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The 30 best biographies of all time.

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

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

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

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  😉

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1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

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

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

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

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

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

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

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

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

5. Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

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

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

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

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

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

7. Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

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

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

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

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

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

10. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

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

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

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

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

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

13. Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

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

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

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

15. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

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

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

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

17. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

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

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

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

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

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

20. Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24. Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes

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

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

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

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

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

27. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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..

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The 30 best biographies to add to your reading list

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith

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

Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

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

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

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

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

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

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

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

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

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

Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

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

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

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

Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

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

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

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

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

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

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

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

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

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

Black Boy by Richard Wright

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

Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

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

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

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

The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

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

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

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

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

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

Robin by Davie Itzkoff

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

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

Send all editorial inquiries  HERE .

We're living in crazy times, especially since this whole pandemic mess started a few long years ago. With so much instability out there, it's easy to feel, well, a little uneasy. That's why it's not a bad idea to consider a few self-defense weapons to have at your disposal, just in case. You never know really know what lies ahead but you can be prepared if things do go very, very wrong.

There are many options out there, but the best of the bunch are packable, discreet, effective, and non-lethal (because you don't necessarily have to put somebody six feet under to "take them out"). Now, it's one thing to have one of these on your person and quite another to use it safely and properly. So make sure you know what you're dealing with beforehand and maybe even set up some training time with your new tool. Whether you're planing to get (intentionally) lost in the backcountry or just milling about in the city, it's not a bad idea to consider getting one of these. Here are the best self-defense weapons for protecting yourself in 2023.

We live among walking legends, from LeBron James and Steven Spielberg to Paul McCartney and Meryl Streep. In the category of writing, Stephen King is among the very best. The 76-year-old from Maine has written countless classics, with a signature ability to both instill fear and keep readers helplessly attached to the plot.

Dubbed the "king of horror," King is a living icon, still turning out quality material. Some of the scariest concepts that continue to creep you out — the clowns, the twins in the hallway, the buried pets — are the handy work of King. It's no wonder many consider him to be one of the greatest writers of all time.

Anytime you're wondering what's on TV, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new shows and movies at your disposal. Every weekend brings new debuts across a wide array of streaming services, and it can be hard to keep track of what's worth checking out and what you can skip. Thankfully, we've got you covered with recommendations for movies and TV shows across a wide array of different streaming services. This is what to watch this weekend.

Best new shows to watch What to watch on Netflix

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.

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The Best Biographies of 2022

Summer Loomis

Summer Loomis has been writing for Book Riot since 2019. She obsessively curates her library holds and somehow still manages to borrow too many books at once. She appreciates a good deadline and likes knowing if 164 other people are waiting for the same title. It's good peer pressure! She doesn't have a podcast but if she did, she hopes it would sound like Buddhability . The world could always use more people creating value with their lives everyday.

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The following are the best biographies 2022 had to offer, according to my brain and my tastes. And I know it might sound like something everyone says, but it was really hard to pick them this year. Like many people, I love “best of” lists for the year, even when I disagree with the titles that make the cut. There is something about narrowing the field to “the best” that makes me excited to read the list and see what I’ve read already and which gems I’ve missed that year. If you want to look back at some of the titles Book Riot chose in 2021, try this best books of 2021 by genre or best books for 2020 . Both will probably quadruple your TBR, but they’re super fun to read anyway.

For 2022 in particular, there were a ton of excellent titles to choose from, in both biographies and memoirs. I am not being polite here but let me just say that it was genuinely hard to choose. To make it easier on myself, I have included some memoirs to pair with the best biographies of 2022 below. If you don’t see your absolute favorite, it’s either because I didn’t like it (I don’t believe in spending time on books I don’t like) or because I ran out of space. And it was most likely the latter!

His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

Samuels and Olorunnipa are two Washington Post journalists who meticulously researched Floyd’s personal history in order to better understand not only his life and experiences before his death, but also the systemic forces that eventually contributed to his murder. While very interesting, this is also a harder read and very frustrating at times as there is so much loss wrapped up into this story. Definitely one of the best biographies of 2022 and one that I think will be read for years to come.

Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird by Gene Andrew Jarrett

This is one of those classic biographies that I think readers will just love diving into. Rich in detail and nuance, it drops readers into Dunbar’s life and times, offering a fascinating look at both the literary and personal life of this great American poet. If you are able to read on audio, you may want to check out actor Mirron E. Willis’s excellent narration.

Didn’t We Almost Have it All: In Defense of Whitney Houston by Gerrick Kennedy

Maybe you’re a huge fan or maybe you don’t know who Whitney Houston was, but either way, you can still read this and enjoy it. Kennedy is very clear that he didn’t set out to write a traditional biography. He wasn’t trying to dig up new “dirt” about the singer or to ask people in her life to reflect back on her now that she has been gone for 10 years. Instead, Kennedy tackles something deeper and possibly harder: to see and appreciate Houston as the fully-formed and talented human being that she was and to understand in full her influence over popular culture and music.

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Finding Me by Viola Davis

If you are also interested in reading a memoir from 2022, you could pair Whitney Houston’s biography with Viola Davis’s book. It was a title I saw everywhere in 2022, but didn’t pick up until the end of the year. My only two cents to add to this strong choice is that I was also just about the last person on earth who hadn’t heard about Davis’s childhood. Please don’t go into this without knowing at least something about what she had to overcome. However, despite all that, I still think it is an excellent and ultimately uplifting read. Content warnings include domestic violence, child endangerment, physical and sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault, drug addiction, and animal death. And also the unrelentingly grinding nature of poverty.

Like Water: A Cultural History of Bruce Lee by Daryl Joji Maeda 

This is a much more academic presentation of Bruce Lee and the myriad of ways he can be “read” in his connections and contributions to American pop culture. If you or someone you know is itching to read an extremely detailed and deeply considered look at Lee’s life, then this is the book for you. If you read on audio, be sure to check out David Lee Huynh’s narration.

We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by Simu Liu

If you want to read something much lighter but still connected to Asian representation in Western movies, you could do worse than Liu’s 2022 memoir. In comparison to other books on this list, this felt like a much lighter read to me, but it is not without some heavier moments. While I am not a superfan of Liu (because I’m not really a superfan of anyone), I did enjoy learning about Liu’s childhood and especially hearing little details like that his grandparents called him a nickname that basically translated to “little furry caterpillar” as a child. I mean, is there anything more adorable for a kid?

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya

This is another meaty biography that readers will just adore. Complex and fascinating, von Neumann’s curiosity was legendary and his contributions are so far-reaching that it is hard to imagine any one person undertaking them all. This is a good choice for readers who are fascinated by mathematics, big personalities, and intellectual puzzles.

Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

This is another best biography of 2022 that many, many readers will want to sink into. The audio is also by the author so you may want to read it that way. Whether someone reads it with eyes or ears (or both!), this book is sure to interest many curious Christie fans. And if Worsley’s biography isn’t enough for you, you may also enjoy this breakdown of why Christie is one of the best-selling novelists of all time or these 8 audiobooks for Agatha Christie fans .

The School that Escaped the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler by Deborah Cadbury

Cadbury writes a fascinating biography of Anna Essinger, a schoolteacher who managed to smuggle her students out of a Germany succumbing to Hitler’s rise to power and all the horror that was to follow. Essinger’s bravery and clear-eyed understanding of what was happening around her is amazing. This is a thrilling and fascinating biography readers will no doubt find inspirational.

The Escape Artist: The Man who Broke out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland

Freedland is a British journalist who has written this thoroughly engrossing book about Rudolf Vrba, a man who managed to escape from Auschwitz. It’s no surprise that this is a very important but difficult read. For those who can manage it, I highly recommend immersing oneself in this historical nonfiction biography about a man who survived some of the darkest events of human history.

