Good biographies?

[PrimordialBeast]

Currently reading The Life of Tolstoy Book 1 by Aylmer Maude

I must say, it's pretty excellent. Tolstoy has been a personal hero and huge influence on my life and finally getting into his life I see and understand the parallels to my own.

I really want to read a bio on Jack London, but, it seems there's a lot. Not sure which one to turn to.

Any Biographies you've gotten into you loved and why?

[Windup]

I dare you to read Life of Johnson cover to cover

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is good though :>

[stlukesguild]

I dare you to read Life of Johnson cover to cover

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is good though :>

Better than Boswell?

[Alexander III]

I found Shelley's biography insightful and a very good read.

[laymonite]

I recently read Ann Charters's biography on Jack Kerouac--superb!

[dfloyd]

Benjamin Franklin. The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is a must read. I have had Boswell's Johnson in three volumes on the shelf for twenty years, but have never got around to cracking it. Maybe someday .....

[LuggageFan]

Tchaikovsky's Last Days by Alexander Poznansky.

[Windup]

Benjamin Franklin. The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is a must read. I have had Boswell's Johnson in three volumes on the shelf for twenty years, but have never got around to cracking it. Maybe someday .....

Haha yeah, I want to read Life of Johnson, but its size is very intimidating. Maybe if I go to prison or if I'm stuck on a desert island with a library.

[Seasider]

Vita...A life of Victoria Sackville West by Victoria Glendinning is very enjoyable and so is Mary Renault's biography by David Sweetman.

[JBI]

The biographies of Assassins from the Shi Ji (Records of the Grand Historian) by Sima Qian

[LMK]

The next biography I pick up will be about Coco Chanel. I think she was FABulous, and each time I see a 'little black dress', I can't help but feel my heart thump and extra beat.

[Alexander III]

The biographies of Assassins from the Shi Ji (Records of the Grand Historian) by Sima Qian

This sounds fascinating ! Is it only available in original or are there translations ?

[EJMathews]

I don't think I've ever read a biography, I'll take down some of these suggestions and expand my horizons.

[Patrick_Bateman]

Autobiography of Malcolm X

JFK: An Unfinished Life

Brothers (RFK and JFK)

Erwin Rommel

Primo Levi: If this is a man/The truce

I'm reading something on Julius Caesar by John Buchan(yes Mr 'Thirty Nine Steps') in the 'Men of Destiny' collection

[LitNetIsGreat]

Richard Ellmann wrote the best Oscar Wilde biography - it is quite extensive and fairly accurate and well written. He is also a good critic having written a few good essays on Wilde so it is a fairly good academic piece too. There are a few inaccuracies though, for example the picture of Wilde dressed as a female Salome is not actually Wilde at all, but a female dancer (Russian I think). Also his suggestion that Wilde didn't have sexual relations with his wife using the excuse of syphilis is questionable as is Ellmann's downplaying of homosexual relations after prison, but other than that and a few other minor pieces it is a very good account of Wilde and well crafted into the bargain.

If you are a chap who hasn't read a biography before then pick this one up and forget all the rest - at least you are not going to find a more fascinating life and death as his.

Buy it now...

[country doctor]

I don't think I've ever read a biography, I'll take down some of these suggestions and expand my horizons.

the doc finds this statement hard to believe...get on it with some bio readings, and that's an order from the doc...

right now he's working on william manchester's 'american caesar', a bio on douglas macarthur...manchaster is a great writer of non-fiction...you could call it literature...the doc does...

the doc has also read his two volume bio on winston churchill...as well as his book on the last days of jfk and his murder...

you'll expand your horizons alright...buckle up: you'll be going for one of the best rides you can take without leaving the room when you crack open a superb biography...take it from the doc, after all he's a doctor...

[country doctor]

the doc challenges any of the fans of 'literature' to find as much to stir the imagination as well as manchester does in a couple of (long) paragraphs about the japanese trek across owen stanley ranges of new guinea in world war two...truth when it is this powerful is definitely 'stronger' than fiction in the doc's eyes...the hardships endured in this futile campaign makes one truly thankful that they weren't one of the unfortunates that were made to make this campaign...

grass seven feet high that would slice the hand like a 'scalpel' was just one of the barriers for the soldiers...pythons, crocodiles, all kinds of jungle rot, fever were some of the others in the world's wettest and highest jungle...

great reading...and a great job my manchester of relaying the horrors of this campaign...

the morale of the doc's story? sometimes you just can't beat great bios...

[justanshul]

autobiography of mahatma gandhi :lurk5:

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Richard Ellmann wrote the best Oscar Wilde biography.

