alongside Kurt Russell, but it was Val Kilmer ’s portrayal of Doc Holliday that was the true scene stealer. His chemistry with Russell is sensational, with the bond between Holliday and Earp a defining element of the film’s brilliance. Triumphant, rousing, and imbued with gritty fun, Tombstone is a hallmark of Western entertainment in the 1990s .

30 'Compañeros' (1970)

Directed by sergio corbucci.

While Sergio Corbucci was typically known for the confronting sense of violence he brought to spaghetti Western cinema, his 1970 film, Compañeros , was a masterful blending of comedy and Western. Essentially a buddy movie, it follows a Swedish arms dealer and a Mexican peon as they are dispatched to reclaim an intellectual leader of the revolution from an American prison. Hilarious misadventures aplenty ensue, while the duo are also tracked by a one-handed gunslinger harboring a vengeful fury.

With genre icons Franco Nero and Tomas Milian occupying the starring roles, Compańeros boasted a vibrant energy that saw it go from Western to comedy to all-out action on a whim . There is a degree of ridiculous excess to Compańeros which is perfectly balanced against its narrative progression to be an exuberantly fun viewing experience for Western lovers.

Compañeros (1972)

Watch on Tubi

29 'Hell or High Water' (2016)

Directed by david mackenzie.

Hell or High Water has become an underrated cult classic as a well-acted neo-Western that also functions as a lean and gritty heist thriller. It follows Toby ( exceptionally portrayed by Chris Pine ), a divorced father, and his ill-tempered brother Tanner ( Ben Foster ), an ex-con, as they are told the bank is readying to foreclose on their family ranch. As they conduct a series of armed robberies on the bank, they find themselves on a collision course with Sheriff Marcus Hamilton ( Jeff Bridges ), a veteran lawman on the cusp of retirement.

While it replaces the horses and rifles with pick-up trucks and pump-action shotguns, it cuts to the core of the genre with its complex exploration of morality, violence, and justice . David Mackenzie succeeds in walking a tightrope in that audiences are permitted to be roused by the poetic justice of the brothers robbing the bank they are indebted to, while also forcing viewers to grapple with its evocative story of desperation.

Hell or High Water

28 'brokeback mountain' (2004), directed by ang lee.

A renowned Western romance from director Ang Lee , Brokeback Mountain was famously snubbed for Best Picture at the Oscars. That being said, it has endured as a true gem of 21st century cinema that is an essential viewing experience for all movie lovers. It follows the romance that develops between sheep herders Jack Twist ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) and Ennis Del Mar ( Heath Ledger ), one that grows complicated when they both return to their girlfriends and get married.

Its concentration on the emotional turmoil of both men gave the film a pointed focus that was poignant and painstakingly specific while still touching on a universal sense of heartache and despair. Impressively, this character-centric approach takes away none of the enormity associated with the genre, with Brokeback Mountain still utilizing an epic scale and spellbinding visuals to enhance the story . The end result is one of the greatest revisionist Westerns of all time.

Brokeback Mountain

Not available

27 'The Hateful Eight' (2015)

Directed by quentin tarantino.

A spaghetti Western thriller that also runs as a twisted whodunit, The Hateful Eight is a somewhat underappreciated gem within Quentin Tarantino’s career and of the Western genre at large . It tracks eight strangers stuck in a cabin in 1870 Wyoming when a blizzard strikes, forcing a bounty hunter escorting a violent captive to the hangman to grow suspicious of those in his company.

The close confines and the ever-mounting tensions in The Hateful Eight presented Tarantino with plenty of opportunity to flaunt his signature intensity, seeing the movie border on a level of suspense synonymous with horror films. With an epic scale that allows the story to unfold over its three-hour runtime, The Hateful Eight also holds up incredibly well on multiple rewatches, with all the sly twists and eruptions of violence only becoming more engrossing. Additionally, the wintery Western setting made for a relatively unique aesthetic within the genre.

The Hateful Eight

26 'shane' (1953), directed by george stevens.

A Western classic that was catapulted back into mainstream consciousness with its appearance in, and influence on, 2017's superhero hit Logan , Shane is a brilliant and contemplative example of the genre . Set in 1880s Wyoming, it follows the titular bounty hunter as he arrives in a small town and begins working as a farmhand. As Shane ( Alan Ladd ) befriends the family who employ him, he begins dreaming of a quieter life on the homestead, before the arrival of a ruthless cattle baron forces the gunslinger to take up arms once more.