That is my list of the best biographies of 2022, with a few memoirs for those who are interested. And now of course, I need to mention several titles I have yet to get to from 2022: Hua Hsu’s Stay True , Zain Asher’s Where the Children Take Us , Fatima Ali’s Savor: A Chef’s Hunger for More , and Dan Charnas and Jeff Peretz’s Dilla Time , to name a few!

Also Bernardine Evaristo published Manifesto: On Never Giving Up in 2022 and somehow it slipped through the cracks of my TBR. I will have to make time for that one soon.

If you still need more titles to explore, try these 50 best biographies or 20 biographies for kids . And to that latter list, I might add that a children’s biography came out about Octavia Butler in 2022 called Star Child by Haitian American author Ibi Zoboi, so you might want to check that out too!

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The Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies of 2020

Featuring barack obama, natasha trethewey, helen macdonald, sylvia plath, the beatles, and more.

Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive , Barack Obama’s A Promised Land , Helen Macdonald’s Vesper Flights , Craig Brown’s 150 Glimpses of the Beatles , and Heather Clark’s Red Comet all feature among the best reviewed memoirs and biographies of 2020.

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

1. Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener (MCD)

10 Rave • 19 Positive • 6 Mixed

Read a Profile of Anna Wiener here

“Wiener was, and maybe still is, one of us; far from seeking to disabuse civic-minded techno-skeptics of our views, she is here to fill out our worst-case scenarios with shrewd insight and literary detail … Wiener is a droll yet gentle guide … Wiener frequently emphasizes that, at the time, she didn’t realize all these buoyant 25-year-olds in performance outerwear were leading mankind down a treacherous path. She also sort of does know all along. Luckily, the tech industry controls the means of production for excuses to justify a fascination with its shiny surfaces and twisted logic … It’s possible to create a realistic portrait of contemporary San Francisco by simply listing all the harebrained new-money antics and ‘mindful’ hippie-redux principles that flourish there. All you have to do after that is juxtapose them with the effects of the city’s rocket-ship rents: a once-lively counterculture gasping for air and a ‘concentration of public pain’ shameful and shocking even to a native New Yorker. Wiener deploys this strategy liberally, with adroit specificity and arch timing. But the real strength of Uncanny Valley  comes from her careful parsing of the complex motivations and implications that fortify this new surreality at every level, from the individual body to the body politic.”

–Lauren Oyler  ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey (Ecco)

20 Rave • 3 Positive

Listen to an interview with Natasha Trethewey here

“ Memorial Drive  is, among so many other wondrous things, an exploration of a Black mother and daughter trying to get free in a land that conflates survival with freedom and womanhood with girlhood … A book that makes a reader feel as much as Memorial Drive  does cannot be written without an absolute mastery of varied modes of discourse … In one of the book’s most devastating and artful chapters, Trethewey makes an unexpected but wholly necessary switch to the second person … What happens in most riveting literature is seldom located solely in plot. I’ve not read an American memoir where more happens in the assemblage of language than Memorial Drive … Memorial Drive  forces the reader to think about how the sublime Southern conjurers of words, spaces, sounds and patterns protect themselves from trauma when trauma may be, in part, what nudged them down the dusty road to poetic mastery.”

–Kiese Makeba Laymon  ( The New York Times Book Review )

3. A Promised Land by Barack Obama (Crown)

11 Rave • 14 Positive • 5 Mixed

“The Obama of A Promised Land  seems complicated or elusive or detached only if you think that these two elements of the president’s job—the practical and the symbolic—must be made to add up in every particular. Obama himself doesn’t. Even at his most inspiring, he was never a firebrand speechifier. He preached faith in the ability of Americans’ commonalities to overcome their differences. This is a creed in which he continues to believe, even if A Promised Land  contains its share of dark allusions to the advent of division and acrimony in the form of Donald Trump. Obama is not angry, the sole quality that seems obligatory across party lines in every form of political discourse today … while A Promised Land  is a pleasure to read for the intelligence, equanimity, and warmth of its author—from his unfeigned delight in his fabulously wholesome family to his manifest fondness for the people who worked for and with him, especially early on—it’s also a mournful one. Not because Obama doesn’t believe in us anymore, but because no matter how much we adore him, we no longer believe in leaders like him.”

–Laura Miller  ( Slate )

4. Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald (Grove)

18 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed

Read Helen Macdonald’s “The Things I Tell Myself When I’m Writing About Nature” here

“… a stunning book that urges us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world, and fight to preserve it … The experience of reading Vesper Flights is almost dizzying, in the best possible way. Macdonald has many fascinations, and her enthusiasm for her subjects is infectious. She takes her essays to unexpected places, but it never feels forced … Macdonald is endlessly thoughtful, but she’s also a brilliant writer— Vesper Flights  is full of sentences that reward re-reading because of how exquisitely crafted they are … What sets Vesper Flights  apart from other nature writing is the sense of adoration Macdonald brings to her subjects. She writes with an almost breathless enthusiasm that can’t be faked; she’s a deeply sincere author in an age when ironic detachment seems de rigueur … a beautiful and generous book, one that offers hope to a world in desperate need of it.”

–Michael Schaub  ( NPR )

5. What is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life by Mark Doty (W. W. Norton & Company)

11 Rave • 8 Positive • 1 Mixed

Read an excerpt from What is the Grass here

“… excellent … as a major poet who worked at both evading and establishing his sexual identity, [Whitman] is almost a perfect topic for Doty, who recalls (in some of this book’s most powerful opening chapters) his own youth spent trying to live his life as others expected him to live it … Doty has long been one of our best living American poets, and his recent memoirs, including 2008’s Dog Years,  prove him one of our best prose writers as well. What is the Grass  doesn’t possess a single inelegant sentence or poorly expressed thought. Doty does what traditional academic criticism often fails to do: He makes poetry part of how we live and how we think about living … [Doty] doesn’t simply ‘analyze’ poems or narrate events; instead he continually illuminates how those who love books can grow old reading writers who help make sense of their lives … provides an excellent opportunity to re-examine the work of one of America’s first major poets through the prose of one of its best living ones.”

–Scott Bradfield  ( The Washington Post )

1. The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes (Knopf)

8 Rave • 20 Positive

Read an excerpt from The Man in the Red Coat here

“Barnes is fascinated by facts that turn out to be untrue and by unlikely but provable connections between people and things … While Barnes is concerned in this book to find things that don’t add up, he also relishes the moments when a clear, connecting line can be drawn … Wilde and Pozzi, and perhaps even Montesquiou, admired Bernhardt; Pozzi and James were both painted by Sargent; Wilde and Montesquiou had the same response to the interior décor at the Prousts. Barnes enjoys these connections. But in ways that are subtle and sharp, he seeks to puncture easy associations, doubtful assertions, lazy assumptions. He is interested in the space between what can be presumed and what can be checked.”

–Colm Tóibín  ( The New York Review of Books )

2. 150 Glimpses of the Beatles by Craig Brown (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

12 Rave • 5 Positive • 2 Mixed

“… riveting … This quirky, irreverent book, written in the manner of Mr. Brown’s bestselling Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret  (2017), is a kaleidoscope of essays, anecdotes, party lists and personal reminiscence. You might think there was nothing more to be said about the Beatles, but Mr. Brown, a perceptive writer and a gifted satirist, makes familiar stories fresh. Along the way he unearths many fascinating tidbits … a fascinating study of the cultural and social upheaval created by the band … Mr. Brown has a keen eye for absurdist detail … After reading this book I was inspired to listen to them again. I felt just as I had the first time: sheer joy.”

