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Free Online Biography Books, Memoirs & Autobiographies in Pdf & ePub

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The fascinating lives of others are lived again

If you want to learn more about a famous person or just get into the detail of someone else’s life, then you can download a memoir or biography book (and autobiography books) from obooko.

Autobiography books give us the real account of what actually happened as the author is also the main character. We get a true window into someone else’s world. Take a look at Life in the Shadows of a Corporate Lawyer to get the story of the struggles of a lawyer with alcohol problems at time when getting corporate counsel positions was very difficult unless you were part of the old boy’s network.

Sometimes a biography will give us a perspective of a world changing event from someone who was there. Singing Magic tells the story of a Canadian girl who moved to South Africa during the ending of apartheid and brings us a fresh view of what real, normal people were going through at this time of change. We gain insight to what things were really like, unedited by news media.

There is no better way to satisfy your curiosity about other people than reading a book about them. Learn how they think and what drives them to do the things they do and use that knowledge to influence your own life – in some cases memoir books can be like having your own mentor, laying out the values to follow. In other cases, it might be a lesson in what not to do.

There are many biography books at obooko and this just gives a flavour of the diverse range of online story books that are available. Some will inspire you to want to do great things, others will make you sad and want to cry. Maybe some will make you angry enough to shout. What is certain is that you will get something to keep you wanting to turn the page and read more. Download these memoir and biography books from obooko today.

All titles in this category are legally licensed for free download in PDF ePub, & Kindle Formats.

Free Online Library

Free Biography Books PDF – Autobiographies Free PDF

Thousands of free biographies to read online, free biography books pdf, autobiographies pdf. Also guides to bios, free biography books with descriptions, and collective bios.

Table of contents

Biographies and autobiographies – collections, free biography & autobiography books at century past, collective biography books, modern guides to biographies and autobiographies, vintage reading guides to biographies, related pages on century past, biography & autobiography – collections.

Adventurers

Aeronautics

African Americans

Agriculture

Asian American

Automobile racing

Entertainment

Environmentalists

Heads of State

Journalists

Law Enforcement

Middle Eastern

Motion pictures

Native Americans

Naturalists

People with Disabilities

Performing Arts

Philosophers

Photographers

Psychologists

Social Activists

Social Scientists

World War, 1939-1945

16th century

17th century

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

Individual biographies and autobiographies are divided up among a number of webpages, per the list below.

Click page headings to go there.

Aaron, “Hank” Adams, Charles Francis Adams, Henry Adams, John, U.S. President Adams, Abigail Smith Adams, John Quincy, U.S. President Adams, Samuel Addams, Jane Agassiz, Louis Ailes, Roger Alcott, Louisa May Alexander the Great Alfred the Great, King of England Ambrose, Stephen Andersen, Hans Christian Angelou, Maya Anthony, Susan B. Antin, Mary Appleseed, Johnny Audubon, John James Austen, Jane Barnum, Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barton, Clara Harlowe Beethoven, Ludwig van Belafonte, Harry Benny, Jack Benton, Thomas Hart Bernhardt, Sarah Berra, Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Bird, Larry Bismarck, Otto von Black Elk Black Hawk Blake, William Bloch, Robert Bly, Nellie (Seaman, Elizabeth) Bochkareva, Maria Leontievna (Frolkova) Bolton, Sarah Knowles Bombeck, Erma Bonaparte, Napoleon (Napoleon I) Boone, Daniel Booth, Catherine Mumford Borgia, Lucrezia Bourdain, Anthony Brahms, Johannes Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Brooke, James, Rajah of Sarawak Browning, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Bryan, William Jennings Buffalo Bill (Cody, William Frederick) Bush, Barbara Pierce Bush, George Herbert Walker, U.S. President Bush, Laura Lane

Free Biography Books – C

Caesar, Gaius Julius Calhoun, John Caldwell Calvin, John Cantacuzène, Julia Dent Grant (Princess Cantacuzène) Carlyle, Thomas Carmichael, Hoagy Carnegie, Andrew Carroll, Lewis Carson, Christopher Cartier, Jacques Cary, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cass, Lewis Caterina da Siena, Saint Cavour, Camillo Benso, Conte di Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de Champlain, Samuel de Chapman, John (Johnny Appleseed) Charlemagne Chase, Salmon Portland Chaucer, Geoffrey Chopin, Fryderyk Clark, George Rogers Clarke, Mrs. Caroline Cowles Clay, Henry Clemenceau, Georges Clemens, Samuel Langhorne (Mark Twain) Clinton, Hilary Rodham Cobb, Ty Cobden, Richard Cody, William Frederick (Buffalo Bill) Coffin, Levi Cohen, Rose Gollup Columbus, Christopher Cook, James Cooper, James Fenimore Coughlin, Father Charles Crane Gartz, Kate Cromwell, Oliver Cumming, Kate Curie, Marie Sklodowska Curie, Pierre Custer, George Armstrong

See our post on Pioneer Life on the Michigan Frontier in Diaries & Memoirs

Free Biography Books – D, E & F

Daly, Augustin Dante (Alighieri, Dante) Darwin, Charles Robert Davies, William Henry Davis, Jefferson Davis, Miles Dean, James Debs, Eugene Deutsch, Leo Dewey, George Dewey, Thomas E. Dickens, Charles Diderot, Denis Disraeli, Benjamin Dostoevsky, Fedor Douglas, Stephen A. Douglass, Frederick Du Bois, W.E.B.