One of the most influential films in Western cinema, its tale of a violent man hoping to settle into some normality and peace only to return to his brutal ways for the greater good is one which has been replicated countless times. Few films, however, have done it with as much pathos as Shane . Rich with gorgeous views that embody the Old West, Shane won Best Cinematography at the Oscars while also earning a further five nominations.

25 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' (2007)

Directed by andrew dominik.

Despite becoming a complete flop at the box office, one that famously cost star Brad Pitt a sum of money, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has come to be viewed as a modern classic of Western drama. The biopic focuses on the last days of Jesse James’ (Pitt) gang through the lens of Robert Ford ( Casey Affleck ), a young crook whose idolization of the notorious outlaw gradually turns to envy and spite.

Coasting off two exceptional lead performances, the film is a measured, crawling dive into obsession and morality , one that uses the mythic allure of the American train robbers to stunning effect. A brilliant example of revisionism in the genre, The Assassination contains all the grandiosity , grit, and thematic might associated with classic Western cinema, while also featuring a poignant crime story and arresting, poetic narration.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

24 'true grit' (2010), directed by ethan and joel coen.

An exceptionally rare case where a remake surpasses the original film, the Coen Brothers ' re-creation of the 1969 John Wayne classic was masterful. With young Mattie Ross ( Hailee Steinfeld ) desperate to avenge her murdered father, she enlists the crotchety, drunken US Marshall veteran Rooster Cogburn ( Jeff Bridges ) to help her bring the culprit to justice while insisting that she accompanies him on his journey.

True Grit represented the first pure-genre film by the Coens. It was an exercise they excelled in as well, with True Grit perfectly capturing the atmosphere of the Old West while drawing terrific performances from the talented cast . In addition to being one of the best Western movies of the 21st century , it also stands as one of the best movies of 2011, one which received 10 Academy Award nominations.

23 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller' (1971)

Directed by robert altman.

Described as an "anti-Western," McCabe & Mrs. Miller abandoned more flashy , cinematic ideas of the Old West and was more invested in depicting the way people actually lived . Directed by Robert Altman , it follows gambler John McCabe ( Warren Beatty ) as he arrives in a quiet mining town and opens a brothel. While many of the townsfolk are charmed by the enterprising newcomer, cockney prostitute Constance Miller ( Julie Christie ) is awake to his facade and makes herself his business partner.

A revisionist Western decades before the introspective subgenre became a trending idea, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is viewed by many to be among the greatest Westerns of all time. Bereft of macho heroism and suave shootouts, its focus on ordinary yet complicated people in a brutal though romanticized era remains a fresh take on the genre even more than 50 years since its release.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

22 '3:10 to yuma' (2007), directed by james mangold.

While it could be viewed as another Western remake that served as an improvement on the original film, James Mangold 's 3:10 to Yuma is probably more adequately described as its own adaptation of Elmore Leonard 's short story "Three-Ten to Yuma." Making use of a brilliant cast, it follows small-time rancher Dan Evans ( Christian Bale ) who, desperate for money, agrees to help transport a dangerous outlaw, Ben Wade ( Russell Crowe ), to the train station.

While there are plenty of twists and turns on the journey, 3:10 to Yuma isn't so much a triumph for its story as much as it was celebrated for its effortlessly smooth presentation . Bale and Crowe were both magnificent in their starring roles, portraying the characters' initial opposition with an understated sincerity which made the respect that evolved between the two men all the more compelling.

3:10 to Yuma

21 'the magnificent seven' (1960), directed by john sturges.

An adoring recreation of Akira Kurosawa 's mesmerizing samurai epic Seven Samurai , The Magnificent Seven has become a true classic in its own right, one which maintained many of the Japanese film's beats while adorning them in a cowboy aesthetic. A rousing tale of honor and camaraderie, it follows seven gunslingers who agree to help a poor Mexican village fight back against a group of bandits.

The film was largely defined by its incredible ensemble cast, with Yul Brynner , Steve McQueen , Charles Bronson , and James Coburg as just some of the iconic actors appearing. With its rollicking score, conflicting character motivations, and emotionally arresting tale all feeding into the film's overt though surprisingly earnest and welcoming masculinity, The Magnificent Seven remains just as triumphant a viewing experience today as it was way back in 1960 .

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Women's History Month

Every year, March is designated Women’s History Month by presidential proclamation. The month is set aside to honor women’s contributions in American history.

Did You Know? Women’s History Month started as Women’s History Week . . .

Women’s History Month began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978. The organizers selected the week of March 8 to correspond with International Women’s Day. The movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year.