–Moira Hodgson  ( The Wall Street Journal )

3. Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker (Doubleday)

14 Rave • 1 Positive

Listen to an interview with Robert Kolker here

“… part multi-generational family saga, part medical mystery, written with an extraordinary blend of rigor and empathy. The reporter in Kolker seeks accuracy above all, but there’s a notable lack of judgment in the book that feels remarkable in light of the stigma long felt by those who have the condition in their families … despite the lonely battles fought by both patients and researchers, Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road  is at heart a book about how progress, personal or scientific, can never be achieved on our own.”

–Kate Tuttle  ( The Los Angeles Times )

4. Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World by Amy Stanley (Scribner)

13 Rave • 1 Positive

“Through Tsuneno, a woman with no remarkable talents or aspirations, Stanley conjures a teeming world … Tsuneno’s restlessness and bad luck make her a rewarding subject … Stanley’s primary materials are letters from Tsuneno and her relatives, which are delightfully frank … The couple squabble, divorce, and remarry, and Tsuneno’s fortunes continue their erratic, fascinating fall and rise and fall … a lost place appears to the reader as if alive and intact.”

–Lidija Haas  ( Harper’s )

5. Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark (Knopf)

11 Rave • 3 Positive • 3 Mixed

Read an excerpt from Red Comet here

“…just as one is wondering whether there can possibly be anything new to be said, here comes Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath  hurtling down the chute, weighing in at more than 1,000 densely printed pages … as Plath and her complex, much analyzed legacy fade with the passing of successive generations, and her work grows more removed from the cultural mainstream, now seems a prime moment to revive her tale and try to bring all of its elements together … poignant … Clark is at pains to see Plath clearly, to rescue her from the reductive clichés and distorted readings of her work largely because of the tragedy of her ending … there is no denying the book’s intellectual power and, just as important, its sheer readability. Clark is a felicitous writer and a discerning critic of Plath’s poetry … Instead of depleting my interest in Plath, the book stimulated it further … Clark’s talent for scene-painting and inserting the stray but illustrative detail contributes to create a harrowing picture of the narrow confines of the London that Plath had moved to with such high hopes.”

–Daphne Merkin  ( The New York Times Book Review )

The Book Marks System: RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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The Best Audiobook Biographies

The best biographies are often more engaging than fiction. Whether they're autobios or told from an outside perspective, a good biography or memoir is like listening to someone interesting tell you their life story. The best biography audiobooks make it easier to listen to interesting lives while you go about yours at work, or just doing tasks around the house.

Some of the best biographies have inspired movies, such as Wild , American Sniper and Eat, Pray, Love . Great biography audiobooks also range from the life stories of the very famous, such as Steve Jobs , to people who lived fascinating lives without achieving fame, like the historical biography Maude . There are even versions of biographies read by the author, such as The Glass Castle , written and read by Jeannette Walls; What Happened, written and read by Hilary Rodham Clinton; and Becoming , written and read by Michelle Obama.

Which of these biographies will you download? Try Audible and get two free audiobooks - which makes it even easier to start listening to life stories. Vote for the biography audiobooks you would recommend and add any must-listen books we might have missed.

Lucky: A Memoir

Born a crime.

Educated: A Memoir

American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

The Glass Castle

Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed

The Yorkshire Shepherdess

High school: a memoir tegan quin , sara quin.

Shakespeare: The World as Stage

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison

The Magnolia Story

When Breath Becomes Air

What Happened

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

Inside out demi moore.

Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary

Ranking the best novels and non-fiction books of every genre.

The Best Biography Audiobooks to Educate, Fascinate, and Inspire

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

Biography is one of the most compelling genres in audio. The feeling of sinking into an expertly written bio and losing yourself in the life of a fascinating person—whether it be a great thinker, a trailblazing activist, a wartime hero, a brilliant inventor, or a little-known influential force—is completely unparalleled.

The best biographies are ranked not only by the scale and skill of their writing, but also by the strength of their subjects. In the audio world, these selections are also judged for the quality of their narrative performances, making those that rise to the top all the more excellent. From lighthearted entertainment to inspirational origin stories, these titles represent some of the best biography audiobooks available for your listening pleasure.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Genghis Khan is frequently thought of as the fierce leader of a savage nation; in reality, his rule was a lot more complex and progressive than most realize. Tasked with taking down Khan’s reputation, author Jack Weatherford has expertly assembled a researched account of the ruler’s legacy that is likely to surprise even those most familiar with his reign. Weatherford covers Khan’s innovations at home and abroad, from the invention of the decimal system to the establishment of domestic policies that abolished torture, encouraged religious freedom, and granted universal education to boys. With the practiced narration of three-time Audie Award winner Jonathan Davis, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World is a paradigm-shifting profile with the potential to significantly impact any listener’s understanding of the world.

Hidden Figures

You’ve no doubt heard of astronauts like John Glenn or Neil Armstrong, the dauntless men who were among the first to explore space—but you might be unaware of the women who got them into orbit. Teams of female mathematicians worked diligently to provide the calculations necessary to fuel America’s dreams of space exploration. Among them were Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, a group of African-American women who shared their mathematical talents at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Lab in Virginia while confronting the realities of oppressive Jim Crow laws. In Hidden Figures , Margot Lee Shetterly shines a much-needed and long-deserved light on the contributions of these women who had for so long been hidden by historical narratives, a biography that’s made all the more engaging with the performance of Hall of Fame narrator Robin Miles.

Walter Isaacson is one of the most acclaimed biographers in the world, while Edward Herrmann has won 22 Earphone Awards and multiple Audie Awards for his narration, as well as an Emmy, a Tony, and numerous other accolades for his stage and screen performances. So it’s no surprise that, paired together as they are here, Einstein: His Life and Universe merits a spot on our list. Winner of the 2008 Audie for Biography/Memoir, Isaacson’s probing profile adds new layers to one of history’s most famous scientists. Delving into previously unreleased personal letters that offer up new angles of the genius’s complicated personality, this biography is more than just a literary sketching of a famous man. Isaacson’s prose challenges listeners to consider the very nature of genius and creativity, and what these qualities might mean for the world today.

One of the most liberally interpreted and portrayed women in world history, Cleopatra has become notorious in pop culture as a conniving and murderous queen. In Cleopatra , Stacy Schiff masterfully occupies the dual roles of factual historian and wholly captivating storyteller as she separates truth and myth in an effort to capture the definitive profile of one of the world’s most influential rulers. Robin Miles’s performance is as smooth and regal as the audiobook’s subject, remaining cool and sophisticated while still portraying the passion that drove the many characters who moved in and out of Cleopatra’s life. The result is a sparkling, luxurious jewel of an audiobook that provides one of history’s most controversial figures the legacy she has always deserved.

Alexander Hamilton

Thanks to the international success of the Broadway hit Hamilton , most people now know how unique and extraordinary a life Alexander Hamilton lived—even by Founding Father standards. Yet until relatively recently, Hamilton’s legacy went largely unexamined. In fact, Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton inspired the musical and reinvigorated the popularity of the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury. At 35 hours long, this audiobook begins Hamilton’s story at his early childhood and remains with its subject throughout all the turbulent ups and downs of his remarkable life. With the help of the man with the golden voice —Audie Award-winning narrator Scott Brick—every moment of the story feels engrossing and essential to Chernow’s portraiture.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks died a poor tobacco farmer, so unknown that she was buried in an unmarked grave. Today, hers is one of the most well-known names in biological science, and her cells (which were taken without her consent or knowledge) have helped develop life-saving vaccines and contributed to cancer research, DNA mapping projects, and more. In this penetrating biography, performed by dual narrators and Hall of Fame greats Cassandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin, Rebecca Skloot compiles more than 10 years of research into revealing the staggering truth about how Lacks’s HeLa cells have been bought and sold, generating billions of medical research dollars, without her family having received a cent. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a powerful and disturbing profile of American injustice, as well as a moving tribute to a woman who never imagined she would go on to change the world.

