biography book to read

Join Discovery, the new community for book lovers

Trust book recommendations from real people, not robots 🤓

Blog – Posted on Monday, Jan 21

The 30 best biographies of all time.

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

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

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

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great biographies out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized biography recommendation  😉

Which biography should you read next?

Discover the perfect biography for you. Takes 30 seconds!

1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

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

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

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

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

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

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

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

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

5. Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

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

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

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

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

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

7. Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

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

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

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

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

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

10. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

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

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

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

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

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

13. Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

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

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

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

15. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

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

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

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

17. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

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

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

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

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

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

20. Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24. Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes

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

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

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

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

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

27. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading

More posts from across the blog.

40+ Stupendous Sea Monsters (in Stories You’ll Want to Dive Into)

Spine-chilling, stupendous, and sometimes even seductive, sea monsters have haunted literature’s depths since the days of Homer’s wine-dark sea. This post will introduce them — and show you the books you'll want to dive into for their stories. 

Goodreads vs. StoryGraph: Which is Better in 2024?

Making the switch to StoryGraph might seem daunting, but if you’ve found yourself frustrated with Goodreads, then it's worth taking the time to jump ship! StoryGraph is an excellent alternative and is in many ways better than Goodreads.

70 Best Game of Thrones Quotes from the Books and TV Series

Well, whether you loved or hated the hotly contested final season of HBO's Game of Thrones series, we can bet on one thing: you're sad to say goodbye to Sunday nights spent watching the Seven Kingdoms battle it out for the Iron Throne. True, we do have <...

Heard about Reedsy Discovery?

Trust real people, not robots, to give you book recommendations.

Or sign up with an

Or sign up with your social account

• Submit your book
• Reviewer directory

We made a writing app for you

Yes, you! Write. Format. Export for ebook and print. 100% free, always.

50 Must-Read Biographies

Rebecca Hussey

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

View All posts by Rebecca Hussey

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

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

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

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

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

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

John Adams by David McCullough

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

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

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

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

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

John Brown by W.E.B. Du Bois

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

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

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

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

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

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

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

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

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

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

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

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

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

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

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

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

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

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

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

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

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

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

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

The Life of Samuel Johnson   by James Boswell

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

Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers

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

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

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

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

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

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

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

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

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

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

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

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

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

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

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

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

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

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

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

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

You Might Also Like

The 21 most captivating biographies of all time

When you buy through our links, Business Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

• 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.

• Main content

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.

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

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.

@media(max-width: 73.75rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.4375rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.5625rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}} Books

Percival Everett's New Novel Is a Modern Classic

The Best Books of 2024 (So Far)

The Best Memoirs of 2024 (So Far)

Is It A Betrayal To Publish Dead Writers' Books?

The Best Sci-Fi Books of 2024 (So Far)

A Crime Fiction Master Flips the Script

How to Read the 'Dune' Book Series in Order

Tommy Orange Is Not Your Tour Guide

What to Do If You're 'Divorce-Curious'

Into the Unknown With Kelly Link

Meet Your New Robot Co-Writer

• NONFICTION BOOKS
• BEST NONFICTION 2023
• BEST NONFICTION 2024
• Historical Biographies
• The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
• Philosophical Biographies
• World War 2
• World History
• American History
• British History
• Chinese History
• Russian History
• Ancient History (up to 500)
• Medieval History (500-1400)
• Military History
• Art History
• Travel Books
• Ancient Philosophy
• Contemporary Philosophy
• Ethics & Moral Philosophy
• Great Philosophers
• Social & Political Philosophy
• Classical Studies
• New Science Books
• Maths & Statistics
• Popular Science
• Physics Books
• Climate Change Books
• How to Write
• English Grammar & Usage
• Books for Learning Languages
• Linguistics
• Political Ideologies
• Foreign Policy & International Relations
• American Politics
• British Politics
• Religious History Books
• Mental Health
• Neuroscience
• Child Psychology
• Film & Cinema
• Opera & Classical Music
• Behavioural Economics
• Development Economics
• Economic History
• Financial Crisis
• World Economies
• How to Invest
• Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
• Data Science Books
• Sex & Sexuality
• Death & Dying
• Food & Cooking
• Sports, Games & Hobbies
• FICTION BOOKS
• BEST FICTION 2023
• NEW Fiction
• World Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Literary Figures
• Classic English Literature
• American Literature
• Comics & Graphic Novels
• Fairy Tales & Mythology
• Historical Fiction
• Crime Novels
• Science Fiction
• Short Stories
• South Africa
• United States
• Arctic & Antarctica
• Afghanistan
• Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
• Netherlands
• Kids Recommend Books for Kids
• High School Teachers Recommendations
• Prizewinning Kids' Books
• Popular Series Books for Kids
• BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS (ALL AGES)
• Ages Baby-2
• Books for Teens and Young Adults
• THE BEST SCIENCE BOOKS FOR KIDS
• BEST KIDS' BOOKS OF 2023
• BEST BOOKS FOR TEENS OF 2023
• Best Audiobooks for Kids
• Environment
• Best Books for Teens of 2023
• Best Kids' Books of 2023
• Political Novels
• New History Books
• New Literary Fiction
• New Historical Fiction
• New Biography
• New Memoirs
• New World Literature
• New Economics Books
• New Climate Books
• New Math Books
• New Philosophy Books
• New Psychology Books
• New Physics Books
• THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS
• Actors Read Great Books
• Books Narrated by Their Authors
• Best Audiobook Thrillers
• Best History Audiobooks
• Nobel Literature Prize
• Booker Prize (fiction)
• Baillie Gifford Prize (nonfiction)
• Financial Times (nonfiction)
• Wolfson Prize (history)
• Royal Society (science)
• Pushkin House Prize (Russia)
• Walter Scott Prize (historical fiction)
• Arthur C Clarke Prize (sci fi)
• The Hugos (sci fi & fantasy)
• Audie Awards (audiobooks)

Best Biographies

Browse book recommendations:

• Ancient Biographies
• Artists' Biographies
• Group Biographies
• Literary Biographies
• Scientific Biographies

Whether you're looking for new biographies , or outstanding works written decades or even centuries ago, we have some recommendations. To help find a book about a specific person or group of people, we've set up the following lists:

The best historical biographies Some of our favourite philosophical biographies Lives of the classical composers The best literary biographies (Separately, we also have a section with interviews dedicated to specific literary figures , including, for example, an interview on Shakespeare’s life , recommended by James Shapiro of Columbia University). The lives of scientists Artists' lives

The Best Memoirs: The 2024 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist , recommended by May-lee Chai

I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir by Susan Kiyo Ito

Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm by David Mas Masumoto

Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison by Ahmed Naji, translated by Katharine Halls

How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair

Story of a Poem: A Memoir by Matthew Zapruder

It's been a "phenomenal" year for autobiographical writing, says May-lee Chai —the award-winning author and chair of the judges for this year's National Book Critics Circle prize for autobiography. Here she offers us a tour of the five memoirs that made their 2024 shortlist.

It’s been a “phenomenal” year for autobiographical writing, says May-lee Chai—the award-winning author and chair of the judges for this year’s National Book Critics Circle prize for autobiography. Here she offers us a tour of the five memoirs that made their 2024 shortlist.

The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

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

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

Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman

Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Notable Memoirs of 2023 , recommended by Cal Flyn

Stay True by Hua Hsu

Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory by Janet Malcolm

Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page

The Light Room: On Art and Care by Kate Zambreno

O Brother by John Niven

Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn selects the best recent autobiographical writing in this round-up of notable memoirs of 2023—taking in new work from such literary giants as Janet Malcolm and Annie Ernaux, the writer other writers are raving about, and a humorous debut depicting life in a haunted antiquarian bookshop.

The Best Literary Biographies , recommended by Lyndall Gordon

Selected Essays by T S Eliot

The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth by Frances Wilson

Reading Chekhov by Janet Malcolm

Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman

Jane's Fame by Claire Harman

The inner life is a mystery but the best biographies expose the hidden kernel of a person, says literary biographer and academic, Lyndall Gordon . She picks five books that push the boundaries of the genre.

The inner life is a mystery but the best biographies expose the hidden kernel of a person, says literary biographer and academic, Lyndall Gordon. She picks five books that push the boundaries of the genre.

Award Winning Biographies of 2022 , recommended by Sophie Roell

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner

The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III by Andrew Roberts

Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane by Paul Auster

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

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert

In telling stories of lives that are often very different from our own and yet connected to us by our common humanity, biographies are some of the most compelling nonfiction books around. Five Books editor Sophie Roell rounds up some of the biographies that have won or been shortlisted for prizes in 2022.

The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist , recommended by Marion Winik

A Little Devil in America: Notes In Praise Of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin

A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha by Rodrigo Garcia

A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes by Albert Samaha

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik , the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik, the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley

The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne & Tamara Payne

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

The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s by Maggie Doherty

Elizabeth Taylor , the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan's shogun era.

Elizabeth Taylor, the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics’ Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan’s shogun era.

The Best of Biography: the 2020 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Best Fashion Biographies , recommended by Justine Picardie

The Allure of Chanel by Paul Morand

Dior by Dior by Christian Dior

Shocking Life by Elsa Schiaparelli

The Unexpurgated Beaton by Cecil Beaton (Author), Hugo Vickers (Editor)

Diana Vreeland by Eleanor Dwight

Justine Picardie , editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar UK and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life , chooses her favourite fashion biographies, and considers whether fashion and art are inextricably linked.

Justine Picardie, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar UK and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life , chooses her favourite fashion biographies, and considers whether fashion and art are inextricably linked.

The Best Biographies: the 2019 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous by Christopher Bonanos

Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown

Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century by Mark Lamster

The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created by Jane Leavy

Biography is booming, says the longtime book critic and biographer Elizabeth Taylor . Here she highlights the five fantastic books shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle 2019 biography award, and how historical lives provide insight into contemporary culture.

