Biographies

[lexi]

I've been looking through my reading list and realized that I don't read biographies very often. I want to have a more balanced booklist. So, what are your favorite biographies or autobiographies? And tell me what you enjoyed about the biography.

 

And memoirs are good too. I'm flexible!

Edited November 26, 2016 by lexi

[Guest]

U.S Grant has the best autobiography ever imo, and its in the public domain.

 

And then Campaigning With Grant makes a great (but more tedious....military minutia) follow-up, to give a little context about at least part of it.

 

What I love about his autobiography is that he really gets into his internal motivations. And then, too, it's interesting to reflect on what he chose to linger on (a funny story having to do with a horse, for example) and what he was relatively terse about (getting married, having children). You can CLEARLY see the politic of the thing, from our vantage point in history, but that makes it all the more interesting. Plus, it's just really well-written.

 

And, Malcolm X, of course.

[Swtonscrappn]

I love reading biographies. I've ready 5 of them in the last 2 months. The one I liked best of those 5 was Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns. It's about their marriage and their career.

 

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[Junie]

I recently read Called for Life by Kent and Amber Brantley.  He is the missionary who contracted Ebola while in Africa.  I wouldn't consider the book "literature" but it was an interesting story.  Also, it was a really easy read.

[KrissiK]

I enjoy reading biographies, though I don't get to read very often. I enjoy reading books about people you've heard of, but don't know much about and kind of wonder how they got to to where they did in life. Which then causes me to choose odd people to read about. But I have read some good ones. "The Lost Life of Eva Braun" by Angela Lambert was really good. I'm almost done with "Young Stalin" by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which is very intense and kind of depressing, but I'm learning a lot. And I'm also working my way (slowly, I have no time to read) through the Theodore Roosevelt trilogy by Edmund Morris. Which is odd to be reading at the same time as I am the Stalin book because they're sort of contemporaries, but the juxtaposition of their upbringings and the sort of men they became is quite jarring at times. And it is a "dense" book, in that it is very detailed and has a lot of political information, so it is tedious. But it's good. The Stalin book is a little hard to read because there's a lot of people with long Russian names who come in and out of the story and a lot of dark political intrigue. But it really shines a light on what happened back then.

Edited November 26, 2016 by KrissiK

[VaKim]

I really enjoyed Alison Arngrim's Confessions of a Prairie B*tch. If you enjoyed the show Little House on the Prairie, you might like that one. She is so funny, and tells of some pretty crappy stuff she went through without self pity. I guess it is more of a memoir than a biography though. I think I actually prefer memoirs. 

[Bluegoat]

I find biographies a bit tricky, because so many are bad.  So I tend to read them only if someone reliable reccomends them.

 

The Glass Castle was really good, maybe not strictly a biography. as it only covered the authors childhood.

 

My Family and Other Animals - though this was fairly freely fictionalized.  It's a classic though.

 

My Life in France - Julia Child

 

Jane Austen - by Carol Shields - this is a nice short read from the perspective of another writer.

 

 

 

[fairfarmhand]

Madelyn Albrights memoirs were fabulous. I'm not a huge fan of her political positions but she's had a very interesting life. And the thing I loved most is that she did it all after her kids were in school. She was a stay at home mom for their younger years and when they started kindergarten she began to get more politically involved.

 

 

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[Lady Florida.]

Here's a link to my biographies/autobiographies/memoirs shelf on Goodreads. Those are ones I've read. 

 

I'm currently reading Alexander Hamilton, the biography by Ron Chernow that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical. He read it while on vacation one year. The difference between him and me is that he read it and immediately thought "This would make a great musical!" It's why he's famous and I'm not. ;)

 

I've heard good things about the U.S. Grant biography referenced up thread. ETA: Oops. That's his autobiography a pp mentioned. The one I heard about recently is this one.

 

Some on my to-read list are Infidel, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Lab Girl. 

Edited November 26, 2016 by Lady Florida.

[KrissiK]

Here's a link to my biographies/autobiographies/memoirs shelf on Goodreads. Those are ones I've read.

 

I'm currently reading Alexander Hamilton, the biography by Ron Chernow that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical. He read it while on vacation one year. The difference between him and me is that he read it and immediately thought "This would make a great musical!" It's why he's famous and I'm not. ;)

 

I've heard good things about the U.S. Grant biography referenced up thread. ETA: Oops. That's his autobiography a pp mentioned. The one I heard about recently is this one.

 

Some on my to-read list are Infidel, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Lab Girl.

I love Massie's books. I read his "Peter the Great" and really enjoyed that.

[Lady Florida.]

The one I liked best of those 5 was Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns. It's about their marriage and their career.

 

 

 

 

 I'm almost done with "Young Stalin" by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which is very intense and kind of depressing, but I'm learning a lot. And I'm also working my way (slowly, I have no time to read) through the Theodore Roosevelt trilogy by Edmund Morris. Which is odd to be reading at the same time as I am the Stalin book because they're sort of contemporaries, but the juxtaposition of their upbringings and the sort of men they became is quite jarring at times. And it is a "dense" book, in that it is very detailed and has a lot of political information, so it is tedious. But it's good. The Stalin book is a little hard to read because there's a lot of people with long Russian names who come in and out of the story and a lot of dark political intrigue. But it really shines a light on what happened back then.