Edison, Thomas Alva Edwards, Jonathan Eggleston, Edward Elizabeth, Queen of England Emerson, Ralph Waldo Isabella d’Este, Consort of Giovanni Francesco II Evans, Robley Dunglison

Farragut, David Glasgow Ferber, Edna Fink, Mike Ford, Betty Ford, Gerald R., U.S. President Ford, Henry Francis of Assisi, Saint Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, John Fraser, Mary Crawford Frederick the Great, King of Prussia Friedan, Betty Fulton, Robert

Biographies PDF – Autobiographies PDF – G & H

Gale, Zona Galileo Gallatin, Albert Gambetta, Leon Michel Garfield, James A., U.S. President Garrison, William Lloyd Garvey, Marcus Gauguin, Paul George, Henry Geronimo, Apache Chief Gladstone, William Ewart Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Goldsmith, Oliver Goodman, Benny Gordon, Charles George Grant, Ulysses Simpson, U. S. President Grey, Zane Grissom, Virgil “Gus” Guevara, Ernesto “Che”

Hale, Edward Everett Hamilton, Alexander Hannibal Hardie, James Keir Harding, Warren G., U.S. President Hardy, Thomas Harris, Townsend Harrison, Benjamin, U.S. President Harrison, William Henry, U.S. President Harte, Bret Haviland, Laura Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hayes, Rutherford B., U.S. President Hefner, Hugh Hegermann-Lindencrone, Lillie de Hemingway, Ernest Henry the Navigator Henry, Patrick Herman, Woody Hickok, “Wild Bill” Hill, Lucy Ann Hoffa, James Holmes, Oliver Wendell Homer, Winslow Houdini, Harry House, Edward Mandell Houston, Samuel Howe, Julia (Ward) Hugo, Victor Hurston, Zora Neale Hyndman, Henry Mayers

Biography and Free Autobiography Books PDF – I, J, K & L

Iacocca, Lee Ibsen, Henrik Irving, Washington Isabella d’Este Iswolsky, Alexander Petrovich

Jackson, Andrew, U.S. President Jackson, Thomas Jonathan James, William Jaures, Jean Jay, John Jeanne d’Arc, Saint (Joan of Arc) Jefferson, Thomas, U. S. President Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, William Jones, John Paul

Kartini, Raden Adjeng Keats, John Keller, Helen Adams Kellogg, Clara Louise Kennan, George Kenton, Simon Kevorkian, Jack King, Martin Luther Kropotkin, Pyotr, Prince

Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul, Marquise de Lardner, Ring Laurier, Wilfrid Lee, Robert Edward LeMay, Curtis Leopold, Aldo Letterman, David Liberace Lincoln, Abraham, U. S. President Lincoln, Mary Ann Todd Liszt, Franz Livermore, Mary Ashton Livingstone, David Lloyd George, David Lombardi, Vince London, Jack Louis, Joe Loyola, Ignacio de, St Luther, Martin

Biographies PDF – Autobiographies PDF – M, N & O

MacDonald, John Alexander Machiavelli, Niccolo Madison, Dolley Payne Madison, James Jr., U.S. President Madonna Magellan, Ferdinand Mann, Horace Marquette, Jacques Marshall, John Martin, Dean Marx, Karl Mather, Cotton McCarthy, Joseph McKinley, William, U. S. President McQueen, Steve Catherine de Medicis, Queen of Henry II, King of France Meir, Golda Melville, Herman Milton, John Monroe, James, U. S. President Moody, Anne Morgan, James Morris Morris, Gouverneur Morris, William Morrison, Toni Morse, Samuel Finley Breese Mozart, Johann Wolfgang Amadeus Muir, John

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French Napoleon III, Emperor of the French Nehru, Jawaharlal Nelson, Horatio Nelson, Viscount Ness, Eliot Newman, John Henry, Cardinal Nicklaus, Jack Nightingale, Florence Nixon, Richard Milhous, U.S. President

Oakley, Annie O’Connell, Daniel O’Keeffe, Georgia Owen, Robert Owens, Jesse

P, Q & R

Page, Larry Paine, Ralph Delahaye Paine, Thomas Parkman, Francis Pasteur, Louis Patrick, Saint St. Vincent de Paul Pauley, Jane Penn, William Pennell, Elizabeth Robins Pepys, Samuel Perry, Oliver Hazard Peter I, the Great, Emperor of Russia Petrarca, Francesco Pitt, William, Pizarro, Francisco Poe, Edgar Allan Pontiac, Odawa Indian Chief Porter, Cole Post, Marjorie Merriweather Prince, Erik Pryor, Sara Agnes (Rice) Pumpelly, Raphael Pyle, Ernest “Ernie”

Raleigh, Sir Walter Randolph, John Ravage, Marcus Eli Reagan, Ronald, U.S. President Redmond, John Edward Reed, Anna Stevens Rehnquist, William H. Reid, Whitelaw Resnik, Judith Reuther, Walter Rhodes, Cecil John Richards, Caroline Cowles Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Rickenbacker, Eddie Riel, Louis Riis, Jacob August Ringling Brothers Robespierre, Maximilien Marie Isidore de Rogers, Roy Romney, George Roosevelt, Theodore, U.S. President Ross, Diana Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Georgina Rousseau, Jean Jacques Ruskin, John

Samuels, Captain Samuel Savonarola, Girolamo Schubert, Franz Peter Schurz, Carl Schuyler, Catherine (Van Rensselaer) Sedgwick, Catharine M. Sevigne, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Seward, William H. Shackleton, Sir Ernest Henry Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaw, Anna Howard Shaw, George Bernard Sherman, William Tecumseh Skinner, Burrhus Frederic Slessor, Mary Mitchell Smith, Adam Smith, John Smith, Joseph Jr. Spencer, Herbert Stanley, Henry Morton Steinbrenner, George Steinem, Gloria Steiner, Edward Alfred Stevens, Thaddeus Stillman, William James Stowe, Harriet Beecher Straus, Oscar Solomon Strindberg, August Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots Sullivan, Louis Henry Sumner, Charles Swedenborg, Emanuel