Biography is booming, says the longtime book critic and biographer Elizabeth Taylor. Here she highlights the five fantastic books shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle 2019 biography award, and how historical lives provide insight into contemporary culture.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

© Five Books 2024

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The best memoirs and biographies of 2022

Heartfelt memoirs from Richard E Grant and Viola Davis, childhood tales of religious dogma, and vivid insights into Agatha Christie and John Donne

The best books of 2022

C elebrity memoirs often follow the same trajectory: a difficult childhood followed by early professional failure, then dazzling success and redemption. But this year has yielded a handful of autobiographies from famous types determined to mix things up. Richard E Grant’s vivacious and heartfelt A Pocketful of Happiness (Gallery) recounts a year spent caring for his late wife, Joan Washington, who was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly before Christmas in 2020, and the “head-and-heart-exploding overwhelm” that followed. The book interweaves hospital appointments with memories of the couple’s courtship plus showbiz stories of Grant at the Golden Globes, or hijinks on the set of Star Wars. This juxtaposition of glamour and grief shouldn’t work, but it does.

Minnie Driver’s Managing Expectations (Manila) comprises spry and amusing autobiographical essays that detail pivotal moments in the actor’s life. These include her experience of becoming a mother, cutting off all her hair on a family holiday in France and the time her father sent her home to England from Barbados alone, aged 11, including a stopover at a Miami hotel, as punishment for being rude to his girlfriend (Driver got her revenge by buying up half the gift shop on her dad’s credit card). She also recalls the disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein bemoaning her lack of sex appeal, which she notes was rich from a man “whose shirts were always aggressively encrusted with egg/tuna fish/mayo”.

Alan Rickman’s Madly, Deeply (Canongate) diaries provide insight into the inner life of the late actor who, despite his many successes, frets over roles turned down and rails at the perceived ineptitude of script writers, directors and co-stars. He nonetheless keeps glittering company, hobnobbing with musicians, prime ministers and Hollywood megastars, and almost single-handedly keeps the tills ringing at the Ivy. And while he seethes at critics’ reviews of his own work, his assessments of less-than-perfect films and plays are so deliciously scathing, they deserve a book of their own.

In Finding Me (Coronet), the actor Viola Davis gives a clear-eyed account of her deprived childhood and her rise to fame, along with the violence, abuse and racism she endured along the way. The book is not so much a triumphant tale of overcoming adversity as a howl of fury at the injustice of it all. Davis may now be able to survey her career from a place of Oscar-winning privilege, but she doesn’t hesitate in calling out her industry and its ingrained racial bias, which leads to white actors landing plum roles and “relegates [Black actors] to best friends, to strong, loudmouth, sassy lawyers and doctors”. In The Light We Carry (Viking), the follow-up to her bestselling memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama also touches on the impossible-to-meet expectations that dog anyone trying to make it in a world that sees them as different, or deficient. “I happen to be well acquainted with the burdens of representation and the double standards for excellence that steepen the hills so many of us are trying to climb,” she writes. “It remains a damning fact of life that we ask too much of those who are marginalised and too little of those who are not.”

Away from the world of global fame and its attendant scrutiny, the journalist Chitra Ramaswamy’s touching memoir Homelands (Canongate) documents the author’s friendship with 97-year-old Henry Wuga, who escaped Nazi persecution as a teenager and began a new life in Glasgow. Interwoven with Wuga’s recollections is Ramaswamy’s own family story – she is the daughter of Indian immigrant parents – through which she digs deep into matters of identity, belonging and the meaning of home. Similar themes are explored in Ira Mathur’s multilayered Love the Dark Days (Peepal Tree), which, set in India, Britain and the Caribbean, reads like a fictional family saga as it leaps back and forth in time. The book charts the lives of the author’s wealthy, dysfunctional forebears against a backdrop of patriarchal hegemony and a collapsing empire.

The Last Days (Ebury) by Ali Millar and Sins of My Father (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) by Lily Dunn each tell harrowing stories of families torn apart by religious dogma. Millar, who grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness on the Scottish borders, reflects on a childhood haunted by predictions of Armageddon and blighted by her eating disorder. As an adult she marries, within the church, a controlling man and has a baby, though at 30 she makes her escape and is “disfellowshipped”, meaning she is cut off for ever from her family. Meanwhile, Dunn recalls losing her father to a commune in India presided over by the cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, where disciples were encouraged to “live in love”, meaning they could engage in guilt-free sex. Dunn’s book is her attempt to pin down this charismatic, mercurial and unreliable figure and the ripple effects of his actions on those closest to him. In Matt Rowland Hill’s scabrously funny Original Sins (Chatto & Windus), it is the author who is the agent of chaos. The son of evangelical Christians, Hill shoots heroin at the funeral of a friend who died from an overdose, and tries to score drugs on a visit to Bethlehem. Were his account a novel, you might accuse it of being too far-fetched.

In Kit de Waal’s first autobiographical work, Without Warning and Only Sometimes (Tinder Press), the author recalls how she and her four siblings would go to bed hungry while their father blew his earnings on a new suit, and her mother would work off her rage by collecting empty milk bottles and throwing them at a wall in the back yard. After a bout of depression in her teens, De Waal eventually found comfort and escape in literature. Her book is a brilliant evocation of the times in which she lived, when children learned to make their own entertainment and adults didn’t talk about their feelings, and a funny and tender portrait of a complicated family.

after newsletter promotion

The Crane Wife (Viking), by the American author CJ Hauser, began life as a confessional essay about the time she travelled to the gulf coast of Texas to study whooping cranes 10 days after breaking off her engagement. Published in the Paris Review, the essay blew up online, prompting Hauser to expand her thoughts on love and relationships into this thoughtful and fitfully funny book. Across 17 confessional essays, we find her furtively spreading her grandparents’ ashes at their old house in Martha’s Vineyard, contemplating breast reduction surgery and reflecting on her relationships with a high-school boyfriend and a divorcee who is clearly still in love with his ex.

Finally, some excellent biographies. Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman (Hodder & Stoughton) by Lucy Worsley is a riveting portrait of the queen of crime viewed through a feminist lens. The book acknowledges Christie’s flaws, most notably in her views on race, while portraying her as ahead of her time in putting women at the centre of her stories and showing how older women “have more to offer the world than meets the eye”. Super-Infinite (Faber), winner of this year’s Baillie Gifford prize, is a biography of the 17th-century preacher and poet John Donne by Katherine Rundell, the children’s novelist and Renaissance scholar. Ten years in the writing, the book approaches its subject with wit and vivacity, bringing to life Donne’s inner world through his verse.

Jonathan Freedland’s The Escape Artist (John Murray) is a remarkable account of the life of Rudolf Vrba, a prisoner at Auschwitz who was put to work in “Kanada”, a store of belongings removed from inmates which revealed that the line fed to them was a lie: they were not there to be resettled but murdered. Vrba and his friend Fred Wetzler pledged to escape and tell the world about the Nazis’ industrialised murder, hiding beneath a woodpile for three days before slipping through the fence to freedom. The horror of this story lies not just in its account of “cold-blooded extermination” but in the slowness of authorities to react to the Vrba-Wetzler report, which laid out the workings of Auschwitz, complete with maps showing the chambers. Freedland recalls the words of the French-Jewish philosopher Raymond Aron, who, when asked about the Holocaust, said: “I knew, but I didn’t believe it. And because I didn’t believe it, I didn’t know.”

• Best books of the year
• Best books 2022
• Biography books
• Autobiography and memoir

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

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..

• Non-Fiction
• Author’s Corner
• Reader’s Corner
• Writing Guide
• Book Marketing Services
• Write for us

Readers' Corner

Must Read Biography Books and Memoirs

Table of contents, hidden figures by margot lee shetterly, the professor and the madman: a tale of murder, insanity and the making of the oxford english dictionary by simon winchester, the wives of henry viii by antonia fraser, john adams by david mccullough, american prometheus by kai bird and martin j. sherwin, wild swans: three daughters of china, cleopatra: a life by stacy schiff, einstein: his life and universe by walter isaacson, becoming by michelle obama, enrique’s journey: the story of a boy’s dangerous odyssey to reunite with his mother by sonia nazario, the lost city of z: a tale of deadly obsession in the amazon by david grann, georgiana: duchess of devonshire by amanda foreman, notorious rbg: the life and times of ruth bader ginsburg by irin carmon, frida: a biography of frida kahlo by hayden herrera, into the wild by jon krakauer, washington: a life by ron chernow, malcolm x: a life of reinvention by manning marable, unbroken: a world war ii story of survival, resilience and redemption by laura hillenbrand, the immortal life of henrietta lacks by rebecca skloot, steve jobs by walter isaacson, when breath becomes air by paul kalanithi, into thin air: a personal account of the mount everest disaster by jon krakauer, red notice: a true story of high finance, murder, and one man’s fight for justice by bill browder, the boys in the boat: nine americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 berlin olympics by daniel james brown, a walk in the woods: rediscovering america on the appalachian trail by bill bryson, just mercy: a story of justice and redemption by bryan stevenson, the autobiography of benjamin franklin by benjamin franklin, my experiments with truth by mahatma gandhi, elon musk: tesla, spacex, and the quest for a fantastic future by ashlee vance, bossypants by tina fey, a beautiful mind by sylvia nasar, the man who knew infinity: a life of the genius ramanujan by robert kanigel, alexander hamilton by ron chernow, long walk to freedom by nelson mandela, educated by tara westover, “surely you’re joking, mr. feynman”: adventures of a curious character by richard p. feynman.

The best biography books give us a satisfying glimpse into a great person’s life, while also teaching us about the context in which that person lived. Nothing tells us more about how to be alive now than learning from those who have gone before. And nothing captures their triumphs and disasters better than a book. Ask any entrepreneur or a rock star employee. They have one thing in common. They read biographies of people who have walked before us and were kind enough to share their lives through books.

But why read biographies?

Because all the lessons you can’t learn only by your life experience. You need to get some experience second-hand. And these people who have written/helped writing these books on their lives want to share what they have learned along the way. Our job is to pick up the lessons and apply them. These are the books you need to read when you feel lost in your life and want guidance.

Through biography, we can also learn history, psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, and more. Reading a great biography is both fun and educational. What’s not to love?

Below I’ve listed 50 of the best biography books you must read. You will find a mix of subjects, including important figures in literature, science, politics, history, art, and more.

Hidden Figures : The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly is a book not only about strong women but more. It is a book about society, struggles, overcoming prejudices, spirit, strong will, and brains. This is a history lesson for all of us not to repeat mistakes. This book follows a handful of smart and tough women as they work their way through a society rigged against them in every way until they get a small break and they let their brilliance shine.

