Discussion: What's your favorite biography?
Most of these weekly discussions have centered on fiction, so today I’d like to explore a non-fiction category. Though I don’t read as many as I once did, biographies will always hold a place of interest in my reading.
They have the power to inspire like no other category of book (at least for me); or, on the flip side, they’ll reveal just how messed up and complicated humanity can be.
Some of my favorite biographies, off the top of my head, are:
Anything by Robert Caro — there’s nobody better than him, period.
A. Lincoln by Ronald White — my favorite bio of my favorite historical figure.
Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon — I was as happily surprised by the greatness of this book as nearly anything I’ve read.
Victoria by Julia Biard — ditto the above comment.
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow — deserves every bit of the hype.
Anything by Peter Massie — truly epic, page-turning stories of Russian kings and queens.
Okay, your turn. What your favorite biographies? The life stories that have stuck with you and changed you?
I loved John Adams by David McCullough. I think how Adams got depicted in the Hamilton musical is how many people think of him. But McCullough elevated him to the status [I think] he deserves, both as a genius statesman and as a deeply flawed but still admirable person.
Mark Lewisohn’s first volume of his three volume Beatles biography is brilliant. 1500 pages and they have barely started properly recording yet! Yet it moves at a real pace.
Ben Pimlott’s biog of British PM Harold Wilson is magnificent.
I’m waiting for somebody to say Cowboy Junkies-Music Is The Drug, but that’s because I wrote it!