T, U & V

Taft, William Howard, U.S. President Talon, Jean Taylor, Marshall “Major” Tecumseh Thomas, Augustus Thoreau, Henry David Thurston, Lucy G. Titian, Vecelli Tolstoy, Leo Torquemada, Tomas de Tracy, Spencer Trudeau, Edward Livingston Truth, Sojourner Tubman, Harriet Twain, Mark (Clemens, Samuel Langhorne) Vaka, Demetra (Mrs. Kenneth Brown) Van Buren, Martin, U.S. President Venizelos, Eleftherios Verlaine, Paul Marie Victoria, Queen of Great Britain Villiers, Frederic St. Vincent de Paul Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de Vonnegut, Kurt

W, X, Y & Z

Waddington, Mary Alsop King Wagner, Richard Walker, Madam C. J. Wallace, Lew Ward, Mary Augusta Warner, Jack Warwick, Richard Neville, Earl of Washington, Booker T. Washington, George, U.S. President Washington, Martha Dandridge Waterbury, Maria Watson, Jeannette Grace Webster, Daniel Wellesley, Arthur, 1st Duke of Wellington Wells, Ida B. Wesley, John Westinghouse, George Whitman, Walt Willard, Frances William, the Conqueror, King of England Williams, Roger Wilson, Woodrow, U.S. President Winslow, Anna Green Winthrop, John Wister, Sarah Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal Woolf, Virginia Wright Brothers Wright, Frank Lloyd Wycliffe, John X, Malcolm Yeats, William Butler Younghusband, Sir George John

Collective Biographies are listed by authors’ names, rather than by subjects’ names.

Collective Biographies PDF – Authors A-F

Adams, Elmer Cleveland and Foster, Warren Dunham; Heroines of modern progress Adams, Oscar Fay; Dictionary of American authors Alden, Carroll Storrs and Earle, Ralph; Makers of naval tradition Beebe, Mabel Borton; Four American naval heroes: Paul Jones, Oliver H. Perry, Admiral Farragut, Admiral Dewey Bolton, Sarah Knowles; Famous American statesmen Bolton, Sarah Knowles; Famous leaders among women Bolton, Sarah Knowles; Famous voyagers and explorers Bolton, Sarah Knowles; Lives of girls who became famous Bradford, Gamaliel; American portraits, 1875-1900 Bradford, Gamaliel; Confederate portraits Bradford, Gamaliel; Portraits of American women Bradford, Gamaliel; Union portraits Brower, Harriette Moore; Story lives of master musicians Bruce, Henry Addington Bayley; Woman in the making of America Bryan, Michael; Dictionary of painters and engravers Burton, Alma Holman; Four American patriots: Patrick Henry, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton, Ulysses S. Grant Caffin, Charles Henry; American masters of painting Clement, Clara Erskine and Hutton, Laurence; Artists of the nineteenth century and their works Clement, Clara Erskine and Hutton, Laurence; Painters, sculptors, architects, engravers, and their works Dole, Nathan Haskell; Famous composers Ellis, Ellet, Elizabeth Fries Lummis; Women of the American Revolution Erskine, John; Leading American Novelists Farrar, Frederick W.; Lives of the fathers; sketches of church history Fitchett, William Henry; Nelson and his captains Franklin, John Hope, Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century Fraser, C. L.; Pirates Frothingham, Jessie Peabody; Sea fighters from Drake to Farragut

Collective Biographies – Authors G-P

Greely, Adolphus Washington; Explorers and travellers Hadow, W. H.; Studies in modern music Halsey, Francis Whiting, ed.; Women Authors of our Day in their Homes Harkins, E. F. and C. H. L. Johnston; Little Pilgrimages Among the Women who have Written Famous Books Headley, Joel Tyler; Washington and his generals Hubert, Philip G. Jr.; Inventors Husband, Joseph; Americans by adoption Iles, George; Leading American inventors Johnston, Robert M.; Leading American Soldiers Jordan, David Starr, ed.; Leading American Men of Science La Farge, John; Great masters Lanker, Brian and Summers, Barbara; I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women who Changed America Laut, Agnes Christina; Pathfinders of the West Maitland, John Alexander Fuller; Masters of German music Mason, Daniel Gregory; From Grieg to Brahms; studies of some modern composers and their art Masson, Thomas Lansing; Our American humorists Mauclair, Camille; French impressionists McCarthy, Justin; British political portraits McCarthy, Justin; Portraits of the sixties Metcalf, Frank Johnson; American writers and compilers of sacred music Morgan, Henry James, ed.; Canadian men and women of the time Morris, Charles; Heroes of progress in America Olds, Elizabeth Fagg; Women of the Four Winds Oliphant, Mrs M. O.; Makers of Florence; Dante, Giotto, Savonarola, and their city Parkman, Mary Rosetta; Heroines of service Patrick, David and Groome, F. H., eds.; Chambers’s biographical dictionary Payne, William Morton; Leading American Essayists Perry, Francis Melville, & Beebe, Katherine; Four American pioneers: Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, David Crockett, Kit Carson