Biographizing a larger-than-life personality is no easy task, though many have tried. But this profile of the Tesla founder by veteran technology writer Ashlee Vance stands above the rest. Narrated by Fred Sanders, who enhances his already stellar performance with a pitch-perfect impression of the titular subject (South African accent and all), Elon Musk is arguably the definitive biography of the eccentric founder. This is also the first of Musk’s biographies with which he has been involved—initially, he declined requests, but after learning Vance had continued on undeterred and interviewed nearly 200 people, Musk was impressed by the author’s diligence and agreed to participate. Sanders does an expert job narrating the work with alternating dramatic flair and deep gravitas, which together with the well-researched content presents the richest picture of Elon Musk in existence to date.

Catherine the Great

Robert K. Massie is a practiced expert at profiling powerful Russians, with biographies like Peter the Great , Nicholas and Alexandra , and The Romanovs under his belt. Aided by the narrative prowess of Mark Deakins, Massie once again does a masterful job of profiling the fascinating rise of the young minor noblewoman who would one day become the universally revered Catherine the Great. Couched in all the splendor and luxury of 18th-century Russia, Massie’s narrative introduces listeners to Catherine as both the fiercely patriotic leader and intimate, vulnerable private person she was. Through richly illustrated prose and graceful, polished narration, Catherine the Great comes alive to both history scholars and the casually curious.

The Power Broker

If you’ve never heard of Robert Moses—despite his being one of the most influential men of the 20th century—don’t fret. Some of the most seasoned New Yorkers aren’t aware that their city, the metropolitan center of the world, was largely shaped by the astronomical force at the center of Robert Caro’s Pulitzer-winning biography. Moses’s life parallels the rise and fall of an empire. A promising young upstart who failed in his early attempts to enter politics, Moses painstakingly accumulated alternative sources of access and power until he became the single person responsible for the urban design of nearly all of New York City. He then lost everything as the world awoke to the environmental and functional complications he had wrought. It’s clear in Robertson Dean’s performance that the narrator is as fascinated by the story as anyone, which makes the listening experience all too easy to lose yourself in. Don’t be intimidated by this mammoth profile— The Power Broker is worth every minute of your investment.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Not just one of the best among biographies, The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of the most influential and culturally important entries in American history. In this most recent reinvigoration, renowned actor Laurence Fishburne gives new life and gravitas to the civil rights leader’s words. In a country whose history books often relegate his importance to his assassination, Malcolm X’s firsthand writings are essential to understanding both the man and the movement to which he was central. This powerful autobiography includes explorations of race, society, culture, and work that remain as relevant today as when they were written, and listeners will recognize Malcolm X’s often-referenced quotes that gain new meaning and force within their original context.

A Beautiful Mind

Those familiar with the Russell Crowe film of the same name will be shocked at how much more there is to the emotional and thrilling story of genius mathematician John Nash. A Beautiful Mind , Sylvia Nasar’s biography upon which the movie was based, traces Nash’s meteoric rise to fame, his subsequent public mental health episode at the height of his notoriety, his tumble into obscurity, and how, after years of silence, he made a triumphant return and went on to win the Nobel Prize. With more space to articulate the nuances of Nash’s life and experiences, Nasar uses her subject’s story as an entry point to bring listeners into a discussion about the very nature of prodigy and the relationship between genius and madness. Anna Fields performs each person in Nash’s life like a fiction narrator performs characters, giving each their own voice and personality, which makes this remarkable biography an even more artful and dramatic listening experience.

The Woman Who Smashed Codes

In a sprawling biography that plays more like a work of fiction, Jason Fagone tracks the husband-and-wife duo who invented cryptology and employed it for the American government in efforts to aid the Allies in winning World War II. Particularly, Fagone focuses on Elizebeth Smith, who began her codebreaking career as an agent helping to catch black market smugglers during Prohibition and went on to expose a number of covert Nazi spy rings in countries around the world. Brought to life by award-winning narrator and fan favorite Cassandra Campbell, The Woman Who Smashed Codes is filled with puzzles, glyphs, and codes that just might leave you wondering how well you would fare against equally complex ciphers.

The Stranger in the Woods

Biographies are typically about well-known public figures, but Christopher Knight’s notability comes from the fact that he was somehow completely unknown to even a single human for nearly 30 years. Narrator Mark Bramhall’s hushed, hermetic tone makes him the perfect voice for the story of the man who successfully disappeared into the woods of Maine and sustained himself alone in a tent, solely on his own survival instinct and what little food he could steal from cabins nearby. The Stranger in the Woods is a fascinating survivalist tale, and more. Author Michael Finkel uses Knight’s story to explore connection versus solitude and what humans truly need—beyond food and water—in order to live well.

Prairie Fires

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

The Mayor of Castro Street

A trailblazer in the truest sense of the word, Harvey Milk was the first ever openly gay politican elected in the state of California. His life and legacy have served as an inspiration to all those who fight diligently for social justice and in The Mayor of Castro Street , journalist Randy Shilts explores every facet of Milk’s career and impact. Shilts captures not only the tumultuous political climate of the era but also the fight for gay rights and the hope that Milk embodied for the queer community. Audie-nominated narrator Marc Vietor lends his talents to this exceptional, compassionate biography, offering a performance that is fittingly compelling and spirited.

Be Free or Die

In Be Free or Die , author Cate Lineberry chronicles the life and impact of Robert Smalls, a young slave who commandeered a Confederate steamship and fearlessly delivered the ship to Union forces at a nearby blockade. He, his family, and the crew of slaves on board were freed upon reaching Union territory—and Smalls is now recognized as one of America’s bravest unsung heroes. Smalls, who went on to become the first Black captain of an Army ship, emphasized the significance of freedom and just how far one man would go to secure the liberation of himself and his family. J.D. Jackson’s clear, resonant narration brings an additional depth and dynamism to Lineberry’s narrative.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

In Mountains Beyond Mountains , Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder tells the story of a man who took on one of society’s most complicated problems and managed to change the world. While enrolled in medical school, Paul Farmer found a passion for global health. But rather than taking up volunteer efforts or doing charity work on the side, Dr. Farmer threw his entire weight into becoming a one-man force for curing infectious diseases in developing countries around the globe, ultimately going on to found international health justice organization Partners in Health. Kidder illustrates Farmer’s life against the glorious backdrop of his myriad travels, bringing the listener through Haiti, Peru, Cuba, Russia, and beyond, while chameleon-like narrator Paul Michael fully embodies every character Dr. Farmer meets along the way. The result is a whirlwind travel epic of superhuman empathy—one that will inspire and empower you to believe in the power of what one person can accomplish.

Perhaps one of the least-known of Zora Neale Hurston’s works, Barracoon was published more than 50 years after the author’s death and details the life of Cudjo Lewis, believed to be the last living survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. Hurston traveled to Alabama in 1927 to interview Lewis, and the subsequent documentation is one of the only firsthand accounts of the Middle Passage. In almost deceptively smooth tones, Robin Miles narrates Lewis’s harrowing account—from the childhood in Africa he was stolen from, through the trans-Atlantic journey aboard a packed slave ship, and his years in slavery in the American South.