 

 

Madelyn Albrights memoirs were fabulous. I'm not a huge fan of her political positions but she's had a very interesting life. And the thing I loved most is that she did it all after her kids were in school. She was a stay at home mom for their younger years and when they started kindergarten she began to get more politically involved.

 

 

 

 

Those all look good. Adding them to my tbr list.

 

 

 

The Glass Castle was really good, maybe not strictly a biography. as it only covered the authors childhood.

 

 

 

My brief brush with fame: Jeannette Walls (the author) is related to dh by marriage. Her current husband, not the one in the memoir - the good guy. :) My MIL and her MIL were first cousins. She and her husband came to a family reunion in Tennessee a few years ago. I had only recently read the book and found out about the relation, and I wondered how she felt about being in a small mountain town not unlike the one she grew up in. I didn't ask though because I didn't want her to have to be "the famous author". She seemed to just want to be there as one of the spouses. Just like the rest of us.

[Lady Florida.]

I love Massie's books. I read his "Peter the Great" and really enjoyed that.

 

I read his Catherine the Great bio and really enjoyed it. I've never been into Russian history, but he made it quite interesting. And he made me want to read more.

[Guest]

Truman 

Adams

--both by David McCullough.  Any biography he writes is worth reading.  His straight history is less compelling--his excellence is in bringing out personality, and that's hard to do in a broader brush subject matter.  

 

Plain Speaking (Truman's bio in his own words but written down by another guy)

 

Dang if I can remember the title, but there is fine "children's" bio of Louisa May Alcott that I enjoyed immensely.

 

Fawn Brodie is an *excellent* biographer.  I've read all of her works.

 

Seabiscuit is technically the biography of a horse, but it is also about all the people around that horse, and they are memorable.  It's on my shelf of *very* culled books that I shall keep.  By the same author, Unbroken is another fantastic biography.

 

I've read bios of most of the US presidents and of their wives/hostesses.  Dolly Madison, Abigail Adams, Edith Wilson,  Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Eleanor Roosevelt, are the more obvious ones, but I have a soft spot in my heart for Pat Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson, Julia Grant, Mamie Eisenhower, Bess Truman...the quieter ones, the beset ones.  Political party doesn't matter...all of them have good and bad points and had interesting lives.  There's a relatively new bio out on Eisenhower that I'm going to read pretty soon.  Be sure to get a real biography, not a splashy tell-all sensational expose' kind of bio.  Anything written by someone named "Kitty" can pretty much be ignored.  LOL.  

 

West with the Night is the bio of Beryl Markham, an early female aviator.  I was in love with Amelia Earhart as a child, and that carried over into other aviators, and other women of excellence...Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, Florence Nightingale, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Ghandi...the list goes on.

 

If a biography is well written, it is more compelling and interesting than almost any fiction.  

 

 

[Kareni]

I'll suggest Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character which is a compilation of two of Richard Feynman's earlier books -- "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?".  The edition I've linked above is wonderful because it includes a CD of Richard Feynman telling some great stories of his time at Los Alamos.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[lexi]

Thank you everyone. I'm going to look all these suggestions up and start adding to my reading list!

[Stacia]

Seconding the rec for West with the Night by Beryl Markham. I love flying. Even Hemingway raved about how well-written this book is (& it is)!

 

Some others I've really enjoyed:

Passionate Nomad by Jane Fletcher Geniesse

Pink Boots and a Machete by Mireya Mayor

Gnarr! by Jon Gnarr

[lexi]

I really enjoyed Alison Arngrim's Confessions of a Prairie B*tch. If you enjoyed the show Little House on the Prairie, you might like that one. She is so funny, and tells of some pretty crappy stuff she went through without self pity. I guess it is more of a memoir than a biography though. I think I actually prefer memoirs. 

 

I read this one and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I definitely wanted to find some "lighter" biographies or memoirs in addition to the more serious/thought-provoking ones. So if anyone has some more along the lines of this book, I'd love the suggestions. 

[HollyDay]

I enjoyed:

 

Queen Noor:  A Leap of Faith.  It told the story of her life from being Lisa to being Noor, Queen of Jordan.  The book shares her joys and sadnesses over that period of time from becoming queen to becoming the former queen. 

 

Barbara Bush:  A Memoir.  I came of age politically during the time she was the VP's wife and the FLOTUS, so I found her take on the events of those days very interesting. 

 

David McCullough's biographies are generally very interesting.  I enjoyed the Wright Brothers particularly.  He brings detail that I was not aware and the writing style is pleasing.

 

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff is a very pleasant read about post WWII US and Britain through the eyes of an American woman seeking to purchase rare books from a British bookseller.  It details a relationship that goes into the 1960s.  She sends them food baskets during the lean years post WWII and develops a penpal relationship with workers at the bookstore.  I found it delightful.