Collective Biographies – Authors Q-Z

Rose, Phyllis, The Norton Book of Women’s Lives Seawell, Molly Elliot; Twelve naval captains Sharp, Robert Farquharson; Dictionary of English authors, biographical and bibliographical Smiles, Samuel; Industrial Biography: Iron-workers and tool-makers Smiles, Samuel; Lives of the engineers, with an account of their principal works Smith, Charles Sprague; Barbizon days Smith, Sir William; Classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography, mythology and geography Sparks, Jared; American biography. 12 volumes Stephen, Sir Leslie; Studies of a biographer. 4 volumes Stoddard, William O.; Men of business Strachey, Giles Lytton; Eminent Victorians Strang, Lewis C.; Famous actors of the day in America Strang, Lewis C.; Famous actresses of the day in America Strickland, Agnes and Kaufman, Rosalie; Queens of England Taylor, George Robert Stirling; Modern English statesmen Thayer, William Roscoe; Throne-makers Trent, William P.; Southern statesmen of the old regime Tulloch, John; Luther and other leaders of the reformation U. S. Congress; Biographical Congressional directory Vasari, Giorgio; Lives of seventy of the most eminent painters, sculptors and architects Vedder, Henry C.; American writers of to-day Warren, Arthur; London days; a book of reminiscences Wilkinson, Spenser, ed.; From Cromwell to Wellington: twelve soldiers Wilson, J. G. & John Fiske, eds.; Appleton’s cyclopaedia of American biography Wilson, John Grant, ed.; Presidents of the United States Winship, A. E.; Great American educators Who’s Who; Who’s who in America Who Was Who; Who was who in America Worthington & Co.; Our Famous Women. Distinguished American Women of our Times Worthington & Co.; Our Famous Women. American Women… in Literature, Science, Art, Music, Drama … Youmans, William Jay, M.D.; Pioneers of science in America

Notable Women in World History: A Guide to Recommended Biographies and Autobiographies

Adamson, lynda g., greenwood 1998        dewey dec.    016.

“The entries are arranged alphabetically by last name with appropriate cross-references for alternative designations. Each contains the woman’s name, key dates, occupation or avocation, and birthplace. A short biographical sketch about parents, education, general achievement, and recognition or awards follows. Women of all time periods are included. . . . Because it includes only those born outside the U.S., it complements sources on American women. -Booklist.

Read On … Biography: Reading Lists for Every Taste

Roche, rick, libraries unlimited 2008        dewey dec.    016.

“A readers’ advisory guide, with information about 450 biography titles, most published within the last decade, but including some classic titles as well… The book focuses on life stories written in the third person, with subjects ranging from individuals who lived in ancient times to the present-day, hailed from myriad nations, and gained fame in diverse fields.” -Publisher.

Index to Contemporary Biography and Criticism

Hefling, helen and richards, eva, faxon 1929        dewey dec.    012.

The index is for collections of biography and criticism, not individual biographies or works of criticism. In addition to literary figures, the index covers persons in the arts, science, politics, and other fields. Most persons covered were born around 1850 or after.

Viewpoints in Biography; an Arrangement of Books According to their Essential Interest

Tappert, katherine, american library assoc. 1921        dewey dec.    012.

Selected biographical literature, arranged according to distinct interests such as adventure, American Indians, art, etc.; brief annotations, with subject indexes.- A.L.A. Catalog 1912-1921.

Standard Catalog: Biography Section

Wilson, h.w.; baker, corinne, comp., wilson 1919        dewey dec.    012.

One thousand titles of the most representative, interesting and useful biographies.- A.L.A. Catalog 1926. 

Standard Catalog for Public Libraries: Biography Section

Second edition revised and enlarged. about 1,150 titles of the most representative, interesting and useful biographies, wilson, h.w.; sears, minnie earl, comp., wilson 1927        dewey dec.    012.

Children’s free biography books.

These Century Past Pages May Be of Interest

Biography Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Biography Articles

Biographies from Ancient History

Biographies of People in the Great Lakes States

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Reference Books

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Top Free Biographies - Comprehensive List

The best biography books, boswell's life of johnson, james boswell, a mind that found itself: an autobiography, clifford whittingham beers, famous men of the middle ages, john h. (john henry) haaren, autobiography of andrew carnegie, andrew carnegie, random reminiscences of men and events, john d. (john davison) rockefeller, letters of the late ignatius sancho, an african, ignatius sancho, real soldiers of fortune, richard harding davis, twelve types, g. k. (gilbert keith) chesterton, famous impostors, bram stoker, the memoirs of victor hugo, victor hugo, the story of cole younger, by himself, cole younger, brave men and women: their struggles, failures, and triumphs, osgood e. (osgood eaton) fuller, of six mediæval women; to which is added a note on mediæval gardens, alice kemp-welch, the triumphs of perseverance and enterprise, recorded as examples for the young, thomas cooper, irish memories, martin ross, my father as i recall him, mamie dickens, famous affinities of history, marie bashkirtseff (from childhood to girlhood), marie bashkirtseff, the life of mrs. robert louis stevenson, nellie van de grift sanchez, society as i have found it, ward mcallister, the chronicles of a gay gordon, j. m. (joseph maria) gordon, beatrice d'este, duchess of milan, 1475-1497, julia cartwright, life of john sterling, thomas carlyle.

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Must Read Autobiography Collection!

Discover the power of the story of some of the most well-known people.

We're offering our best-selling collection of autobiohraphy for FREE! Download the collection today!

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin | Biography

By Benjamin Franklin. Although the American Founding Father lived 84 years, (1706-1790), his autobiography covers the first 51 years of his life, (1706-1757), reflecting on his life as a printer; an inventor; a scientist; and politician. Includes an introduction by Charles W. Eliot; a time line; and related links.