To say Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was a looming global presence is not an exaggeration; he is often remembered for the larger-than-life portraits he commissioned for prominent public placement, where he could watch over his citizens. Already a controversial and dictatorial figure in history, Mao’s reputation receives an overhaul—and not a positive one—in Mao: The Unknown Story . Wife-and-husband coauthors Jung Chang and Jon Halliday spent 10 years in conversation with Mao’s personal acquaintances and scouring archives, uncovering and corroborating never-before-heard accounts. Their meticulously researched profile portrays the Chairman as obsessively power-hungry and his rise to leadership as not a serendipitous act of fate, but the result of a cold, calculated amassing of power that destroyed anything and everything in its path. Perhaps most shockingly, Chang and Halliday calculate that Mao was responsible for more than 70 million deaths in peacetime, surpassing the fatality count of some of the worst atrocities on record.

The Journey of Crazy Horse

Most Americans know Crazy Horse as the Native American warrior who led the Lakota tribe to victory against American soldiers at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But limiting his reputation to this single victory is to erase who Crazy Horse was: a strong and silent but generous and kind leader whose hard-earned influence was what allowed him to rally his community against the looming threat of Manifest Destiny. It is through author Joseph Marshall’s personal connection as a Lakota Indian that listeners can gain access via The Journey of Crazy Horse to accounts passed down in a closely guarded oral tradition, and learn the hidden details of Crazy Horse’s legacy.

A Woman of No Importance

Though her name might be unfamiliar to many, socialite-turned-spy Virginia Hall had an indelible impact on the Allied front and the lives of French citizens during World War II. Author Sonia Purnell crafts a meticulous history of Hall’s life and wartime contributions in A Woman of No Importance , which is narrated in the melodious English accent of BAFTA-nominated actress Juliet Stevenson. An agent in the Special Operations Executive (also known as “Churchill’s Secret Army'' or the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”), Hall built networks of spies throughout France and called military strikes. Unparalleled in her bravery, Hall even returned to France after her cover had been blown, seeking to help liberate residents from Nazi occupation.

Though Thomas Edison is commonly known for inventing the lightbulb, the genius who scientists consider to be the father of modern electricity is Nikola Tesla. Wizard is the definitive Tesla biography, exploring the scientific marvel’s seemingly endless inventions: alternating current, fluorescent and neon lights, the Tesla coil, wireless telegraphy, and the system that first harnessed the massive power of Niagara Falls as electricity. Listeners will recognize familiar figures throughout, each played charismatically by narrator Simon Prebble, including Alexander Graham Bell, J.P. Morgan, George Westinghouse, and, of course, Edison. Author Marc J. Seifer also illustrates Tesla’s troubled later years, offering a complete picture of his subject as well as a moving portrait of the burden of brilliance.

The Book of Pride

Mason Funk’s The Book of Pride reads like a short story collection: the volume houses short but incredibly beautiful biographies of a number of queer icons that come together in a heartfelt history of the gay rights movement. From leaders and key activists to everyday participants in the battle for justice, this listen chronicles the depths of their bravery, perseverance, and resistance, highlighting how their singular courage paved the way for generations to follow. An inspiring recollection of the LGBTQIA+ community’s search for inclusivity, visibility, and acceptance in a world often rocked by prejudice and oppression, this listen—which is narrated by a host of narrators including the author, Robin Miles, and Kevin R. Free—is an absolute must for anyone interested in the fight for equality.

The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon

In The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon , author Todd Zwillich has written a humbly moving tribute to an unsung hero of the Apollo 11 mission: John C. Houbolt, the mid-level engineer who championed the landing strategy without which humans would never have landed on the celestial body. At just over three and a half hours, the listen is a short, sweet, and powerful David-and-Goliath tale of how one man’s infallible spirit led to an advancement for all mankind. Narrated by the author and accompanied by a dramatic and suspenseful soundtrack, this overlooked but essential piece of American history is not to be missed.

Some lives are so extraordinary that they demand a biography, and Louis Zamperini’s is one of them. Author Laura Hillenbrand’s profile of the young Army bombardier was turned into an acclaimed film, and it’s not hard to see why Unbroken captured so much attention. After going down over the Pacific, the young soldier survived more than a month at sea—only to drift ashore on Japanese-occupied territory, where he would be captured and tortured for another two years. Many others have perished under similar challenging circumstances, but against all odds, Zamperini survived. Edward Herrmann (who polished his narrative expertise as the voice of a wide variety of History Channel and PBS specials) brings gravitas to this truly unbelievable story of human resilience in the face of torture, pain, and hopelessness.

Selection Methodology

Inclusion in Audible’s “best audiobooks” series is based on a number of factors, including presence on Audible best seller lists, listener ratings and reviews, Goodreads ratings, and input from the Audible Editors. All audiobooks featured here have a minimum of 500 reviews averaging at least 4.5 stars, with some exceptions made for outstanding stories and performances.

Turn up the volume on these stellar listens for music fans

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The best audiobooks on friendship to deepen your bonds

From novels about lifelong friends to self-dev listens about maintaining strong relationships, these are the best audiobooks on friendship.

Celebrating the Winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes

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Audiobooks to Support You in Your Addiction & Recovery Journey

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The Best Memoirs to Make You Laugh, Cry, and Think

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Stay up to date and informed with the best news podcasts of all time

If you're looking to squeeze some news content and commentary into your life so you're informed but not overwhelmed, then these listens are for you.

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• Best Audiobooks

The 15 most essential music bios (and autobiographies) so far this century

From sleater-kinney to springsteen, these are the tomes most deserving of joining the pantheon of essential musical memoirs.

Back in 2012, The A.V. Club asked if there was life left in the world of music memoirs . On one hand, it was obviously a rhetorical question—is anyone really going to say, “No, no more autobiographies from musicians, please”?—but the larger point was salient. Namely, that this young century had seen a glut of shoddily written and poorly edited books by famous artists (whether ghostwritten or not), that did the genre no favors. (Paging Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace .)

Lucky, then, to have so many counterexamples. The past 22 years have seen the release of not only tremendous memoirs and musical biographies, but among them some that belong in the highest echelons of the field—books that should be essential reading even for those who aren’t fans of the artist. The following are the ones that rose to the top when The A.V. Club looked back upon which music bios and memoirs were the most impactful, the most artful, and resonated far beyond the page. There are plenty of great books about the music industry not on this list (or about multiple artists, like Alex Ross’ must-read book on 20th century classical music, The Rest Is Noise ) that just didn’t fit the biography/autobiography designation. But when it comes to the singular stories of notable musicians and their lives, careers, and music, these are the ones we’ll recommend in perpetuity.

Note to desktop users: If you’d like to read this in a scrolling format (and why wouldn’t you?), simply narrow your browser window.

Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl [2015]

Sleater-Kinney is one of two families that Brownstein explores in this candid, heartfelt memoir. Hunger ’s childhood photos attest to the Brownsteins’ deep love, though a lack of communication made it difficult to fully process her mother’s anorexia and her father coming out. Her book’s dedication to bandmates Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss makes clear that Sleater-Kinney is (or was, anyway) as much a family as the Brownsteins, and her depiction of the band’s early days is a thrilling origin story. She makes repeatedly clear that Sleater-Kinney’s work—and music in general—is her lifeblood. One oft-quoted line from the book sums up her passion: “This is what it is to be a fan: curious, open, desiring for connection, to feel like art has chosen you, claimed you as its witness.” [David Brusie]

Hanif Abdurraqib, Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes On A Tribe Called Quest [2019]

Abdurraqib’s book is part history, part memoir. Abdurraqib was born in 1983, so he was 7 when A Tribe Called Quest began and 15 upon its 1998 breakup. Along the way—and in post-Tribe years of solo records and a surprisingly fruitful 2016 reunion—Abdurraqib grows alongside Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. The book is at its most poignant when examining the often contentious relationship between Q-Tip and Phife Dawg. They reconcile shortly before Phife’s death at 45 from complications due to diabetes, which is also the subject of Abdurraqib’s open letter to Phife’s mom, the book’s most heartbreaking moment. Abdurraqib’s Tribe expertise inspires the reader to seek out albums, playlists, and songs, with a spirit of exploration that reflects the group itself. [David Brusie]

Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One [2004]

During Bob Dylan’s 1960s and ’70s heyday, he was an inscrutable figure, inclined either toward reclusiveness or puckish obfuscation. The greatest trick he pulls with his memoir Chronicles is to convince readers he’s finally telling his story straight, from the perspective of a gentle, neighborly old family man, who likes Little League baseball, American history, and vintage rock ’n’ roll. Devoted Dylanologists have debunked a lot of this book, proven that some of the anecdotes about recording sessions or the post-Woody Guthrie folk scene couldn’t have happened the way the author describes them. But Dylan’s exaggerations are themselves telling. Really, this is a book that illuminates where his songs come from: via scraps of newspapers, lost pop artifacts, and the lived experiences that a genius has transformed into myth. [Noel Murray]

Flea, Acid For The Children [2019]

Flea, acid for the children   [2019].

Red Hot Chili Peppers fans know the band for their goofier antics, but one layer deeper reveals an underlying through line across their history: the potent musicianship and quiet vulnerability of bassist Michael Balzary, a.k.a. Flea. Acid For The Children , outside of a handful of time jumps, takes place entirely before the formation of the Peppers; at its core, it’s the story of a music-obsessed Australian with a musically heroic but violent alcoholic stepfather. Graduating into his teen years, Flea gets some notoriety by being himself: awkward, wild, and overly dedicated to his musical craft. A handful of future-celebrity cameos make everything feel destined (like actor Laurence Fishburne as a former roommate), but the real juice is reading about a shy, sensitive boy becoming an outrageous, sensitive man. [Dan Bogosian]

Kristin Hersh, Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt [2015]

The late Vic Chesnutt was a brilliant singer-songwriter who was equal parts lovable and frustrating. In the piercing chronicle Don’t Suck, Don’t Die, musician Kristin Hersh uses vivid, engaging prose to capture Chesnutt’s complicated nature. The pair frequently toured together, and the book shines when she draws on her own personal, intimate observations, gleaned from their time on the road. “We didn’t stand a chance because when you were good, the work was true,” she writes. In the end, Don’t Suck, Don’t Die is a moving portrait of an artistic genius—and a vulnerable manual on how to navigate immense grief after the death of someone we love. [Annie Zaleski]

Herbie Hancock, Possibilities [2014]

Herbie Hancock has a ton of great stories, as you might guess of someone who was in Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet, played space-jazz with Mwandishi, and got real loose with Headhunters. But in his 2014 memoir Possibilities , he’s at his best when he’s talking about his artistic motivations. His taste is omnivorous—how many of bebop’s brightest stars have also been credited with helping to birth hip-hop, or have collaborated with Congolese electronic group Konono Nº1?—and he writes eagerly about how he’s evolved as an artist; when he gets into the whys and hows of that evolution, the book really sings. As great as it is on paper, the audiobook is highly recommended, if only to hear Herbie imitate Miles’ famous rasp to call himself a “motherfucker.” [Marty Sartini Garner]

Robin D.G. Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life And Times Of An American Original [2009]

Thelonious Monk spent his entire life waiting for the world to recognize his brilliance, and when it finally happened, in the mid-1960s, the jazz world moved on with alarming speed. Robin D.G. Kelley approaches Monk’s life as a tragedy, one beset by mental illness and the everyday oppression that comes with being Black in America, as well as a lack of consistent recognition that’s frequently surprising given Monk’s reputation now. Kelley walks patiently through the man’s life, from his time as a tent-revival accompanist through his all-night gigs in Manhattan clubs, and while he does write at length about how Monk’s emotional and mental struggles colored both his playing and his life, he does so without sensationalizing—or stripping him of the incredible genius he developed by sitting at a piano and chasing his own sound for years and years. [Marty Sartini Garner]

Tegan And Sara Quinn, High School [2019]

Most music memoirs are about getting to the good stuff, when an artist starts to hit it big and enter the glory years. Not so with High School —it’s right there in the title. Tegan and Sara Quinn begin and end their back-and-forth autobiography (the two alternate chapters throughout) with their formative years in secondary education, the tale concluding just as the pair score a vital performance showcase and first glimpse the possibility of a future in music. But that’s what makes it so vital: The Canadian twins nail the hyperbolic emotional volatility of being a teen, connecting it to a passion for music in a way few artists have managed without losing the everything- cranked-to-11 intensity of adolescence. It’s artfully—and painfully—relatable (and soon to be a TV show .)[Alex McLevy]

Keith Richards, Life [2010]

Keith richards, life   [2010].

Even Keith Richards seems a little astounded by how well his memory has served him. It’s understandable: Given the copious amounts of drugs the guitarist for the Rolling Stones has done over the course of his life, anyone would be forgiven for blacking out entire months, or maybe years. Instead, the garrulous and freewheeling icon holds court (with help from ghostwriter James Fox) on everything from his earliest beginnings to the depths of his addiction days with equally eagle-eyed description. Much like the chaos that seemed to perpetually surround the band, there’s a sense of frenetic abandon to the tale, an intensity that gives it the heady rush of a dishy beach read (when he and Mick Jagger turn on each other, oh, the zingers that ensue), even while making plenty of time to ruminate on the value of a passionate, devoted love of music above all else. It’s downright irreplaceable, innit? [Alex McLevy]

Patti Smith, Just Kids [2010]

Patti Smith was already a decorated poet and musician before writing the memoir Just Kids . Still, the tender chronicle of her decades-long relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe catapulted her into literature’s upper echelons, as the book became an award-winning best-seller; among other things, it won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The honors are well deserved: Set against a backdrop of a bohemian New York City that no longer exists, Just Kids is an intimate look at the inner workings of a complex relationship. Smith uses elegant, precise, and vivid language throughout to describe what it’s like to come of age when you’re marching to your own beat—giving Just Kids the feel of a vulnerable, honest guide to growing up even when gracefulness is in short supply. [Annie Zaleski]

Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run [2016]

For decades, Bruce Springsteen sprinkled pieces of his autobiography into his song intros, repeated nightly at his concerts like liturgy. For his official autobiography, the Boss reassembled those pieces and filled in some gaps, explaining his struggles with depression and the squalor he endured as a child. Those insights are invaluable. But the real revelations in Born To Run have to do with the music. Bruce gets downright wonky here, talking about his early days in the New Jersey club scene, where the only way to make a dollar was to flatten the audience, gig after gig. This book asks fans to think about Springsteen’s songs the way he thinks of them: in terms of how they’ll work in a live setting. Their visceral punch and their epic aspirations now make even more sense. [Noel Murray]

John Taylor, In The Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, & Duran Duran [2013]

As Duran Duran’s bassist, John Taylor is tasked with laying down lively grooves with pinpoint precision. That sense of rhythm and clarity permeates the writing in his memoir, In The Pleasure Groove . The book follows Taylor as he evolves from an eager young music fan growing up in Birmingham, England, into a daydreaming art school student and then a music superstar with Duran Duran. Although there are plenty of ’80s-related memories and references to long-ago debauchery, In The Pleasure Groove is most affecting when Taylor digs deep and reflects on the more personal aspects of his life and career. His candid reminiscences about his family, and insights about getting (and staying) sober, in particular, are quite moving. [Annie Zaleski]