The book starts at the time of WWII, continues with the cold war, space race, civil rights movement, and brings the untold stories of everyday heroes into daylight. I didn’t know about Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who carried US to new fronts and heights, until I read the book. I recommend this book to everyone, especially young girls, so that they can understand their importance and acclaim their own power.

The subtitle of The Professor and the Madman is all the synopsis you need: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

James Murray is the professor, a learned man who became the editor of the OED. Dr William C Minor is the madman, an American Civil-War veteran and surgeon. His paranoid delusions caused him to commit murder; and resulted in his life-long commitment to an asylum for the criminally insane.

Simon Winchester crafts a compelling non-fiction narrative. This is a much shorter book compared to other biography books. Though it’s clear that Winchester did significant research and he includes details of how the OED was conceived; and the laborious efforts to get volunteers to submit citations to support word usage definitions. He never lost the story arc of these two remarkable men. He captured my attention on page one and held it throughout.

Antonia Fraser is one of the most well-known historical biographers out there, and this is another of her thoroughly researched books. Each wife is given attention, but especially Catherine of Aragon, who was married to Henry for 24 years before he tossed her aside for Anne Boleyn.

Fraser goes into each of the women’s rise and fall from affection of Henry VIII, and how the women related to one another. Catherine of Aragon is portrayed as the most sympathetic of the wives, a woman who was devoted to Henry and could never understand what happened to make his feelings for her change. Anne Boleyn was well-educated and ambitious, giving birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I before losing her head. Jane Seymour was mild and giving, and birthed Henry’s only surviving son.

Anne of Cleves managed to avoid following in the footsteps of Anne Boleyn, but Katherine Howard, rather naive to the ways of Henry’s court (but not to the bedroom), went the way of Anne Boleyn. Catherine Parr was plotted against, but luckily managed to outlive her king.

McCullough’s biography deserves all the accolades. It is written with depth and with passion. More than just a history, this is a penetrating look into the minds of Adams, Jefferson, family, friends and enemies that brings them and their times to life for us. This remarkable accounting of the birth of a country and how it found its early footing foreshadows the civil war and debates that still rage in America.

Contrasting the beliefs, politics and personalities of Adams and Jefferson, McCullough exquisitely illustrates the divisions and binding forces of early America that persist to this day. That the deaths of Jefferson and Adams, the pen and the voice of the Declaration of Independence, occurred only five hours apart on July 4, 1826 exactly fifty years after its proclamation is simply astonishing. One of the best biography books for every American and anyone who wants to understand America, past and present.

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer is a thorough account of the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The book follows Oppenheimer’s pivotal role as director of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bombs used in World War II. It covers Oppenheimer’s groundbreaking theoretical work on nuclear fission, his assembly of the scientific team that engineered the first atomic bomb, and his controversial collaboration with government officials during the Manhattan Project years. After the war, Oppenheimer became a vocal advocate for nuclear arms control, putting him at odds with officials and ultimately leading to the revocation of his security clearance in the famous 1954 hearings. The book, which took the authors almost 20 years to complete based on extensive research, provides unique insight into Oppenheimer as a scientist, visionary and complex human wrestling with the consequences of scientific progress. It won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, highlighting its importance and literary merit.

I’ve never felt so sad to reach the end of a book in all my life. This book is amazing and is well and truly one of the best biography books I’ve ever read! Wild Swans follows the journey of three generations of women, from the same family, through the tragic history of twentieth century China.

Wild Swans is a whirlwind story, focusing around the tragedy of China throughout much of the last century through three generations of women. The greatest havoc is wrought by Mao Zedong and his wife, particularly through his Cultural Revolution in which young people are pitched against teachers, intellectuals and artists in a highly successful attempt to divide and rule. It’s like Lord of the Flies meets real life. Read this book, especially if you don’t know much about China – it’s an education.

Stacy Schiff has crafted, somehow, a new angle on one of the world’s oldest great stories. By focusing on the first degree sources we have from the period (mostly from Roman scholars & historians, since Alexandria was destroyed by earthquakes), Schiff at once claims expertise but only in a context that is also accessible to the reader. At times Schiff’s explanation of the sources and the perceived motivations of their authors feels plodding, but the framing of these sources is essential to Schiff’s project.

Even with thin sourcing and scrubbed of the Orientalism and oversexualized mythologies, Cleopatra’s life story is incredible. The last quarter of the book dedicated to Rome’s war on Egypt and Cleopatra’s eventual suicide is taut storytelling, not just “classicism for amateurs.”

Reading about Einstein is felt like reading the whole universe. He was phenomenal in his studies and researches. His story is a little different than people usually imagine about him. He was pretty much involved in politics of power in the 1930s.

As we all know Walter Isaacson is a tremendous storyteller. He has done a pretty good job to provides us with depth knowledge of Einstein’s life and about his researches. His paper on the theory of relativity has paved the way for modern physics. Though the things he said are still mysterious but provided him with bigger applaud around the world.

Becoming is a memoir of a famous person, Michelle Obama, the first black First Lady in the United States who lived with her husband, President Barack Obama, and their two daughters, Malia and Sacha in the White House for eight years. During that time, alongside taking care of her family, Michelle Obama managed to accomplish four major initiatives as First Lady to help improve people’s lives and well-being.

Michelle does not pretend living in the White House was not a privilege or shy away from the associated perks. She doesn’t pretend it was always amazing and wonderful either. There were plenty of tough days with the various events happening around the world.

The pressure and scrutiny of trying to raise 2 daughters with some semblance of normalcy could also be taxing on the family of 4. Through it all, Michelle always remained committed to being the best mom to Sasha and Malia.

Sonia Nazario presents the story of a mother who leaves her family in Honduras to enter the US illegally in order to make money for them to go to school and eat. She thinks she will only be gone a year. After many years, her son, Enrique, now 15, decides to make the extremely dangerous journey to find his mother. After several attempts and near death experiences (he was very lucky to not die), he finally is reunited with his mom. However, reunification is fraught with difficulties.

Nazario is a reporter and is extremely fair and honest in her portrayal of illegal immigrant families and the consequences that surround their decisions. She actually went to Mexico and retraced Enrique’s (and tens of thousands of other children’s) journey. Nazario treats everyone in this book with dignity and fairness, and it really made me think.

The author sets out to do try to find the legendary Colonel Fawcett and possibly the latters mysterious city of “Z” as well. “Z” being a lost, ancient city in the heart of the Amazon. Fawcett, his son Jack and a third man were lost in the mid 1920’s on an expedition into the Amazon. Fawcett had endured trips to the jungle many times before and was legendary in this respect. When he did not return, many set out to find him and were lost.

The book details Fawcetts life, some expeditions to find him and also the author’s search for answers. It does not entice one to seek out the Amazon – the details of insects, disease, snakes, hostile Indians and starvation paint a picture that would easily do as the 8th circle of Dante’s hell. It is highly informative, very interesting and one of the best biography books.

Georgiana was the great British political hostess (on the Whig side) of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as the reigning superstar of high society in England during that era. She was also a complex and fascinating character, brilliant, loving, gay, miserable, bold, and insecure. She made a strong impression on everyone she met, and wielded enormous power from a position of powerlessness. She is therefore a fascinating subject for biography.

Amanda Foreman does a good job of meeting the challenge, though occasionally Georgiana Cavendish’s complexities feel a bit more cataloged than understood. It surely didn’t help the biographer that subsequent hands censored or outright destroyed much of Georgiana’s written legacy, primarily in the form of letters.

This is one of the most inspiring and the best biography books about feminism in practice that I’ve ever read. RBG is an inspiration on many levels, but a few things really stuck with me. While she remains committed to feminist ideals, she truly embodies what feminism is all about – equality of the sexes. To that end, she has worked tirelessly to confront sexism against men, and to help break down the embedded cultural barriers that often prevent men from being able to serve as equal partners in marriage and parenting. Of course, she has also weighed in on sexism against women, calling it out even today when confronted by sexism at the highest levels of our judicial system.

RBG’s marriage and partnership with her beloved husband of 56 years also provide a compelling example of what an equal partnership can look like in a marriage. Marty and RBG both made sacrifices for the sake of one another’s careers, and contributed to the running of house and family.

What a wonderful personality Frida is. The big desire to live no matter what. It is amazing how painful and otherwise full of joy and passion her life is. I’m just inspired from story about one of most famous women of the 20th century.

The book itself is so informative and full of references which give more information about story. Also, so many people shared their memories about Frida in one place. Like a puzzle of her life through other people lips. That’s just amazing!

In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer makes the basic facts of Christopher McCandless’s trek into the Alaskan wilderness and his death nearly 4 months later clear from the outset. Even though I’d heard a lot about this case, that’s just the beginning of the story. His motivations, especially since graduating college a year earlier, are what make this story interesting.

As some of McCandless’s ideas about living a new kind of life off the map come into focus, Krakauer continues to highlight the harsh realities McCandless chose to face. While what McCandless was trying to do might be appealing to some, Krakauer reminds readers that McCandless was ill-prepared for the dangers.

The life of George Washington is not the stoic, myth-laden journey most people have fixed in their minds. As revealed in Ron Chernow’s excellent biography, the stoic man in paintings hid an emotional complex man who went from being a loyal British subject for the first two-thirds of his life to the individual who brought a new nation into being over nearly a quarter century.

Chernow beings by putting Washington not only into the context of his times, colonial Virginia, but also into the family dynamic he grew up and developed in. The first son of his father’s second marriage, Washington’s father died young like many of his forbearers leaving a void in his life that he filled with his oldest half-brother Lawrence. It was his brother’s service in the Royal Naval that would direct Washington to desire military success when he was a young man. However, Washington would lose his brother at an early age in a string of emotionally sting but ultimately fortuitous deaths that shaped his life.

Malcolm X was a complex and extraordinary man. Reading this one of the best biography books took me longer to read than most books and I found myself having to take breaks and read other things during the process. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the book but that it was so heavy with information and detail about the evolution of this man that I couldn’t absorb it without pausing.

What I found remarkable was learning about Malcolm’s place on the world stage. Had he chosen to stay abroad (and remained alive)I believe he would have made a big difference in the Pan African Movement. He was though a tragic character in the true Shakespearean sense and the strengths and weaknesses that made him so remarkable marked him for his assassination.