An Ordinary Man: The Autobiography of Harold Cunningham

Harold Cunningham | Biography

Most autobiographies are written to make the writer seem more or better than he is. Rough edges are smoothed, frailties glossed over, sins forgotten. Rare is the man who dares write his life for what it was. Rare is the man who dares write as he speaks, without pretension. Rare is the simple story, plainly told, and rarer still is a true story told honestly. Harold's story is both.

Autobiography

John Stuart Mill | Biography

The autobiography of noted British philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Frederick Douglass | Biography

Autobiographical novel by abolitionist, author, and reformer Frederick Douglass. One of America's most prominent figures in African-American and United States history, Douglass' autobiography historically has been used for teaching the concepts of freedom and social development.

Helen of Troy

Andrew Lang | Children's Classics

From the bestselling author of the "Autobiography of Henry VIII", "Memoirs of Cleopatra", and "Mary, Called Magdalene" among others, comes a lush, seductive novel of the legendary beauty whose face "launched a thousand ships"; the mythical woman who was Helen of Troy.

The Works of Abraham Lincoln V. VII (1908)

Abraham Lincoln | History (Academic)

The Works of Abraham Lincoln. V. VII- Letters and telegrams, messages to Congress, military orders, autobiography, etc. The Original Books Collection. Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln successfully led his country through its greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization.

An Autobiography

Catherine Helen Spence | Biography

Autobiography of Catherine Helen Spence that includes her previously unpublished diary,along with some of her correspondence.

Inch Time Foot Gem - An Autobiography of Richard Clarke

Richard Clarke | Biography

This is an autobiography of Richard Clarke. Richard lived a life adapting to change. Born in Oklahoma with roots from Texas, moving to San Jose, CA long before it became Silicon Valley, working in a number of Silicon Valley Companies, and then retiring first to South India, then Mexico. One long-time thread in his life is his search for meaning and a spiritual investigation that spans more than 50 years. Richard currently teaches meditation, writes on spiritual and other subjects, and provides a weekly newsletter on science, technology and medical news.

Autobiography of a Duffer

Santosh Jha | Humor

A witty, but insightful narration of ‘normal’ and ‘orderly’ cultural realisms of contemporary world, from the perspective of a young duffer. This duffer believes; a normal person should know how this world looks to a stupid, whom the world loves to label ‘abnormal’ and ‘disordered’, to truly visualize realities of benchmarking. This duffer’s wife asked him to make it different; he truly does it!

The Story of My Heart: An Autobiography

Richard Jefferies | Biography

The Story of My Heart is an autobiography, first published in 1883, by English nature writer, essayist and journalist Richard Jefferies. It is no true autobiography, but the story of a soul's awakening. Richard Jefferies describes how, leaving aside all the preconceptions of past and future, he placed himself in the eternal Now, and allowed the Now to become his soul's only guide and source of nourishment. Thus freed from the usual blocks to awareness, Jefferies' senses became windows for his soul, through which the natural world could be seen in its true, dazzling brilliance. Jefferies describes how this vision reflected back into his consciousness an awareness of his soul's eternity, and its immense, unquenchable longing and love for what he called 'soul-life'.

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography

B.T. Washington | Biography

Long revered as one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written by the 19th Century African-American businessman, activist, and educator, Booker T. (Taliaferro) Washington. Download the FREE e-Book version today!

Autobiography of Yogini in Short Mamta Kulkarni

Mamta Kulkarni | Biography

This Book is not an attempt from me to show you how to do Meditation or its techniques or how to do Pranayama or Asanas as you already have one ''Yoga Sutras of Patanjali-by B.K.S IYENGAR but to actually cementing your first base as without which all your Asanas will just remain mere a warm up exercise and your Meditation just a mere small contained peace.but far from actual Meditation as this all come to their actuality by gathering as many strong virtues by which your Character becomes qualified by an enlighten Master to part you with that Knowledge by which you break this Cycle of Birth-Death-Decay and garland yourself with crown of immortality.

Autobiography and Selected Essays

Biography based on the life and letters of noted English biologist, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895).

Glimpses of Autobiography

Roy T. James | Biography

A bunch of people and their characters, a flurry of happenings and my observations, scenes that would have found a place in my autobiography, if ever I wrote one.

Anatomy Of Amazing Lyrics! Autobiography

Adam Stark | Biography

Complete anthology of everything I have written! My accomplishments and inventions are completely explained. I prove scientifically, and provide evidence to prove that I am one of the greatest writers of all time when it comes to technical skill! Everything I show you is publicly available on the internet, and this book provides the time-stamps. I have broken down barriers in the English language!

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography

Charlotte Bronte | Romance Classics

A poor, abused orphan named Jane uses her cleverness and perseverance to win the love of the man she loves.

The Autobiography of Methuselah

John Kendrick Bangs | Religion

Having recently passed into what my great-grandson Shem calls my Anecdotage, it has occurred to me that perhaps some of the recollections of a more or less extended existence upon this globular mass of dust and water that we are pleased to call the earth, may prove of interest to posterity, and I have accordingly, at the earnest solicitation of my grandson, Noah, and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, consented to put them into permanent literary form. In view of the facts that at this writing, ink and paper and pens have not as yet been invented, and that we have no capable stenographers among our village folk, and that because of my advanced years I should find great difficulty in producing my manuscript on a type-writing machine with my gouty fingers—for, of the luscious fluid of the gra...