In 1980, a consortium of women’s groups and historians—led by the National Women’s History Project (now the National Women's History Alliance)—successfully lobbied for national recognition. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th 1980 as National Women’s History Week. 

Subsequent Presidents continued to proclaim a National Women’s History Week in March until 1987 when Congress passed Public Law 100-9, designating March as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, each president has issued an annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.”

The National Women’s History Alliance selects and publishes the yearly theme. The theme for Women's History Month in 2021 captures the spirit of these challenging times. Since many of the women's suffrage centennial celebrations originally scheduled for 2020 were curtailed, the National Women's History Alliance is extending the annual theme for 2021 to "Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to Be Silenced.

Click here to download the NWHM 2021 Women's History Month Resource Toolkit , filled with links to biographies, events, and programming to celebrate this important month.

To learn more about the history of Women's History Month, please visit the Library of Congress .

Best Bills players of all time: We rank Buffalo's top 100

Back in 2019 when the National Football League was heading into its 100th season and the Buffalo Bills were playing their 60th season overall and 50th since the NFL-AFL merger, I commemorated the occasion by putting together a list of who I felt were the top 100 players in Buffalo Bills history .

There was plenty of discussion about my selections and as you might imagine, numerous disagreements of not only some of the players I left off, but also where I ranked some of the players I selected.

In the end, it was my list so I got the last call, and given that I began following the Bills right around 1970, have now been covering the team in some capacity for 42 years including as the full-time beat reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle since 1990, and have written several books about the history of the Bills, I think my qualifications gave me some gravitas for the assignment.

We are now five years down the road, and while Bills fans are frustrated that Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane have not been able to get the team to the Super Bowl , there is no arguing the fact that we are currently in the middle of the third-best stretch the Bills have ever had.

If I had to rank them, No. 1 is the period from 1988 through 1995 when Buffalo won six AFC East division titles and four straight AFC championships, a feat no NFL team has yet to match. Next would be 1963-66 when they played in the AFL and made the playoffs four straight seasons and won back-to-back league championships.

And then there is this most recent era with six playoff appearances in the last seven seasons. While it feels a little hollow with just one advancement to the AFC Championship Game , it’s been a pretty nice run when you consider what the previous 17 seasons were like.

Thus, I thought now was a good time to revise my top 100 because the following players have done enough, in my opinion, to crack the list: Quarterback Josh Allen, wide receiver Stefon Diggs, offensive linemen Dion Dawkins and Mitch Morse, safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde, cornerbacks Tre’Davious White and Taron Johnson, and linebacker Matt Milano.

I also added a few players who, on further examination, I should have included the first time around, and that meant removing other players. My process took into account many factors, but the primary drivers were performance and statistics, what the player meant to the team, and longevity as a Bill. There are a few exceptions on the longevity front, but I felt that their contributions in warranted inclusion.

Top Buffalo Bills players: 100-76

One of the players who got nudged out of his original top 100 was the man he put into the 100th spot five years ago; quarterback Doug Flutie.

Among the new players on the list, you'll find cornerback Taron Johnson and center Mitch Morse in this grouping.

∎ See the list of the best Buffalo Bills players of all time from 100-76.

Top Buffalo Bills players: 75-51

The original list included Jay Riemersma, Charles Clay and Ernie Warlick, but in addition to making room for recent players, a few players were added that were left out the first time, and these tight ends didn't quite make the cut. 

∎ See the list of the best Buffalo Bills players of all time from 75-51.

Top Buffalo Bills players: 50-26

This is the section where the most new-era players cracked the list including Micah Hyde, Dion Dawkins, Jordan Poyer, Matt Milano and Tre'Davious White.

∎ See the list of the best Buffalo Bills players of all time from 50-26.

Top Buffalo Bills players: 25-1

And now, we have reached the cream of the crop. You will find Stefon Diggs in this section, and you will also find Josh Allen.

∎ See the list of the best Buffalo Bills players of all time from 25-1.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out each Friday during the offseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

Who threw the 10 fastest pitches in MLB history?

In today's MLB , velocity is king. Who needs a UCL when you can touch triple-digits with your fastball or with a slider that breaks across the plate, right? Between 2000 and 2023, the average fastball velocity from starting pitchers increased drastically from around 89 miles per hour to over 94 miles per hour , and it only continues to rise.

Although velocity doesn't ensure success at the MLB level, pitchers who throw hard tend to get more swings and misses from their opponents. That's often enough to warrant a spot on MLB rosters.