This is a inspiring and educational read. It’s one of those books that you gasp out load while reading it as the horrors of war really come to the forefront in this book. This is a story of five parts and I really enjoyed the first three parts. Part one deals with the protagonist Louis Zamperini’s childhood and running career and I really enjoyed this introduction to Louis as I felt I really understood this man and knew how he survived the horrors of war and the physiological and physical pain he endured.

This is a book where you really see the full horrors of war on all sides and what these soldiers and their families went through and the strength and courage they showed. A tale of unbelievable endurance, hardship and heroism this book is not only an education but a wonderful read and one of the best biography books that you ponder long after you have read it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a very powerful and informative story. Also, with the history of personal freedoms, civil rights, and right to privacy/requiring consent, this is a very important and one of the best biography books.

Henrietta Lacks is a woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. The cells cut from her body, because of their aptitude for growth and replication, still play a significant role in treating disease and other medical tests. She did not know her cells were being used, and her family did not benefit financially. The author writes extensively about her family, as they were a crucial source for the book. Because of so many trust relationships violated over the years, she had to first work to build trust and prove herself reliable. She went on to establish a trust for the family.

This book discusses science, both the present state of medicine while Henrietta was being treated for cervical cancer (nothing short of radium tube inserts and lead!) and how science has grown in its understandings and treatments because of her cells.

I have been strangely and inexplicably fascinated with Steve Jobs for many years. Fascinated enough to make this book the only biography I have ever re-read. 2004 it was when Steve Jobs asked Water Isaacson to go on a walk with him. He later found out that this was his preferred way of having a serious conversation – a conversation about putting his life into words. And so this became the only authorized biography of the co-founder and visionary of Apple.

And still Isaacson didn’t sugar-coat Jobs’ personality. He did have proper rude-moments and definitely wasn’t modest or humble in his nature. He could be cruel to friends and foes alike and often didn’t give his peers enough credit. He wasn’t perfect and Isaacson doesn’t make him seem like he was, which made this a really engaging and fast-paced and one of the best biography books everyone must read.

When Breath Becomes Air is one of the most beautifully written, heartbreaking, affecting and best biography books I have ever read. Even though the book is incredibly sad, it is ultimately life affirming and worth the emotional investment.

At the age of thirty-six, Paul Kalanthi, a doctor nearing the completion of his neurosurgeon training, is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. This revelation becomes a dividing line in his life, something of a reversal of fortune. Paul goes from being a healthy physician with limitless possibility ahead of him to a sick patient with an uncertain future.

This is probably the best biography books about climbing I have read despite the controversy surrounding some aspects. It was as enthralling as books like Endurance and as readable. I was with the author on the mountain and felt the terrible pain of the losses they endured, the guilt of the survivors and the many “what ifs” after the event.

The author relays his personal experiences climbing Everest in 1996 with a number of groups. This was the tragic year when many of the participants didn’t make it off the mountain due to a catalog of errors and an untimely snow storm. He also documents a lot of the history of other climbs and delves into the personalities and characters of some of the great climbers.

This stunningly good book is authored by a world-class trader who, when he loses a friend to imprisonment, torture, and death from Putin’s regime, goes all-out–slowly, deliberately–to avenge his friend. The trader is Bill Browder, the friend is Sergei Magnitsky , and the story is a true one. This makes the book more compelling than even the best fictional thriller. Putin’s lack of conscience is no act, yet Browder describes a president and a now-secretary of state who naively want to pursue a reset with this coldest of killers.

Red Notice is a story of brave men and women acting honorably in a shifting, lawless country. It provides phenomenal insight into current-day Russia.

This is a bit more than the story of the 1936 Olympic crew challenge by the team from the University of Washington. Using one of the crew members as the focus, it combines his personal experience against the backdrop of the important historical events of that era (the 1929 stock market crash and resultant depression, the dust bowls, the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, etc.). It made for a richer story with the added context.

While the backgrounds and histories of the other members of the 9-man crew team were also provided, Joe Rantz’s story was the main focus. His was symbolic of the boys who became men even before they started college given the challenges of that time. By the time I got to the actual Olympic race, I felt these men had already reached heroic heights, especially Joe.

Edward Herrmann was fantastic as the narrator. He brought each character to life and his calling of the Olympic race was just outstanding and made this one of the best biography books.

Bryson tells the story of his hiking up the Appalachian Trail (AT for short) with his friend, Stephen Katz. His friend is quite a character, and I sort of wonder if he is a real person, or if he is “invented”. But–Katz is such a wonderful character, he is probably real, because “inventing” him would be nearly impossible. He is a recovering alcoholic, overweight sort of slob who throws out his irreplaceable supplies when the going gets tough. It seemed like a disaster in the making, but somehow Bryson and Katz survived.

Bryson’s prose is just a delight. He interleaves humorous anecdotes with tangents about history, the environment, bears, wildlife, and other interesting tidbits.

With all the recent protests across the nation, sparked by the high-profile deaths of several unarmed men, this is an incredibly timely read and one of the best biography books.

This book is an account of the author, Bryan Stevenson, and his life calling. Stevenson first began helping death row prisoners, mostly black, who had had no legal defense of any kind. He discovered there were thousands who were completely innocent. This led him to start an organization called the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) which is still going strong to this day. Throughout this book, the focus is on race and property, children in prison, mass incarceration, and the death penalty.

People do not fall into the category of ‘great’ by chance or triviality. Ben Franklin worked to improve himself, his community, and the lives of those with whom he shared his existence. He set an example of honesty, hard work, sobriety, fair dealing, and generosity that has been a light on the path of millions. His example seems to me exactly what is needed today.

Reading this book was a joy. This is one of the best biography books, interesting to read about those times Benjamin Franklin was grown.

There are many books written on Gandhiji , but this one is self-revealing and fascinating to read and one of the best biography books ever written. The autobiography is full of surprises: At one point in his youth, Gandhiji became convinced that India was behind the times because of vegetarianism, so he vowed to convert all of his homeland to carnivorous wisdom. Perhaps the only vow he did not keep.

Would that his teachings on non-violent resistance (satyagraha) were more widely applied. Detractors argue, however, that this strategy could really work only in India, where it appeals to such deeply ingrained cultural foundations as Patanjali’s ahimsa (non-violence), itself a Hindu appropriation of a Jainist principle.

If, for a just cause, one goes on a hunger strike in India, one is appealing to a long tradition of fasting associated with saintliness and right action. In some other cultures, where those associations do not exist, nobody would much notice or care.

Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance is one of my all-time favorite biographies of an engineering genius. This is a brilliantly written and one of the best biography books that masterfully captures the genius behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity. Award-winning feature writer, Ashlee Vance provides the public with a certifiable gem.

A well-done business biography with direct access to Musk that depicts him as a “force of nature” maniacally focused on solving acute energy resource problems and making the human species interplanetary. The incredible success of Musk, however, has not come without ongoing personal sacrifice, and the book is not simple hagiography – it touches on the cost of this focus to work relations and personal relations (his marriages and children). What makes Musk unique as a human being, and such a fascinating subject, is the level of pain he is willing absorb in order to achieve his goals.

This is obviously a very hilarious book with Tina Fey’s sense of humour hidden between the lines. Sometimes it can be hard to translate humour into written form, but that’s not the case with this book.

Tina Fey’s stories about growing up as the lucky daughter of the always stylish Don Fey, made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion. Her adventures in dating are both entertaining and sad at the same time. I can’t believe someone as awesome as Tina Fey ever had a hard time attracting the opposite sex.

In A beautiful mind it tells a story about Mr. Nash. He is like all of the other kids when he was younger. The book is a time line of his life. As the story proceeds, you will get pulled into his world. There are some of problems in his life that he will have to face or go through. He also, triumphs his old fears of his school and his friends.

Towards the middle of the story; Like everyone in the story, Mr.Nash goes through some changes. He also,meets some new people that shares his interest in his studying; which is mathematics. Mr.Nash works in a ivy-league school as a teacher. Through his teaching years, he becomes accustomed to working all the time. Which leads to this “gift” he receives later in the story.

This is the best biography books I have ever read. The author’s writing was brilliant. He evoked the characters of Ramanujan and Hardy, and the feeling of India and England and their relationship at that time. He provided a sense of World War I, and some of the importance of Ramanujan for India and the rest of the world during his lifetime as well as after his death.

The depth he achieved in this biography is an uncommon accomplishment. In addition, it is difficult to provide a sense of the mathematics involved without the reader being a mathematician, and yet again this was provided. Finally, Mr. Kanigel’s analysis at the end was a step above most writers, if not several steps. Very nicely done. I highly recommend this work; it is a gem.

This is a very well researched and wonderfully written biography of two great mathematicians S.Ramanujan and G.H.Hardy. The author goes into a lot of details about Ramanujan’s early life and his struggles in south India and after his “discovery” by hardy, the author goes into the aspects of his life in Cambridge.

Alexander Hamilton had a way with words, as does Ron Chernow. While Hamilton is a brick of a book, it was an interesting, thorough look at the life of a Founding Father: his upbringing, his challenges – both personal and professional, his accomplishments, of course, his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, and his lasting impact on the foundation of today’s nation.

This is one of the best biography books and it chronicles Mandela’s life, first as the son of a tribal chief, then as an educated Black man under Apartheid–a dangerous thing to be–and then the journey, both outward and inward, from attorney to the leader of a revolution. You will read about his time on Riecher’s Island, the notorious prison, and the various experiences he had in the courtroom and in captivity.

He tells of the cunning ways those who were jailed for political reasons created to communicate and to an extent, continue to lead from inside prison. And he breaks up the horror with an occasional vignette of a surprisingly kindly jailor or other authority figure who does small, decent things when no one is looking.

Tara Westover is the child of a religious fanatic, someone who sees the government as pure evil. And by government, he means schools, hospitals, vaccines, seat belts, car insurance, etc. Everything we think of as civilization. His family awaits the Days of Abomination. There is a similarity here to The Glass Castle . Once again, we see how a mentally unbalanced father holds sway over an entire family. He thinks he speaks for God. Tara struggles with the knowledge that for her to go to school will mean a total separation from her father because he will never acknowledge that his ideas are not the correct ones.

The title of this collection comes from a tale that took place early in Feynman’s career where he was invited for an afternoon tea with the dean of his university. The dean’s wife is serving and asks him the above question. Richard never drinks tea and never moves in the same society that does, little own the society that has lemon OR cream with it.