The Days of My Life: An Autobiography

Mrs. Oliphant | Biography

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (n e Margaret Oliphant Wilson) (4 April 1828 - 25 June 1897), was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works encompass "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales of the supernatural". *Life* The daughter of Francis W. Wilson (c.1788-1858), a clerk, and his wife, Margaret Oliphant (c.1789-1854), she was born at Wallyford, near Musselburgh, East Lothian, and spent her childhood at Lasswade (near Dalkeith), Glasgow and Liverpool. As a girl, she constantly experimented with writing. In 1849 she had her first novel published: Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland. This dealt with the Scottish Free Church movement, with which Mr. and Mrs. Wilson both sympathised, and met with some success. It was followed by Caleb Field in 1851, the year in which she met the publisher William Blackwood in Edinburgh and was invited to contribute to the famous Blackwood's Magazine. The connection was to last for her whole lifetime, during which she contributed well over 100 articles, including a critique of the character of Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In May 1852, she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant, at Birkenhead, and settled at Harrington Square in London. An artist working mainly in stained glass, her husband had delicate health, and three of their six children died in infancy, while the father himself developed alarming symptoms of tuberculosis, then known as consumption. For the sake of his health they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and then to Rome, where Frank Oliphant died. His wife, left almost entirely without resources, returned to England and took up the burden of supporting her three remaining children by her own literary activity.She had now become a popular writer, and worked with amazing industry to sustain her position. Unfortunately, her home life was full of sorrow and disappointment. In January 1864 her only remaining daughter Maggie died in Rome, and was buried in her father's grave. Her brother, who had emigrated to Canada, was shortly afterwards involved in financial ruin, and Mrs. Oliphant offered a home to him and his children, and added their support to her already heavy responsibilities.In 1866 she settled at Windsor to be near her sons who were being educated at Eton. That year, her second cousin, Annie Louisa Walker, came to live with her as a companion-housekeeper. 3] This was her home for the rest of her life, and for more than thirty years she pursued a varied literary career with courage scarcely broken by a series of the gravest troubles. The ambitions she cherished for her sons were unfulfilled. Cyril Francis, the elder, died in 1890, leaving a Life of Alfred de Musset, incorporated in his mother's Foreign Classics for English Readers, The younger, Francis (whom she called "Cecco"), collaborated with her in the Victorian Age of English Literature and won a position at the British Museum, but was rejected by Sir Andrew Clark, a famous physician. Cecco died in 1894. With the last of her children lost to her, she had but little further interest in life. Her health steadily declined, and she died at Wimbledon, London, on 25 June 1897.In the 1880s she was the literary mentor of the Irish novelist Emily Lawless. During this time Oliphant wrote several works of supernatural fiction, including the long ghost story A Beleaguered City (1880) and several short tales, including "The Open Door" and "Old Lady Mary".

Leo Tolstoy | Fiction Classics

Autobiography. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, commonly referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian novelist, writer, essayist, philosopher, Christian anarchist, pacifist, educational reformer, moral thinker, and an influential member of the Tolstoy family. As a fiction writer Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina; in their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realistic fiction. As a moral philosopher he was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through his work The Kingdom of God is Within You, which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures as Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Wade Welch | Biography

Autobiography which tells quite a tale of family secrets and hidden truths, Federal interference, and my commitment to telling the ugly story, resulting in a unique spiritual experience involving the influence from the other dimension.

This is my Story, This is my Song [5th ed]

Alasdair Gordon | Religious

I describe this booklet as the Reminiscences and Musings of a Maverick Presbyterian. It is made up of two parts. Part 1 (This is my Story) is a brief autobiography, concentrating mainly on my long and ambivalent relationship with the Church of Scotland. Part 2 (This is my Song) is a personal (and somewhat opinionated) commentary on the state of the Kirk today and how I see its development in the future. In this fifth (and final) edition I have considerably expanded and updated the original text.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

Harriet A. Jacobs | Mystery Classics

The Classic book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. Jacobs. A true autobiography of a slave who later won her liberty. Initially portions of her stories where published in the New-York Tribune, but many of her narratives which involved rape were too much for the general public. It is an extremely powerful description of an important part of American history.

Journey of My Life

Ganga N Prasad | Biography

Journey of My Life is an autobiography which is my first publication and it is dedicated to my parents, grandparents, my late husband, my children and grandchildren.

Seeing the Big Picture

John C. Dean | Biography

"Seeing the Big Picture" is the autobiography of John C. Dean, the engineer who proved the take over of the US in 1963 by a shadow government represented by puppet presidents who followed: LBJ, Nixon, Ford, GHW Bush, and GW Bush. These presidents all had prior knowledge of the assassination of JFK and in all but one case, took direct action to kill JFK or cover up how he was killed with the Oswald allegation. John performed a detailed forensic ballistic analysis to account for all the missed shots,and wounds known for the actual assassination. He provides visual proof in this with his reprocessing of the old photos/movie frames, and most important, makes his whole life transparent to the reader while showing his fabulous art and other creations too precious to pass up. Enjoy your trip.

Memories and Adventures

Arthur Conan Doyle | Biography

This autobiography of Arthur Conan Doyle describes the varied aspects of his professional life as a doctor, sportsman, adventurer, political campaigner and author. It recounts the many true adventures that befell him and his relationship with such figures as Oscar Wilde, Kipling and Arthur Balfour.

The Journey Of My Life So Far

Faisal Babangida | Biography

This Autobiography have been written to show the public the type of person Kevi Girma Peter.

Presents from Whitley

Alissa Pinson | Biography

This autobiography includes the tragic death of her father along with the death of her baby girl, Whitley Reese.

A political pilgrim in Europe

Ethel Snowden | Politics

In these days everybody is writing his memories. Disappointed politicians decline to be forgotten. Successful and unsuccessful generals refuse to be neglected. People of all sorts and conditions insist on being heard. The most intimate affairs of a life are laid bare in order to arrest public attention. Intolerable to most is the fear that the world will go past him. Nobody will willingly let himself die. This is the conclusion to which one is driven by the publication during the last two years of a vast mass of autobiography.