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Mo’ Meta Blues; The World According To Questlove [2013]

At first glance, Questlove’s first memoir, Mo’ Meta Blues , comes across like an especially enjoyable hang session nerding out with a fellow music fan, someone unafraid to admit just how emotionally meaningful the records that connected with you growing up really are. But as you get deeper, you realize the book is actually a skeleton key of sorts to his entire musical career—tracing the path that led him to obsessive perfection of his instrument, obsessive devotion to musical curation, and the beauty to be found by channeling feeling into technique—something too many musical memoirs quietly pass by. [Alex McLevy]

Kathy Valentine, All I Ever Wanted: A Rock: A Rock ‘N’ Roll Memoir [2020]

In her memoir, All I Ever Wanted , The Go-Go’s’ bassist Kathy Valentine blows the fun-loving image of the group to bits. The book has its share of salacious rock ’n’ roll stories, but it is Valentine’s honest and unflinching account of growing up unsupervised in a single-parent household that is the most engrossing—and difficult—to read. This includes a pregnancy and its termination at 12, which she revisits at 23, when she goes for the procedure again, then performs with The Go-Go’s the very next day. Valentine speaks candidly about her addiction, her destructive behavior, and the people she hurt, taking full responsibility for her actions. Despite her negligent upbringing, there are no complaints or accusations. This is perhaps All I Ever Wanted ’s strongest statement: acceptance without resentment. [Lily Moayeri]

Michelle Zauner, Crying In H Mart [2021]

Michelle Zauner, a.k.a. the band Japanese Breakfast, has been a fixture on the New York Times Best Seller list since the release of her raw, grief-filled memoir, Crying In H Mart, about a year ago. The book (which was preceded by a viral New Yorker essay of the same name) focuses on Zauner’s experience of her mother’s cancer diagnosis and eventual death. There are numerous flashbacks to Zauner’s relationship with her mother, which are at times devastatingly tender, and at others, brutal to the point of cruelty. Somehow, the mouth-watering and sensual food descriptions threaded throughout soften these blows. Zauner puts her lyrical skills to work painting detailed scenarios steeped in emotion so heightened, you can almost taste it. Do not read if you have recently lost a loved one: Crying In H Mart may send you off the deep end. [Lily Moayeri]

My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies

The Best Biographies of Richard Nixon

11 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by Steve in Best Biographies Posts , President #37 - R Nixon

≈ 18 Comments

American history , best biographies , biographies , book reviews , Conrad Black , Evan Thomas , Garry Wills , Herbert Parmet , John Farrell , presidential biographies , Richard Nixon , Richard Reeves , Rick Perlstein , Roger Morris , Stephen Ambrose , Tom Wicker , US Presidents

For all the differences between Nixon and LBJ, I was surprised to find that in many ways Richard Nixon was his Democratic predecessor’s Republican doppelgänger .

Both men were born into very modest circumstances, both were exceptionally driven, both possessed larger-than-life personalities and both used every possible means to amass and wield political power.

But where I found the sociable if crude Lyndon Johnson an intriguingly fascinating character, I found the awkwardly introverted Richard Nixon distressingly irreconcilable and perplexing. The more time I spent with Nixon, the more impressed I became at his political success…and depressed that he never managed to outrun his demons.

I began my campaign through Nixon’s life with nine single-volume books and I finished with Stephen Ambrose’s renowned three-volume series.

* Conrad Black’s “ Richard Nixon: A Life in Full ” was published in 2007 and, with 1,059 pages, is the longest of the single-volume biographies I read.  The same year this biography was published, Black was convicted for obstruction of justice and fraud charges in connection with his Canadian media empire. Readers can be excused for wondering whether there is a connection between Black’s personal challenges and the excessive sympathy he shows his subject. While this biography is often impressively detailed and undeniably enlightening, it lacks a colorful narrative, fails to fully uncover Nixon’s character and gives too wide a berth to his most egregious flaws — 3½ stars ( Full review here )

* Published in 2017, John Farrell’s “ Richard Nixon: The Life ” is the most recently-published of my Nixon biographies – and is my favorite. Balanced, lucid and consistently captivating, this 558-page biography proved familiar and yet somehow fresh . While there are some new insights here, most of the narrative will be recognizable to Nixon-era aficionados. But because it is so well written – cogent, clever and generally quite convincing – it is a welcome additional to the large body of work covering this prickly politician – 4 stars ( Full review here )

* “ Being Nixon: A Man Divided ” was written by Evan Thomas (author of “ Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World ” which I enjoyed). Published in 2015, this book sometimes feels like a biography…and sometimes like a character study. Nixon’s pre-presidency is covered too quickly (and without enough nuance) while coverage of his presidency seems less like a serious survey than a collection of clever anecdotes and revelations. This is not the perfect introduction to Nixon, but it is a solid second or third book for someone seeking a slightly deeper dive on Nixon – 3½ stars ( Full review here )

* Published in 1991, “ One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream ” by Tom Wicker was one of the earliest scholarly studies of Nixon’s life. Wicker appeared on Nixon’s master list of Nixon’s political opponents , so one might suspect that bias infuses the narrative. Fortunately this is not the case and his book exhibits a tendency to see Nixon’s best, rather than worst, characteristics. But instead of being a comprehensive study of his life – or his presidency – this book draws attention to what the author believes are Nixon’s most underrated domestic achievements. In the end, Wicker’s book serves best as a supplemental study of Nixon rather than as useful introduction to the man and his life – 3¼ stars ( Full review here )

* “ Richard Nixon and His America ” by historian Herbert Parmet was published in 1990. Another of the early serious studies of Nixon, this biography focuses on Nixon’s ascent…but not his fall. Unfortunately, this book’s narrative is often hard to follow, it leaves numerous important moments in Nixon’s life unobserved and consistently fails to engage the reader. It is likely to appeal only to serious students of Nixon or readers who enjoy Schlesinger-style political treatises – 2½ stars ( Full review here )

* Next I read “ Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America ” published in 2008 and authored by Rick Perlstein. I quickly discovered this is more a cultural / social history of the US than a biography of Nixon. But I wasn’t at all disappointed at having read this book; it proved well-written, intriguing and thought-provoking. It might be the perfect “final” book to read about Nixon and his era – Not Rated ( Full review here )

* Richard Reeves’s “ President Nixon: Alone in the White House ” was published in 2001 and, despite being neither a comprehensive biography nor even a thorough study of Nixon’s presidency, proved one of my favorite books on Nixon. Focused primarily on Nixon’s first term in office, this book captures his life during these years as though the author was in the room at nearly every moment…but still leaves much about Nixon’s character and personality unexplored. But what it does focus on is keenly captured and thoroughly fascinating. A must-read for anyone already familiar with Nixon – 4 stars ( Full review here )

* Several long-time readers of this site steered me to Garry Wills’s “ Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man .” Published in 1970 (only a year into Nixon’s first term), this book is not a biography at all…it is more a sophisticated, clever commentary on the political and social fabric of Nixon’s era. Many readers will find it unapproachable and tough to finish; others will revel in its wisdom and reflections – Not Rated ( Full review here )

* “ Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of An American Politician ” by Roger Morris was published in 1990 and was intended to be the first installment in a three-volume series. Tragically, none of the ensuing volumes ever materialized. But this hefty 866-page biography explores the first forty years of Nixon’s life in exquisitely perceptive, if not always colorful, detail. This volume should have been a bit shorter and could have been more eloquent. But what really strikes after reading this book is imaging our collective loss that Morris never finished the series – 4 stars ( Full review here )