A big theme of these stories and indeed a running theme in Feynman’s life is that he had no time for formalisms, rituals or societal views. He does attribute a lot of this to his upbringing. His father was a uniform maker and often dealt with clients of all types of notoriety and he knew that underneath all those uniforms were just another naked ape. He passed on his views to his children and Richard went so far as to nearly not accept his Nobel Prize.

Recent Articles

Binding special editions: limited edition case bound books, a guide to building your book collection, middle-earth: exploring j.r.r tolkien’s fictional universe in lotr, the enduring joy of rereading books, beyond the prestige: why do some readers find booker prize winners boring, related posts:, leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Stay on Top - Get the daily news in your inbox

Subscribe to our newsletter.

To be updated with all the latest news, offers and special announcements.

Recent Posts

The ideal entrepreneur by rahul agarwal, on writing – a memoir of the craft by stephen king, risky business in rising china by mark atkeson, 1942: when british rule in india was threatened by krishna kumar, popular category.

• Book Review 625
• Reader's Corner 408
• Author's Corner 179
• Author Interview 173
• Book List 111
• Mystery Thriller 95
• Historical Fiction 80

The Bookish Elf is your single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of literary life. The Bookish Elf is a site you can rely on for book reviews, author interviews, book recommendations, and all things books.

Contact us: [email protected]

20 Best Biography Books Ever Written

By: Author Willow Heath

Posted on Last updated: 15th September 2023

There’s a lot that goes into writing a successful and poignant biography: honesty, detailed research, clear context, empathetic writing, and so much more.

Biographies hold a unique place in the world of nonfiction. The best biography books often appeal to people who may not even explicitly care about the book’s subject.

It’s all about human connection. Learning the historical, cultural, religious, political, economic and social contexts behind a person’s life is satisfying, but connection is what sells it.

For some of us, we read biography books to become intimate with historical figures we admire. For others, it’s simply about the act of connecting with someone through their story.

The Best Biography Books to Read Now

With all of that in mind, you’ll find here a wide range of the best biography books.

These are biographies about writers, artists, musicians, political figures, scientists, and more.

When composing a list of the best biography books, variety is essential. Variety of work, ethnicity, gender, and class.

And, with variety at the forefront, here is a selection of the best biography books of all time.

Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd is a huge name in the world of nonfiction, having written celebrated history books and biography books about British history.

Ackroyd has written an entire history of England, and another of London. And here, he dedicated five hundred pages to The Bard himself: William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare is widely considered the most influential writer in history .

His plays are studied in schools around the world, and people make full careers out of being Shakespearean scholars, actors, directors, and more.

A legacy like The Bard’s inevitably leads to speculation, conspiracy, and more. Against all of that is Peter Ackroyd’s biography: a full and immersive journey through Shakespeare’s life.

Ackroyd has spent time researching and detailing the period in which Shakespeare lived.

London’s religious and political dynamics, Shakespeare’s own family and education, and the world of English theatre at the time. All of this and so much more is laid bare here.

While nobody will ever know every detail of Shakespeare’s life, Ackroyd has done his due diligence when it comes to piecing together a vivid picture of who The Bard was.

An incredible feat of biography writing from one of England’s best-loved historians, and one of the best biography books you’ll ever read.

Buy a copy of Shakespeare: The Biography here!

Van Gogh: The Life by Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith

So much has been written about Vincent Van Gogh, and deservedly so.

Multiple documentaries have been made; museums, galleries, and interactive exhibitions have been built; songs have been sung; and books have been written.

The 19th century Dutch painter was a revolutionary of the craft, a legend of post-impressionism, and his life was a truly fascinating one.

His life is well-known, and remembered with as much intrigue as his art. Van Gogh was the original struggling artist, the one who began the toxic trend of seeing depression as a mark of genius.

Deeply troubled, Van Gogh lived a life of tragedy as much as one of beauty. And all of that is masterfully captured in Van Gogh: The Life .

Working alongside Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have brought us nearly a thousand pages of incredible research and writing.

Van Gogh: The Life is the definitive work of biography on the genius Dutch painter. A truly remarkable book, and one of the very best biography books ever written.

Buy a copy of Van Gogh: The Life here!

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

Ida B. Wells was a hero. Born in 1862, she was a great feminist and a leader of the Black civil rights movement.

Wells dedicated her entire life to the fight for equality within the USA; part of that fight was being a founding member of the NAAPC.

As a teacher and journalist, Wells used every skill available to advance the movement for racial equality forward. And all of that (and more) is explored in this immense biography.

Focussing less on the personal and more on the political, Ida: A Sword Among Lions is as much a history of American racial politics and change as it is a biography.

This is because the changes we can trace were made by Wells and her comrades, and those comrades — including her husband Ferdinand L. Barnett — are also given their due.

This is an inspiring work of nonfiction that throws into sharp relief the importance of community effort, of always fighting for change, justice, and equality.

It’s impossible to imagine what 20th century USA would have looked like without Ida B. Wells, but the changes she made were goliath, and the world should forever be grateful.

We are reminded of that over and again as we read this book and marvel at what she accomplished.

Paula J. Giddings has done Wells justice in a way that nobody else could have, and in doing so she has written one of the best biography books in American history.

Buy a copy of Ida: A Sword Among Lions here!

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin

You’ll find that many of the best biography books ever written have also inspired a huge number of great cinematic biopics, and this is one of them.

American Prometheus is the biography on which writer/director Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece Oppenheimer was based.

And while that is an excellent piece of filmmaking, it took a huge number of liberties that make American Prometheus required reading for fans of the film.

Theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer led the USA’s Manhattan Project during World War II, which led to the invention and production of the first atomic bombs.

All of this led to two of the darkest days in world history: the bombing of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

American Prometheus tells the full story of Oppenheimer’s life and the Manhattan Project.

This is a biography that offers readers so much; so much more than just a life. This is a book about the USA, about war, science, politics, and more.

An astonishing work of nonfiction that stands alongside many of the best biography books ever written.

Buy a copy of American Prometheus here!

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Shirley Jackson is a legendary figure within the world of gothic fiction, and of American literature in general.

A dark figure and an author of beloved gothic masterpieces such as The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle , and the iconic short story The Lottery .

Jackson is one of many great authors and artists whose own life was as strange, dynamic, and interesting as the art she created.

And that is all proven here in Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life — one of the best biography books about an author you’ll ever read.

If you happen to have seen Josephine Decker’s excellent 2020 film Shirley , a biopic about Jackson starring Elizabeth Moss, that film was in fact not based on this biography.

Jackson saw a lot of professional success in her life, and her legacy has been fully cemented, but her personal life was far more rocky and inconsistent.

This biography goes into why that was, exactly, and how her turbulent home and family life, relationships, and mental health inspired her great works.

Biographies of authors are often as compelling as what those authors created, but that goes double for this book; one of the best biography books you should read right now.

Buy a copy of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life here!

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

One of the most celebrated and beloved painters of the 20th century, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo left behind an enormous legacy.

Anecdotes about her life are liberally shared by those who love her work. Her disability, her love affairs, her communist sympathies. These are all well-known facts

But in this incredible biography of her life, author Hayden Herrera has expanded on these details, stitching them into the rich and dramatic tapestry of her varied life.

This is a book that celebrates her artistic genius and her creative mind, and one that also takes time to explore the love and romances of her life.

Kahlo’s tempestuous relationship with Diego Rivera is the stuff of legends, and it is given room to breathe in this biography, which paints them both in honest light.

Kahlo was a great feminist, a revolutionary, a proud communist, and a champion of the working class. All of that is explored and expanded upon here.

A wonderful exploration of the life and loves of one of the 20th century’s greatest painters, and one of the best biography books of our time.

Buy a copy of Frida here!

Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross

Few individuals from across the history of rock & roll — and modern music in general — have been as memorialised as Kurt Cobain.

There are many reasons for this: the ways in which he pushed and defined genres; his outspoken aggression towards sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry.

But the most obvious reason is his mind. Cobain battled depression for all of his twenty-seven years, until it finally won and he took his own life.

And so began an enormous legacy that has been explored across multiple books and documentaries, but this one is easily the most impressive.

Heavier Than Heaven is an unapologetically honest book that peels back the layers and exposes the truth behind so many myths about the infamous grunge rock star.

You’ll unlearn things that were never true, learn things you never would have known otherwise, and come close to understanding the mind behind the art.

Through some impressive sleuthing, analysis, and good old-fashioned journalism, Charles R. Cross has given us access to the man behind the myth.

A truly wonderful book, Heavier Than Heaven should be celebrated by Nirvana fans the world over. One of the best biography books the music world has ever been gifted.

Buy a copy of Heavier Than Heaven here!

The Brontes by Juliet Barker

The Bronte sisters were three of a kind. As Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel Glass Town explored, they were creative giants right from childhood.

Penning some of the finest works of romantic and gothic fiction in the history of British literature, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are celebrated the world over.

And then there’s Branwell, a tragic young man who quite literally painted himself out of their lives.

This family was unique, exceptional, and strange. And all of that is captured in Juliet Barker’s The Brontes , an enormous thousand-page biography of the literary sisters.

When the world of art and literature has so many enigmatic figures, it’s hard to call any one work of nonfiction a “definitive” history or biography, but this might be it for the Brontes.

Juliet Barker spent more than a decade gathering every scrap of evidence and information about these sisters and their works, in order to paint this vivid tapestry of their lives.

The ways in which Charlotte controlled and oppressed the others; the unsung beauty of Branwell’s mind; the anxiety and depression that Emily struggled with.

All of this and so much more is put on display here in one of the very best biography books you’ll ever read.

Buy a copy of The Brontes here!

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang & Jon Halliday

Chairman Mao Zedong was one of the great villains of recent world history, and there might be nobody better to tell his story than Wild Swans author Jung Chang.

Chang has dedicated so much of her life to telling the political stories of 20th century China, including her dynamic work Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Siste r .

But while that book and Wild Swans are both sweeping epic works of nonfiction that focus on multiple people, Mao is a dedicated biography of one man.

Mao’s monstrous political decisions as chairman of China were legendary, but what are far less well-known are the tactics and decisions behind them.

Mao Zedong’s laws and policies led to the most widespread and destructive famine in recorded history. But why? Questions like this are rarely asked, and even more rarely answered.