This is My Story, This is My Song [4th ed]

I describe this booklet as the Reminiscences and Musings of a Maverick Presbyterian. It is made up of two parts. Part 1 (This is my Story) is a brief autobiography concentrating mainly on my long and ambivalent relationship with the Church of Scotland. Part 2 (This is my Song) is a personal (and somewhat opinionated) commentary on the state of the Kirk today and how I see its development in the future. In this fourth edition I have further expanded and updated the original text.

My Only Crime Was Being Born Vol.1

J. P. Weber | Biography

My autobiography tells of a sage, ironic, funny life that is too strange not to be true. So many crazy things happened to me that I just had to write about them. I have Asperger's Syndrome which makes me do crazy things sometime (once in a long movie line I turned to nobody in particular and said: "What this needs is another outbreak of the black plague so the lines wouldn't be so long!" People look at you strangely when you do this. This book uses Mark Twain's formula for writing an autobiography - each chapter is based on a strange, usually sad incident in my life. One great of happiness - I met my wife as a pen pal living in Hong Kong. We wrote back and for her letters drip of love, I had to marry her and we are coming on our 29th anniversary. Read my bio. Laugh, cry and sigh...

Six Years of Melbourne: July 2002 to April 2008

Maurice HT Ling | Biography

I left Singapore on July 5, 2002, to Melbourne, Australia, in pursue of my tertiary/university education at The University of Melbourne – to do a Bachelor of Science. There was much trepidation and anxiety as the day drew close to leave Singapore. Little did I expect that very same feelings was felt when I moved back to Singapore on April 2, 2008. Almost 6 full years of my life was in Melbourne – it is a second home to me and I am very much at ease there. For the tribulations and gifts that it had given me, I am truly glad that I made this move. The life in Melbourne is something that I do not wish to forget but the river of time is slowly grinding away the memories. To stem this normalcy, I decided to write down as much as I can recall into this autobiography.

The Man Within

Ross Shultz | Religious

We have been doing the same thing over and over with different names and different titles but God is still trying to talk to us and we are so wrapped up in ‘religion’ that we can’t hear what He is trying to say worldwide. Anybody that wants to criticize me with their comments is welcome to do so in the comment box below, I take it as a compliment. The Man Within is the historic autobiography of a knuckle-head growing up in the 50’s and 60’s. The story starts with a devastating disease, moves into the foolishness of my teenage years, and the immaturity of being a young adult. God has opened my eyes to the illusions of what we call “church” and has uncovered to me a truth regarding the transparency of the rites and rituals of today.

Knights of the Art

Amy Steedman | Biography

Author Amy Steed man presents 18 autobiographies of the world's most famous painters, with focus on their stories, and how they learned to put new life into Art by creating the most beautiful paintings that the world has ever known.

Reed Anthony, Cowman

Andy Adams | Biography

An Autobiography (1907), Adams breathes life into the story of a Texas cowboy who becomes a wealthy and influential cattleman.

Recollections of a Long Life

Theodore Ledyard Cuyler | Science (Academic)

Recollections of a Long Life, an Autobiography by Theodore Ledyard Cuyler. 

Moll Flanders

Daniel Defoe | Fiction Classics

Purports to be the autobiography of the daughter of a woman who had been transported to Virginia for theft after her child's birth. The child is brought up in the house of the mayor of Colchester. The story relates her seduction, her marriages and liaisons, and her visit to Virginia.

Odyssey to Opportunity

Roger R. Fernández | Travel

Roger's Odyssey reflects his personal striving to share in the opportunities present for all in America, but which for many, prove unattainable. This autobiography represents his commitment to the ideals which have given shape and meaning to his life. This is what makes Odyssey a story worth reading—and remembering. Alfredo Miguel de Pablo, Colegio Hispánico Miguel de Unamuno, Salamanca, Spain

This is My Story, This is My Song [3rd ed]

I describe this booklet as the Reminiscences and Musings of a Maverick Presbyterian. It is made up of two parts. Part 1 (This is my Story) is a brief autobiography concentrating mainly on my long and ambivalent relationship with the Church of Scotland. Part 2 (This is my Song) is a personal (and somewhat opinionated) commentary on the state of the Kirk today and how I see its development in the future. In this third edition I have further expanded and updated the original text.

Up from Slavery

Booker T Washington | Memoirs & Biography

The autobiography of a great American who began life as a slave. The reader is given an extraordinary look into a vanished way of life.

A Bridge Too Far

Bryan Britton | Biography

An autobiography of one South African's experiences growing up in Apartheid riddled South Africa. Between 1948 and 1994 South Africa was abhorred by the world because of it's dreadful separate development policies. Life however had to go on for South Africa's multi cultured citizens. Here is one man's account of those draconian days.

Will You Be A Horse For God

R. Brian Richards | Religious

Will You Be A Horse For God-is the disciplined disciple who is serious for God.Reverend Brian Richards.a.i.p.c.[M.A.C.A.] Missionary raising funds by selling his progressive autobiography e-books and hard copy books that teaching the revivals that have taken place over the past 25 years around the world, mixed with the teaching of the word of God for evangelism to Asia Minor countries.Revbrian is now invited to minister in Pakistan, India, Himalayas, Kenya, and with donations from faithful persons, and the purchase of a book you can help make this possible to work with the missionary evangelism to one of these countries. Thank you. http://divineconnexionsofchrist.com/wpx2

Legacy | Drama

An autobiography of a boy in love with his best friend.