With all that said, 95 mph is no longer considered elite velocity. It seems like everyone on every roster can reach that figure. Nowadays, it takes someone reaching 100 to really impress people. Good thing there are several players today capable of accomplishing such a feat. In fact, many of the fastest pitches in MLB history belong to players currently active. Don't believe me? Here are the ten fastest pitches in MLB history.

King of the hill: Fastest baseball pitch ever thrown in MLB history: Here's who holds the record

Fastest pitches in MLB history

• Aroldis Chapman, 105.8 mph – Sep. 24, 2010
• Aroldis Chapman, 105.7 mph – July 18, 2016
• Aroldis Chapman, 105.4 mpg – July 18, 2016
• Aroldis Chapman, 105.2 mph – July 22, 2016
• Aroldis Chapman, 105.1 mph – Aug. 2, 2016
• Aroldis Chapman,105.1 mph – July 22, 2016
• Aroldis Chapman, 105.1 mph – July 18, 2016
• Jordan Hicks, 105 mph – May 20, 2018
• Aroldis Chapman, 105 mph – July 23, 2016

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In a shock to absolutely no one, Aroldis Chapman has thrown eight of the top-10 fastest pitches in MLB history. The only other two pitches belong to now-San Francisco Giants starter Jordan Hicks.

Hicks did not throw these pitches as a starter for the Giants. He did so as a reliever for the St. Louis Cardinals. Relievers tend to have much more velocity behind their fastballs. The reason being that most of the time, they only have to throw one inning, perhaps even less if they don't do well. Where starters need to be able to throw effectively for five, six, sometimes seven innings, relievers can put everything they have into one frame, allowing them to rear back and let loose.

Since Hicks became a full-time starter with the San Francisco Giants this year, his average fastball velocity has dropped from 100.3 mph in 2023 to 95.9 this year. His sinker has also dropped from 100.1 mph to 95 mph.

MLB News: Negro Leagues' statistics will be incorporated into Major League Baseball’s historical records on Wednesday

What are the fastest pitches in MLB this year?

Much like the all-time leaderboard, the fastest pitches of 2024 is dominated by one man: Oakland's Mason Miller. The team's closer has been arguably the best reliever in baseball and his fastball is a big reason why.

Fastest pitches of 2024:

• Mason Miller,103.7 mph – April 11
• Mason Miller,103.4 mph – May 14
• Mason Miller,103.3 mph – April 11
• Mason Miller,103.3 mph – April 22
• Mason Miller, 103.2 mph – May 14
• Mason Miller, 102.9 mph – April 11
• Mason Miller, 102.9 mph – April 14
• Ryan Helsley, 102.8 mph – May 12
• Mason Miller, 102.7 mph – May 8
• Jhoan Duran, 102.7 mph – May 3

Last season, Minnesota's Jhoan Duran hurled a 104.8 mph fastball against the Seattle Mariners.

In fact, in 2023, nine of the ten fastest pitches in MLB were thrown by Duran (Jordan Hicks held the last spot). Unfortunately, Duran has not been able to reach 104 yet in 2024. We all know he has the capability to do so though.

Hunter Greene and his 105 reading

Although the initial broadcast radar read 105 when the pitch was thrown on March 30, 2023, that turned out to be an incorrect reading.

Statcast almost instantly took down the reading, claiming an error caused the improper reading. After all, Greene's next fastest pitch that day was just 102.

As of today, Baseball Savant lists Greene's fastest pitch that day at just 102.1 mph.

So, you're telling me Nolan Ryan isn't on the list?

Apparently not, but there is a bit of controversy around his exclusion.

In 1974, Nolan Ryan was measured by radar for the first time in his career, and topped out at 100.8 mph. That was still incredibly fast for its time, but it could've been even faster. See, the radar picked the ball's speed up as it crossed home plate. Nowadays, velocity is measured is it leaves a pitcher's hand.

Based on that velocity at home plate, Ryan's fastball actually could've been 108.1 mph, which would be far and away the fastest pitch in MLB history.

Someone else who could've had the fastest pitch of all-time is Bob Feller. According to legend, Feller was measured throwing a fastball at 107.6 mph in 1946. After returning from service in the Navy, Feller's fastball was allegedly measured against the speed of a motorcycle, and that's how the velocity was determined.

Unfortunately for both Feller and Ryan, since the methods for measurement in both instances were inconsistent with today's measurements, neither fastball can be definitively put atop baseball's all-time leaderboards. Even though Ryan's fastball can be estimated at a faster speed than Chapman's, it would still just be an estimate and thus it cannot be included.

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