Jung Chang spent ten years of investigation to answer this, and so many even more pressing questions about Chairman Mao’s life, actions, and relationships.

Jung Chang wowed the world with Wild Swans , and then did it all over again with Mao: The Unknown Story , one of the best biography books anyone has ever written.

Buy a copy of Mao here!

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

Bad Gays is a remarkable anthology of miniature biographies, each focussing on an infamous person from world history who also happened to be queer.

From the Roman emperor Hadrian to the London gangster Ronnie Kray, Bad Gays offers up a selection of detailed short biographies of histories most unlovable gays.

Excellently researched and presented with real charm and wit, this is one of those rare biography books that blends the informative with the entertaining.

Amongst even the very best biography books, Bad Gays stands as something very important: a work that humanises the queer community by showing readers its darkest sides.

The breadth of subjects here is also satisfying and diverse. King James VI and I of Scotland and England, Lawrence of Arabia, and Japanese author Yukio Mishima are all explored here.

Bad Gays is a fantastic work of nonfiction, one of the most unique and best biography books of the past several years.

Buy a copy of Bad Gays here!

Leonardo da Vinci: The Biography by Walter Isaacson

Leonardo da Vinci’s legacy has cemented him as a unique mind within the realms of both art and science; an inventor and artist of unparalleled genius.

Placing someone on a podium that high can be dangerous and even beggar belief, but as Walter Isaacson’s biography proves, it is certainly deserved where da Vinci was concerned.

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian renaissance polymath who painted two of the best-known works of art the world has ever seen: the Mona Lisa, and the Last Supper.

But he was also someone with an unquenchable curiosity and an eye for discovery. His passions were spread across the sciences, from biology to geology.

All of this is captured and presented in this remarkable biography. This book explores how da Vinci studied all there was to study, and sought to understand the world on every level.

da Vinci was a man of curiosity and creativity, but he was also human. And this book is what really reminds us of that. It humanises this giant of art and science in a way that few books have.

Whether you’re a lover of Leonardo da Vinci or all you know about him is that he painted the Mona Lisa, this biography book has so much to offer you either way.

Buy a copy of Leonardo da Vinci here!

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

As was the case with American Prometheus and Oppenheimer (above), The Enigma is a biography that served as the inspiration for Morten Tyldum’s biopic The Imitation Game .

Unsurprisingly, however, Alan Turing: The Enigma is less concerned with drama and tension, and more with laying bare the extraordinary mind and the tragic life of Alan Turing.

Turning is best known for cracking the “Enigma Code” used by the Nazis during World War II, an act which turned the tide of war for the entire world.

Beyond that act, however, Turing was also a pioneer of computer design and technology, most simply expressed by his infamous “Turing Test”.

But the tragedy of his life was that Turning happened to be gay at a time in British history and culture where that simple fact led to social and political prejudice.

Turning didn’t commit suicide because he was gay; he was killed by a bigoted and unjust political system that ruined the life of a genius and a hero of war.

All of this is explored in great detail in a biography that does Turning’s life justice, which is the least he deserved.

Buy a copy of Alan Turing: The Enigma here!

Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art by Susan Napier

Hayao Miyazaki will forever be known as one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers. A master of multiple disciplines, including art, writing, and directing.

His films, most of which have dark and intense anti-war, anti-industrial, anti-capitalistic underpinnings, are some of the 20th and 21st century’s greatest works of art.

Born during World War II, raised in a turbulent post-war Japan, his life shaped his art and his expression. And all of that is explored in wonderful detail in Susan Napier’s Miyazakiworld .

It’s no secret that Miyazaki was always a workaholic and a perfectionist, but this book demonstrates that wonderfully, as it strips back all the purpose and meaning behind the smallest choices when it comes to his art.

Every tiny nuance, every word, every detail; Miyazaki’s films were meticulously designed, and we see the cogs turning in this biography.

Miyazakiworld contextualises Japan’s animation industry for a non-Japanese audience, gives us a personal background to Miyazaki’s work and writing, and so much more.

A really amazing biography that focuses on the art of a great filmmaker, how it exists, and why it exists. One of the best biography books for film and animation fans.

Buy a copy of Miyazakiworld here!

Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

After the enormous success of her Jane Austen biography (below), historian and TV personality Lucy Worsley turns her attention to another great woman of English literature.

Agatha Christie was, and will forever be remembered as, an astonishing force of creativit y within the world of literature.

Across a career longer than many human lives, Christie wrote timeless tales of murder and mystery, and brought us characters that remain beloved to this day.

But when it came to her personal life, Christie presented an image of meekness and good behaviour, which Worsley reveals was far from the truth.

There are so many facts and titbits about Christie’s life, career, and work ethic that fascinate her fans, but this brilliant biography goes so far beyond all of that.

Agatha Christie wrote many of the greatest thrillers and crime novels of all time, but she also had a wonderfully active and adventurous modern life.

All of that is explored with enthusiasm and wit by Worsley, who has clearly relished the challenge of unpacking the truth about Christie and bringing that truth to us.

Worsley is a charismatic writer and speaker, and that charisma shows in this book; one of the most humorous and best biography books of recent years.

Buy a copy of Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman here!

Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix by Charles R. Cross

Charles R. Cross has written two of the best biography books about members of the “27 Club” — musicians whom we lost at the cursed age of 27.

One was the biography of Kurt Cobain (above) and the other is this: Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix .

Hendrix was a rare example of a kind of reverse British invasion; an American prodigy who found fame and fandom in London’s rock ‘n’ roll era.

With The Jimi Hendrix Experience, he wrote and recorded three albums, and he made a name for himself as a revolutionary guitarist.

But there is so much more to his life behind the scenes. While his struggles with fame and addiction are well-documented, this biography dives so much deeper.

We learn about his tumultuous youth in Seattle and the things he truly wanted from life but rarely ever dared to mention.

Charles R. Cross has proven himself a fantastic biographer of great musicians, and the proof is here in Room Full of Mirrors .

Buy a copy of Room Full of Mirrors here!

A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

Another great biography that was given the Hollywood treatment; Sylvia Nasar’s excellent book on renowned mathematician John Nash adapted to the big screen by Ron Howard.

While that film won Howard an Academy Award for best director, it remains an adaptation and, as such, glosses over so much about Nash’s life that is important to know.

A Beautiful Mind tells the full story of John Nash, an eccentric mathematician whose chance to win a Nobel Prize was dashed because of how the world treated his schizophrenia.

As a mathematician, Nash had an enormous effect on the world of American economics, and the onset of his schizophrenia made him a compelling and fascinating person.

Nasar’s biography frames Nash’s schizophrenia in an honest light without vilifying or romanticising it, but it also doesn’t shy away from the more cruel of Nash’s actions.

For example, Nash was abusive towards his wife, unfaithful to her, and even pushed her down the stairs when she was pregnant. The film neatly glosses over these facts.

When creating a biography about a genius and a tragic figure, it’s important to humanise them and reveal the darker sides, even if they may be uncomfortable facts.

This is what makes Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind one of the best biography books of the past several decades.

Buy a copy of A Beautiful Mind here!

Jane Austen at Home: A Biography by Lucy Worsley

Several years before writing her biography on Agatha Christie (above), historian Lucy Worsley dazzled Jane Austen fans with the fantastic Jane Austen at Home .

Jane Austen remains one of the most celebrated classic authors in the history of the English language. Her wit and social commentary is legendary .

The stories and characters of novels like Pride and Prejudice, Emma , Persuasion are beloved by bookworms, and likely always will be.

But who was the woman behind the wit? What in Austen’s life inspired such fantastic tales of family life, romance, sisterhood, class disparity, and more?

Lucy Worsley answers all of those questions, and many more, in this amazing biography that paints a vivid picture of Austen’s home life.

Here, we learn about her youth, her family, her home, her habits, her loves, and more.

This is a must-read for any Austen fan, and when it comes to literary figures, this is also one of the best biography books that exists.

Side note: I read this book before visiting Jane Austen’s house , and it wonderfully enhanced the experience.

Buy a copy of Jane Austen at Home here!

Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones

Completely peerless, Jim Henson was one of the most unique creative minds that 20th century TV and film ever had.

Often overshadowed by his creations — The Muppets, Sesame Street, Labyrinth , and his work on Star Wars — Henson was one-of-a-kind.

It’s thanks to his work that puppets remain a part of mainstream television, for children and adults alike, and here you can learn all about his life in this excellent biography.

Henson died tragically young, at age 53, from a bacterial infection, but he accomplished so much in his life, and those accomplishments brought so much joy to the world.

The characters and worlds that he created have gone on to resonate with people of all ages for decades. The impact that his films and TV shows have had is immeasurable.

With the generous support of Henson’s family, Brian Jay Jones has been able to present us with the full life story of Jim Henson and all that he did.

Buy a copy of Jim Henson: The Biography here!

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne & Tamara Payne

Few infamous public figures of American history have ever been as talked-about and obsessed over as Malcolm X.

A civil rights activist who joined the Nation of Islam while in prison as a young man, Malcolm X has fascinated many kinds of people for many reasons for several decades.

Beginning in 1990, renowned investigative journalist Les Payne worked to gather more than a hundred hours worth of interviews surrounding Malcolm X.

However, Payne died before the book was completed, and so his daughter and research partner Tamara finished their work and had it published in 2020.

The Dead Are Arising went on to win the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.

A remarkable work of investigative journalism that reveals to its readers an equally remarkable life.

Given the magnitude of Malcolm X’s life and legacy, and that of Les Payne’s own work and renown, The Dead Are Arising is a uniquely powerful biography.

When it comes to biographies built from tremendous hard work of investigative journalism, few compare to The Dead Are Arising .

Buy a copy of The Dead Are Arising here!

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields

Author Charles J. Shields is a well-renowned biographer of American writers, and Mockingbird is his most celebrated work.

Two years after its publication, Shields even adapted Mockingbird into a version more palatable for younger readers, titled I Am Scout .

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee tells the story of one of 20th century USA’s best-known and best-loved authors.

One of the most unique and intriguing things about Lee was that she only ever wrote the one novel, and that novel is rightly considered a great American classic.

To Kill A Mockingbird is taught in schools across the US and UK to this day; it received a celebrated film adaptation; it has even been adapted to the stage with amazing results.