Yeah.
Some have asserted that Ellmann's critical bio of James Joyce is the greatest biography every penned, but I'm definitely with Neely on Ellmann's Wilde: superb!

H. Montgomery Hyde (who was a great Wildean scholar and who also wrote many other excellent and interesting books) had written a bio of Wilde which is very fine and upon which Ellmann based his own book: Hyde's Wilde is the skeleton which Ellmann fleshed out.

Ellmann died when his Wilde was being prepared for publication, and therefore it contains a few minor errors (including the awful mistaken photo attribution mention my Mr. Neely!).
A few years ago (1989) a German chap named Horst Schroeder, who greatly respected both Wilde and Ellmann's achievement in Wilde's bio, prepared a very significant pamphlet of Additions and Corrections to Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde.
Around the centenary of Wilde's death (2000) we were all hoping that a new edition of Ellmann's Wilde would be published including Schroeder's additions and corrections, but we're still waiting...

[fetish]

CALL ME WOMAN by Ellen Kuzwayo.

An autobiography, though. Reading it now and is bringing me to tears ... amazing ...

[Aragorn Elessar]

Michael J. Fox's 2009 autobiography, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, is an interesting book.

[Infinitefox]

Con Man by J.R Weil and some other guy. It's about...well, a con man, lol.

[mal4mac]

Isaacson's "Einstein". It's based on some new material from the Einstein archive that has just recently been released that gives new insight into his life. Isaacson's a noted general biographer, and his writing has a wonderful light touch that doesn't get bogged down in mundane details of the subject's everyday life, or in the complex detail of his area of expertise. Two difficult hurdles to cross when it comes to Albert! He explains the physics very well (he roped in a bushel of literate physicists to help him out - Greene, Krauss,... How'd he do that? He must have some clout...)

[country doctor]

Isaacson's "Einstein". It's based on some new material from the Einstein archive that has just recently been released that gives new insight into his life. Isaacson's a noted general biographer, and his writing has a wonderful light touch that doesn't get bogged down in mundane details of the subject's everyday life, or in the complex detail of his area of expertise. Two difficult hurdles to cross when it comes to Albert! He explains the physics very well (he roped in a bushel of literate physicists to help him out - Greene, Krauss,... How'd he do that? He must have some clout...)

the doc read clark's bio on albert...an older book...but the genius of the man's work and imagination came out in that book...mind boggling is the man's theories and so interesting that they came out of that patent office...

reading or writing about einstein will never go out of favor...

[Kyriakos]

Does anyone know of a good biography of E.A.Poe? :)

[Dodo25]

'Infidel', autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim who fled from a mysogynistic culture (genital mutilation, forced marriage, beatings) to Europe, where she became politcally active. She helped making a short movie on Islam, yet the producer was killed by extremists, and they stabbed a letter in his chest which states that Ayaan will be next.

Then the German 'In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer', a semi-biographical play about Robert Oppenheimer and his defense against charges of communism and slowing down the H-bomb project.

[the facade]

I'm currently reading Ingmar Bergman's auto-biography Laterna Magica.
It's a treat.

[mal4mac]

the doc read clark's bio on albert...an older book...but the genius of the man's work and imagination came out in that book...mind boggling is the man's theories and so interesting that they came out of that patent office...

reading or writing about einstein will never go out of favor...

I read Clark's excellent book in my youth, but Isaacson is worth reading even if you have read many books about Einstein and his theories. In just one of many examples of explanatory genius, he's very good on the internal struggle Einstein had about whether he should concentrate on physical intuition or mathematical abstraction in the final push to the GR field equations. Isaacson puts this across, amazingly, in a way that anyone can read. Isaacson quotes Clark - amongst *many* other works. He certainly did his homework...

[strumphyy]

I am currently reading <<Like a fiery elephant>> by Jonathan Coe. It is a biography of B. S. Johnson. Not only it is a great piece of work on B. S.Johnson's life and works but also an insight into J. Coe's own fiction..J. Coe who is in love the traditional roman, writes about the modernist novelist Johnson. I really like Coe's work and this biography is more an attempt to tackle with sensitive issues such as literature's ability to console us, where novels are going and whether or not 'telling stories is telling lies' which was Johnson's conviction. I read this biography to get to know who B. S. Johnson was but also to better understand the writings of J. Coe's himself

[lokariototal]

Vincent Cronin's Napoleon Bonaparte... the best book I have ever read in my entire life. I would buy it for you if I could...

[hazelk]

I would list " Without A Map " by Meredith Hall, it is a memoir and oh so moving, it left me stunned after finishing the book. Can highly recommend.