This Is My Story, This Is My Song

I describe this booklet as the Reminiscences and Musings of a Maverick Presbyterian. It is made up of two parts. Part 1 (This is my Story) is a brief autobiography, concentrating mainly on my long and ambivalent relationship with the Church of Scotland. Part 2 (This is my Song) is a personal (and somewhat opinionated) commentary on the state of the Kirk today and how I see its development in the future.

This is my Story, This is my Song (2nd ed}

I describe this booklet as the Reminiscences and Musings of a Maverick Presbyterian. It is made up of two parts. Part 1 (This is my Story) is a brief autobiography, concentrating mainly on my long and ambivalent relationship with the Church of Scotland. Part 2 (This is my Song) is a personal (and somewhat opinionated) commentary on the state of the Kirk today and how I see its development in the future. In this second edition I have considerably expanded and updated the original text.

River Mother

justin spring | Fiction

RIVER MOTHER: the Face of the Sphinx is a fictional autobiography of an extraordinary Nubian female shaman/leader whose face becomes the face of the Sphinx. The story is set in the Proto-Egyptian Mother Goddess period c. 6000 B.C. and is told by River Mother herself. She begins by describing her birth and early life in a hunter/gatherer tribe in Nubia and then the shamanic training and prophetic visions that eventually drive her to journey to the Nile delta where she becomes a great visionary leader whose impact on the lives of the delta’s inhabitants eventually bring them to honor her as a living Goddess by carving her face on a cliff in Giza.

Rider Haggard: His Extraordinary Life and Colonial Work

Geoffrey Clarke | Biography

There is no excuse needed for basing this biography of Sir Henry Rider Haggard on the personal account of his literary life given in his own words in his autobiography, The Days of My Life. There can be no truer biography than that given by the first hand witness, the author himself. Of course, in my book, I have used memories provided by other family members, friends and colleagues to supplement his very full, subjective life story. In terms of the methodology in this biography, I have employed traditional literary criticism allied with qualitative approaches to research, such as family letters, portraits on canvas, evidence from correspondence between Haggard and other authors, handwriting in the original texts to discern authorship, sampling, observation, and period plate photographs.

The Best of British Genocide Part 1 - Immaculate Conception

Philip Wylie | Biography

This is a unique autobiography written in an individualistic style. Phil Wylie states that in relation to the book that it may seem “stranger than fiction”. This crossed my mind as I read it. It is a real “page-turner” with the family history covering the post-British Empire period. The book is written by a highly intelligent person, but through the lens of a person with a late diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome in adult life. The occupational and interpersonal stresses caused by the Aspergers Syndrome are well illustrated in this book. Mental health professionals working in the area of autism and adult psychiatry, psychologists and the lay reader interested in Aspergers Syndrome will find the book hugely rewarding. I felt the book illustrated creativity I described in my own book called "Geni".

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe | Children's Classics

When Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked on a deserted island , he builds a house, grows crops, and saves the life of a native.

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Featured Biography Book

Knights of Art

Have you ever wanted to know more about the famous artists behind some of the world’s most famous works of art? The Mona Lisa, the statue of David, and many more Italian works of art are some of the worlds most famous, but who created them?

We may know the names of the artists but Knights of Art by Amy Steedman delves into the lesser known lives of the names behind the fame. This book will show you a relatively unknown side to famous artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giovanni Bellini and several others.

If you are interested in art and the Renaissance then this book is for you!

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Biographies are generally non-fiction that is written on an account of someone’s life authored by someone else. The stories encapsulate the famous icon’s exciting life, reaffirming the importance of their existence and how they put their stamp on the world. Get to know the intimate details of their hurdles, struggles, losses, loves, accomplishments, and encounters.

What is an Autobiography?

Autobiographies are written by the subject itself about one’s life, and sometimes with a collaborator. These e-books will take you through the perspective of the narrator, and wander among the life of such infamous souls. Autobiographies will reel you in on their emotion and make you understand why they are the way they are and how they got there.

What is an Authorized Biography?

An authorized biography is written with the consent, collaboration, and often, participation of the subject or subject’s successors. Getting the perception of the individual from multiple views makes reading the e-book very enjoyable and insightful.

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The 50 Best Biographies of All Time

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ralph Ellison: A Biography, by Arnold Rampersad

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

Oscar Wilde: A Life, by Matthew Sturgis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vintage Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, by Hermione Lee

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

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

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

Pontius Pilate, by Ann Wroe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simon & Schuster Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Over 4,000 Free Biography, Autobiography & Memoir Ebooks from 14 Sites

Posted by John | Oct 22, 2011 | Biographies & Memoirs , Top Compilations | 1 |

“People of all ages retain an endless fascination in the lives and influences of famous and successful politicians, pioneers, and popular cultural figures.” – Bibliomania

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People of all ages retain an endless fascination in the lives and influences of famous and successful politicians, pioneers, and popular cultural figures. As we approach a point where some of the fundamental scientific questions are being resolved (e.g. the human genome, a unified theory and understanding of the origin of the universe), there has been an explosion of interest in the lives of great mathematicians and scientists. In short, biographies and autobiographies have never been more popular. Bibliomania only has a small biographies collection at present but we are committed to significantly expanding this section of our site.

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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..

50 Must-Read Biographies

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

Rebecca Hussey

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

View All posts by Rebecca Hussey

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

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

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

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

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

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

John Adams by David McCullough

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

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

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

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

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

John Brown by W.E.B. Du Bois

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

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

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

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

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

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

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

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

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

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

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

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

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

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

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

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

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

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

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

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

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

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

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

The Life of Samuel Johnson   by James Boswell

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

Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers

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

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

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

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

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

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

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

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

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

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

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

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

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

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

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

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

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

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

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

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

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