But who was the woman behind this true American masterpiece of a novel? Charles J. Shields answers that question with appreciation and attentiveness.

Buy a copy of Mockingbird here!

More Popular Features

• 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime
• 100 Children's Books to Read in a Lifetime
• 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime

100 Biographies and Memoirs to Read in a Lifetime

• 100 Young Adult Books to Read in a Lifetime
• 100 Mysteries to Read in a Lifetime
• 100 Books for a Lifetime of Eating and Drinking
• 100 Leadership Books to Read in a Lifetime
• Best Books of the Month
• Award Winners
• Award Winning Children's Books

From the Editors

• Amazon Book Review
• Amazon Books on Facebook
• Amazon Books on Twitter

Amazon Kindle

• Kindle eBooks
• Kindle Daily Deals
• 100 Biographies & Memoirs to Read in a Lifetime
• 4 Stars & Up & Up
• 3 Stars & Up & Up
• 2 Stars & Up & Up
• 1 Star & Up & Up
• Collectible

About 100 Biographies & Memoirs to Read in a Lifetime Honestly, it would take many lifetimes to read even a small fraction of the best biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs ever written. So when the Amazon Books editors set out to compile a list of the 100 Biographies and Memoirs to Read in a (Single) Lifetime, we knew up front that we would be making some tough--even contentious--choices. But after the dust settled, we found ourselves with a hundred stories of our greatest artists, seekers, and iconic leaders, as well as a host of other iconoclasts, athletes, and adventurers (and even a non-human or three). Many of these read like great novels; some technically are, their authors shrouding their experiences within the cloak of fiction (but we all know better). Whether you're coming to these books for the first time or revisiting them, we hope you'll find a lifetime's worth of inspiration and discovery.

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Start Selling with Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Advertisement

Supported by

Lorrie Moore Is Among National Book Critics Circle Award Winners

The awards included a lifetime achievement honor given to Judy Blume.

• Share full article

By Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A. Harris

The novelist Lorrie Moore on Thursday won a National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for “I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home,” her novel that follows a devastated high school teacher who goes on a road trip with the animated corpse of his ex-girlfriend, who has died by suicide.

In a citation, one of the judges, David Varno, praised the novel as “a heartbreaking and hilarious ghost story” and “an unforgettable achievement from a landmark American author.”

The awards, which were announced at a ceremony at the New School in New York City, are among the most prestigious literary prizes in the United States. Unlike other major awards, the recipients are chosen by book critics instead of committees made up of authors or academics.

The critics organization, which was founded in 1974, is made up of more than 700 critics and review editors. Thursday’s awards recognized works published last year and were open to authors of books published in English in the United States.

In addition to giving prizes in literary categories like biography, criticism, autobiography, fiction and poetry, the group also recognizes individuals and organizations for their contributions to literary culture.

This year, Becca Rothfeld, the nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post and the author of a forthcoming debut essay collection, “All Things Are Too Small,” received the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. The award, named after a former New York Times Book Review editor, is given to an N.B.C.C. member for criticism.

The organization’s service award was given to the author and critic Marion Winik, a former treasurer for the group who helped to steer it through the pandemic.

The lifetime achievement award was given to Judy Blume, a novelist beloved for classics like “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” and “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.”

In a recorded speech to accept the honor, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, named for the organization’s first president, Blume acknowledged librarians for their work promoting intellectual freedom. She also thanked her parents for giving her “the freedom to choose my own books.”

Librarians, who have come under pressure from some parents and lawmakers as book bans have surged across the country, were also honored when the American Library Association received the Toni Morrison Achievement Award. “At a time when our nation’s libraries remain under relentless assault from both political and economic forces, the A.L.A. towers over the literary landscape as a beacon for our most vulnerable voices,” the award chair, Jacob M. Appel, said in a citation.

Below is a complete list of this year’s winners.

“ I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home ” by Lorrie Moore

A young man goes on a road trip with the animated corpse of his ex-girlfriend, who died by suicide, in a ghost story and zombie romance that takes place in both the 19th and 21st centuries. In a Times review of the novel, Moore’s first in 14 years, Dwight Garner praised Moore as “a consummate user of the English language; her moisture-wicking sentences confirm and reconfirm your sanity.”

Autobiography

“ How to Say Babylon: A Memoir ” by Safiya Sinclair

A memoir about growing up in a strict Rastafarian household and trying to break away from her father and the obedience he required. The Times review of the memoir said: “For its sheer lusciousness of prose, the book’s a banquet. Sinclair’s Montego Bay drips with tender sensuality and complexity that seduces you like a fresh wound to slow pokes and feels.”

“ Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage ” by Jonny Steinberg

This biography chronicles the marriage of the South African leader Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, including their decades apart while Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island and Madikizela-Mandela became a major figure in the resistance to apartheid.

“ We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America ,” by Roxanna Asgarian

Asgarian, a journalist who has written about legal issues for The Texas Tribune, investigates a shocking tragedy that occurred in 2018, when an S.U.V. plunged off a cliff along a coastal highway, killing a family of eight. She recounts the horrifying details of what investigators concluded was not an accident, but a murder-suicide, and also reveals the ways in which systemic failures in the foster care system may have contributed to the children’s deaths.

“ Phantom Pain Wings ” by Kim Hyesoon

Translated from Korean by Don Mee Choi, this poetry collection “reads like a variety of horror — haunted, grotesque, futureless,” Elisa Gabbert wrote in a review in The Times.

The Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize

“ Cold Nights of Childhood ” by Tezer Özlü , translated by Maureen Freely

The translation prize, awarded jointly to authors and translators, was given to a novel by Özlü, a Turkish writer who died in 1986. Originally published in 1980 and released in English in the United States last year by Transit Books, the narrative follows a woman who is battling mental illness and exploring her sexuality. The prize is named for Barrios, a poet, playwright and critic who died in 2021.

John Leonard Prize

“ Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide ” by Tahir Hamut Izgil, translated by Joshua L. Freeman

In this memoir, which won the prize for best debut book, Izgil, a poet, recounts the persecution and terror he faced as a member of China’s Muslim Uyghur minority when he was living in Urumqi, a city in China’s western Xinjiang region. “This is in effect a psychological thriller, although the narrative unfolds like a classic horror movie as relative normalcy dissolves into a nightmare,” Barbara Demick wrote in a review in The Times. The prize is named for Leonard, a literary critic and co-founder of the critics organization who died in 2008.

“ Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression ” by Tina Post

Post, an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago, explores purposeful withholding as a tool used by makers of Black culture.

Alexandra Alter writes about books, publishing and the literary world for The Times. More about Alexandra Alter

  More about Elizabeth A. Harris

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

James McBride’s novel sold a million copies, and he isn’t sure how he feels about that, as he considers the critical and commercial success  of “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.”

How did gender become a scary word? Judith Butler, the theorist who got us talking about the subject , has answers.

You never know what’s going to go wrong in these graphic novels, where Circus tigers, giant spiders, shifting borders and motherhood all threaten to end life as we know it .

When the author Tommy Orange received an impassioned email from a teacher in the Bronx, he dropped everything to visit the students  who inspired it.

Do you want to be a better reader?   Here’s some helpful advice to show you how to get the most out of your literary endeavor .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

Celebrated Filmmaker Steven Spielberg Celebrated with a Little Golden Book Biography

T he remarkable life and career of Steven Spielberg, the Academy Award-winning director behind classics such as ‘Jaws,’ ‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,’ ‘Jurassic Park,’ and ‘Schindler’s List,’ are now encapsulated in a delightful format for children and fans of all ages. “Steven Spielberg: A Little Golden Book Biography” is set to inspire with its easy-to-read narrative and charming illustrations.

Penguin Random House provides this enchanting summary of the book: “This Little Golden Book takes readers through the journey of Steven Spielberg, his acclaimed filmography, and his impact on cinema, captivating the imaginations of young readers and paying homage to a true film legend.”

Spielberg’s Golden Book is in good company; earlier in the year, the brilliant director and comedian Mel Brooks was also honored with his own Little Golden Book. Given the exploration of Brooks’ entire life journey, it is expected that Spielberg’s biography will follow suit. This comes shortly after Spielberg’s own cinematic reflection on his life in “The Fabelmans.”

The visuals in these books are typically a highlight, though some fans may notice that the Tyrannosaurus rex on Spielberg’s biography cover does not quite match the iconic depiction from “Jurassic Park” but rather has a more generalized appearance.

For those interested in exploring other icons through the charming lens of Little Golden Books, the series includes works on Taylor Swift, William Shatner, Barbra Streisand, Rita Moreno, among others. The complete list of these biographies can be found here .

Available for pre-order now at $5.99, the biography “Steven Spielberg: A Little Golden Book Biography” is set to be released on November 5, 2024.

FAQ – “Steven Spielberg: A Little Golden Book Biography”

With “Steven Spielberg: A Little Golden Book Biography,” young readers and enthusiasts of cinema alike are given a golden opportunity to celebrate the storied career of one of Hollywood’s most influential directors. Through the accessible and timeless format of a Little Golden Book, Spielberg’s legacy is introduced to a new generation, likely igniting cinematic dreams and aspirations in aspiring filmmakers and enthusiasts around the world. While we might have to wait until November 2024 for its release, the announcement itself brings anticipation and a reminder of the indelible mark Steven Spielberg has made on film history.

Where Is Gypsy Rose Blanchard Now?

Released from prison in December 2023, Gypsy Rose Blanchard has been busy in her first months of freedom.

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

Blanchard has abandoned her public accounts on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok. “I just don’t want to live my life under a microscope,” she said in one of her final TikTok videos. She had amassed millions of followers among her accounts.

Since she got out of prison, the convicted murderer has been busy. Here’s what to know about Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s life now.

She wants people to learn from her mistake

Gypsy is married now, she published a book in january 2024, blanchard deleted her social media accounts, gypsy rose will star in a new reality series, gypsy was released from prison in december 2023.

According to The Cincinnati Enquirer , Blanchard was released on parole from the Chillicothe Correctional Center at around 3:30 a.m. on December 28, 2023, after serving 85 percent of her 10-year sentence for second-degree murder. “I’m ready for freedom,” she told People in an interview just before her release. “I’m ready to expand, and I think that goes for every facet of my life.”