I concluded with Stephen Ambrose’s three-volume series:

* “ Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962 ” (Vol 1) was published in 1987 and provides a straightforward, balanced and interesting introduction to Richard Nixon. Covering Nixon’s life up through his unsuccessful attempt to become California’s governor in 1962, it is far less detailed than Roger Morris’s book, but is solid (though not exceptional) in nearly every way – 3¾ stars ( Full review here )

* “ Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962-1972 ” (Vol 2) was published in 1989 and runs through Nixon’s re -election to a second term as president. Like the first volume, this book demonstrates remarkable balance, careful organization and an uncommonly unpretentious and readable style. It lacks the dazzling prose of the very best presidential biographies, but proves itself a meritorious introduction to Nixon’s presidency – 4 stars ( Full review here )

* “ Nixon: Ruin & Recovery 1973-1990 ” (Vol 3) was published in 1991…three years before Nixon’s death. Nevertheless, nearly everything of consequence in Nixon’s life is captured and anyone who has read the first two volumes in this series will recognize Ambrose’s writing style. Also familiar is the concerted effort the author makes to maintain a rigorously balanced perspective of his subject; Nixon’s participation in the Watergate cover-up is almost entirely forgiven. Still, this volume represents a satisfying conclusion to a very good (but not quite great) series – 4 stars ( Full review here )

Best Biography of Richard Nixon: “ Richard Nixon: The Life ” by John Farrell

Honorable Mention: “ President Nixon: Alone in the White House ” by Richard Reeves Honorable Mention: “ Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of An American Politician ” by Roger Morris

Outstanding series on Richard Nixon: Stephen Ambrose’s 3-volume series

Follow-up items : Frequent visitors to this site have suggested several possible follow-up books. Among them: Jonathan Aitken’s “ Nixon: A Life ,” Douglas Schoen’s “ The Nixon Effect: How Richard Nixon’s Presidency Fundamentally Changed American Politics ,” Anthony Summer’s “ The Arrogance of Power: Nixon and Watergate ” and Tim Weiner’s “ One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon .”

18 thoughts on “The Best Biographies of Richard Nixon”

June 11, 2018 at 8:27 pm

Thanks for all the time you put into these reviews! I think you’ve hit all the obvious titles so far as biographies go; you could skip Aitken and Summers’ books in my opinion and not miss much. Weiner’s book is okay; haven’t read Schoen. Most of the other titles I’d recommend are either Watergate-specific or specialist studies (which fall outside the blog’s purview). Looking forward to Ford!

July 12, 2018 at 9:00 am

That’s great feedback – thanks. Given the number of things on my follow-up list it’s helpful to hear what’s worth reading and what’s worth “deferring”…!

August 3, 2020 at 8:56 pm

I would definitely recommend Schoen’s. I always find it fascinating when authors committed to one party write about members of another (and we know in advance the author’s predilections). Not all are successful, but occasionally some authors are able to produce even handed and somewhat objective analysis of president’s from “the other party.” Schoen, having worked for over 30 years on campaigns to help get Democrats elected, has produced an excellent work on the impact of Nixon’s presidency on our country, both for better and worse.

June 12, 2018 at 7:30 am

Nicely done#

June 18, 2018 at 10:18 am

I will Farrell’s book to my list of Nixon books. My goal is have three good books on every president and I have utilized your lists in putting together my lists. Thanks.

July 8, 2018 at 1:45 pm

I definitely agree with Mr. Saunders re: the Aitken and Summers books. Neither are unbiased and neither are good.

July 12, 2018 at 8:54 am

…I guess that makes the decision pretty easy! I gotten a great deal of email feedback that Aitken’s bio is essentially a hagiography and while I’ve gotten less feedback on Anthony Summers’s book it has all suggested the book is little more than a smear-job. Oh well.

July 12, 2018 at 7:36 pm

Let me chime in here…I know that some books tend to lean in one direction or another. However, I think that’s a good thing because it gives the reader a wider perspective of the subject if the reader takes the time to read several books. It doesn’t mean that I necessarily believe one author over another but I like varying POVs. If you just read favorable books then they all read like George Washington bios where everything is great with minor mentions of flaws.

July 23, 2018 at 8:42 am

I do agree that multiple perspectives on one biographical subject are helpful when the reader is able to read multiple biographies per president. In fact, seeing someone from a variety of perspectives is one of the unexpected benefits I’ve discovered from reading several bios per president.

The danger, I think, in reading “biased” or “one-sided” presidential biographies is heightened for someone who is choosing to read just one biography per president and who inadvertently stumbles upon one that doesn’t present a complete (or fair) picture of the president.

When it comes to my ever-expanding follow-up list, however, I’m probably going to prioritize biographies which are thoughtful (even if somewhat one-sided) over those that ruthlessly push an agenda. But if I live long enough I’m going to get to them all! 🙂

September 17, 2018 at 2:07 pm

I agree totally with your Black opinion. Seems Black feels if he is “nice” to Nixon perhaps someone else will write nicely about his own criminal behaviors.

February 11, 2019 at 9:56 am

I’m relatively new to your site still so maybe this is answered elsewhere on the site. Do you not read autobiographies? Nixon’s is worth reading. It didn’t make me a bigger fan of his but I thought it was interesting….

February 11, 2019 at 9:59 am

I haven’t started reading memoirs or autobiographies yet – I wanted to stick to third-party perspectives to start with. But now that I’ve almost finished with Round 1, I’ll start working them into my schedule (Grant’s memoirs will probably be the first I’ll read).

February 11, 2019 at 1:45 pm

It is quite a possible that anyone can read one book on every president but to read so many is quite a feat. Imagining that you have gained quite an education, I wonder at this point if you might have even considered throwing your own hat into the ring and write a book yourself.

August 20, 2020 at 10:03 am

Just a drive by comment, hope and pray you receive my small word of gratitude for having successfully reminded me to take a second look at Garry Wills’ Nixon Agonistes. I could say much about my interest in Nixon at the moment but instead perhaps it will suffice to say your post urged me to take a second look at a book I now see is a good candidate to read next.

In other words, thanks a lot and I wish that if this finds you, it finds you to be well.

Not too sincerely I hope, Nixon Googler

November 16, 2021 at 9:58 am

So many questions have been raised about Ambrose, particularly his work on Ike. I’d feel the need to double check anything he says at this point.

November 16, 2021 at 10:12 am

I’m inclined to agree. Sad, really, but once a historian loses his or her reputation, there’s really nothing much left. I enjoy reading fiction, but not when perusing a presidential biography… I truly wish Ambrose had remained center-of-fairway because I really appreciated the work he seemed to be doing early on.

November 16, 2021 at 10:15 am

Reading Smith’s bio of Eisenhower, he was fairly detailed about areas where he thought Ambrose might be fabricating. Particularly where he cited his interviews with Eisenhower. He calculated how many hours it must have taken to get so much information and then checked Ike’s meticulous calendar and discovered he had only spent a small fraction of the time with Eisenhower. Therefore, when Ambrose made a claim with a footnote to his interviews that conflicted with other sources, Smith would go with the latter as the more likely correct version of events.

February 9, 2022 at 8:28 pm

Ambrose is generally balanced for the first two volumes on Nixon but the third tries way too hard to excuse or downplay Watergate for my taste. I really think he was riding the wave of Nixon revisionism common at the time he wrote it (late ’80s/early ’90s) and didn’t think to challenge or examine it all too closely. And yeah, the plagiarism and fabrications in his other work makes his work hard to take at face value, anyway.

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