Blanchard conspired with an ex-boyfriend to kill her mother Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard in June 2015 after suffering years of abuse. Experts have surmised that Dee Dee suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental disorder in which a caretaker makes someone sick or gives the illusion of being ill in order to garner attention. She led doctors and the community to believe that Gypsy Rose suffered from an array of fake illnesses such as asthma, leukemia, and muscular dystrophy, subjecting her to unnecessary treatments and procedures.

In an interview with People , Blanchard expressed remorse about her mother’s murder and the events that preceded it.

Blanchard testified she met ex-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating website in 2012, and they initially carried out a secret relationship. They met in person for the first time in March 2015 and, shortly after, began plotting to kill her mother. Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee 17 times inside her home in June 2015. Gypsy said in 2018 she “talked him into it” because she wanted to be free from her mother. Godejohn was eventually found guilty of first-degree murder in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison.

“If I had another chance to redo everything, I don’t know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I’m not sick and mommy makes me sick. Or, if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go tell the police everything.’ I kind of struggle with that,” she told People in December 2023.

Gypsy Rose now wants to use her story to help people in abusive relationships. No matter how dire the circumstances, she wants to make sure they don’t resort to murder. “It may seem like every avenue is closed off, but there is always another way. Do anything, but don’t take this course of action,” she said.

Years removed from her relationship with Godejohn, Blanchard found love while imprisoned. She married Ryan Scott Anderson, a teacher from Louisiana, in June 2022. He is now 37, and Blanchard has confirmed the couple are living together in Louisiana.

According to People , Anderson picked up Blanchard from prison when she was released. They are now building their life together in person. “We’re settling into married life,” she told The Hollywood Reporter . “I definitely had to kind of go peeking through his closet and putting my clothes on the shelf and integrating myself into his life now. I’m making this my home.”

The couple initially kept details of their relationship, including how they met, private. However, Blanchard talked extensively about her beau on the third night of the Lifetime docuseries and revealed the couple planned to have a bigger, more traditional wedding after her release.

On February 27, Anderson sparked rumors Gypsy Rose might be pregnant by posting a photo to Instagram of himself embracing her belly as a dog lay nearby with the caption: “Me and my little family cuddling together.” However, neither has publicly confirmed the gossip.

In 2021, Gypsy Rose told The Springfield News-Leader she hoped to rebuild relationships with the rest of her family upon her eventual release. Her stepmother, Kristy Blanchard, told NewsNation host Ashleigh Banfield she looked forward to belatedly celebrating Christmas with Gypsy Rose upon her release and also planned a spa day for her.

“When I’m at home with my family, with my husband’s arms around me and I’m surrounded by my loved ones, that is when I will be happy,” Gypsy Rose previously told People .

Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom

Hoping to be an advocate for other victims of Munchausen by proxy, Blanchard first told The News-Leader in 2021 she was writing a book detailing the years-long abuse by Dee Dee and her incarceration.

True to her word, Blanchard published an e-book titled Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom in January 2024. The book includes exclusive information about Blanchard’s time in prison, as well as personal photos, drawings, and illustrations from her past.

Even before the book’s release, Blanchard already opened up about the effect of her incarceration on her life. “I’m the type of person that, I will make a mistake, learn from it and move on, and hopefully never make it again,” she told The Hollywood Reporter . “So I definitely think that that level of maturity kicked in, and you can see the the transformation from when I first got to prison to me actually walking out of prison and feeling, as a confident woman, like I could stand my ground, say no when I need to, be my best advocate.”

Blanchard had amassed as many as 7.8 million followers on her public Instagram account ( @gypsyrose_a_blanchard ) following her release but recently deleted that page—as well as several others on social media, including her X ( @GypsyRose_B ) and TikTok accounts ( gypsyroseblanchard727 ).

Shortly before logging out of TikTok, she explained in a series of videos that her father, Rod Blanchard, offered advice that sparked the decision. “That guidance was to show me that real life is something you can touch, something you can feel, people you can actually hug,” she said, according to Rolling Stone . “And with the public scrutiny as bad as it is, I just don’t want to live my life under a microscope.”

She continued: “I do my best to live my authentic life and what’s real to me, and what’s not real is social media. Social media is literally a doorway to hell.”

Her words mark a sharp departure from an initial flurry of posts celebrating her release. Only one day after leaving prison, Blanchard posted a photo to Instagram with a celebratory caption: “First selfie of freedom!” Then on New Year’s Eve, she revealed via TikTok she was celebrating the holiday with members of her family—including her father; her stepmother, Kristy; and her husband, Ryan—and had joined Snapchat ( gr_blanchard ).

Gypsy Rose isn’t totally gone from social media though. In her announcement on TikTok, she shared she set up a private verified Instagram account.

After airing the three-night docuseries The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard in January 2024, the Lifetime network announced in February that Blanchard will be featured in a new series chronicling her life outside of prison . The new unscripted show will begin in the days leading up to her release on December 28. A premiere date hasn’t been announced.

Prison Confessions was a major hit for the network, averaging 1.1 million viewers with three days of delayed viewing, according to The Hollywood Reporter . “Millions have followed Gypsy’s story and are invested in seeing what is in store for her next,” said Elaine Frontain Bryant, executive vice president and head of programming for Lifetime.

Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University, an avid sports fan, a frequent moviegoer, and trivia buff.

Notorious Figures

Bumpy Johnson

Ann Woodward

Israel Keyes

Where Is Alex Murdaugh Now?

Where Are the Menendez Brothers Now?

Griselda Blanco

Emmett Till

Gypsy Rose Blanchard: What Everyone Missed

The Real Name and Face of Jack the Ripper?

H.H. Holmes

‘Monster’ Season 2: News on Menendez Brothers Show

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• March Madness
• AP Top 25 Poll
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

Good Friday

Laurent de Brunhoff, ‘Babar’ heir and author, dies at age 98

FILE - Babar author Laurent de Brunhoff poses for a photograph with Babar while celebrating 75 years of the book on Friday, April 21, 2006 at Mabel’s Fables in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. De Brunhoff, a Paris native who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s, died Friday, March 22, 2024 at his home in Key West, Fla., according to The New York Times. (Nathan Denette /The Canadian Press via AP)

FILE - Babar author Laurent de Brunhoff signs the wall, while celebrating 75 years of the book on Friday, April 21, 2006 at Mabel’s Fables in Toronto, Ont. De Brunhoff, a Paris native who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s, died Friday, March 22, 2024 at his home in Key West, Fla., according to The New York Times.(Nathan Denette /The Canadian Press via AP)

• Copy Link copied

NEW YORK (AP) — “Babar” author Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father’s popular picture book series about an elephant-king and presided over its rise to a global, multimedia franchise, has died. He was 98.

De Brunhoff, a Paris native who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s, died Friday at his home in Key West, Florida, after being in hospice care for two weeks, according to his widow, Phyllis Rose.

Just 12 years old when his father, Jean de Brunhoff, died of tuberculosis, Laurent was an adult when he drew upon his own gifts as a painter and storyteller and released dozens of books about the elephant who reigns over Celesteville, among them “Babar at the Circus” and “Babar’s Yoga for Elephants.” He preferred using fewer words than his father did, but his illustrations faithfully mimicked Jean’s gentle, understated style.

“Together, father and son have woven a fictive world so seamless that it is nearly impossible to detect where one stopped and the other started,” author Ann S. Haskell wrote in The New York Times in 1981.

The series has sold millions of copies worldwide and was adapted for a television program and such animated features as “Babar: The Movie” and “Babar: King of the Elephants.” Fans ranged from Charles de Gaulle to Maurice Sendak, who once wrote, “If he had come my way, how I would have welcomed that little elephant and smothered him with affection.”

De Brunhoff would say of his creation, “Babar, c’est moi” (“that’s me”), telling National Geographic in 2014 that “he’s been my whole life, for years and years, drawing the elephant.”

The books’ appeal was far from universal. Some parents shied from the passage in the debut, “The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant,” about Babar’s mother being shot and killed by hunters. Numerous critics called the series racist and colonialist, citing Babar’s education in Paris and its influence on his (presumed) Africa-based regime. In 1983, Chilean author Ariel Dorfman would call the books an “implicit history that justifies and rationalizes the motives behind an international situation in which some countries have everything and other countries almost nothing.”

“Babar’s history,” Dorfman wrote, “is none other than the fulfillment of the dominant countries’ colonial dream.”

Adam Gopnik, a Paris-based correspondent for The New Yorker, defended “Babar,” writing in 2008 that it “is not an unconscious expression of the French colonial imagination; it is a self-conscious comedy about the French colonial imagination and its close relation to the French domestic imagination.”

De Brunhoff himself acknowledged finding it “a little embarrassing to see Babar fighting with Black people in Africa. He especially regretted “Babar’s Picnic,” a 1949 publication that included crude caricatures of Blacks and American Indians, and asked his publisher to withdraw it.

De Brunhoff was the eldest of three sons born to Jean de Brunhoff and Cecile de Brunhoff, a painter. Babar was created when Cecile de Brunhoff, the namesake for the elephant’s kingdom and Babar’s wife, improvised a story for her kids.

“My mother started to tell us a story to distract us,” de Brunhoff told National Geographic in 2014. “We loved it, and the next day we ran to our father’s study, which was in the corner of the garden, to tell him about it. He was very amused and started to draw. And that was how the story of Babar was born. My mother called him Bebe elephant (French for baby). It was my father who changed the name to Babar. But the first pages of the first book, with the elephant killed by a hunter and the escape to the city, was her story.”

The debut was released in 1931 through the family-run publisher Le Jardin Des Modes. Babar was immediately well received and Jean de Brunhoff completed four more Babar books before dying six years later, at age 37. Laurent’s uncle, Michael, helped publish two additional works, but no one else added to the series until after World War II, when Laurent, a painter by then, decided to bring it back.

“Gradually I began to feel strongly that a Babar tradition existed and that it ought to be perpetuated,” he wrote in The New York Times in 1952.

De Brunhoff was married twice, most recently to the critic and biographer Phyllis Rose, who wrote the text to many of the recent “Babar” publications, including the 2017 release billed as the finale, “Babar’s Guide to Paris.” He had two children, Anne and Antoine, but the author did not consciously write for young people.

“I never really think of children when I do my books,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2017. “Babar was my friend and I invented stories with him, but not with kids in a corner of my mind. I write it for myself.”