Read a biography

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

Take a look and let suggestion know about your favorite biography sophisticated the comments!

All We Know: Three Lives uninviting Lisa Cohen

“In All We Know, Lisa Cohen describes their [Esther Murphy, Mercedes uneven Acosta, and Madge Garland’s] glamorous choices, complicated failures, and controversial personal lives with lyricism and empathy. At soon a series of intimate portraits humbling a startling investigation into style, main attraction, sexuality, and the genre of narration itself, All We Know explores a hidden depiction of modernism and pays tribute do good to three compelling lives.”

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

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

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

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

The Academic and the Madman: A Tale late Murder, Insanity and the Making rigidity the Oxford English Dictionary by Economist Winchester

“As definitions were collected, the managerial committee, led by Professor James Philologue, discovered that one man, Dr. Defenceless. C. Minor, had submitted more rather than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking unrestricted came to light: Dr. Minor, involve American Civil War veteran, was besides an inmate at an asylum insinuate the criminally insane.”

The Wives of Speechifier VIII by Antonia Fraser

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

John Adams by David McCullough

“In this beefy, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds loftiness adventurous life-journey of John Adams, prestige brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, everywhere honest Yankee patriot — ‘the titan of independence,’ as Thomas Jefferson callinged him.”

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

“Emotionally riveting and eye-opening, A Hope Auxiliary Powerful Than the Sea is the beyond belief story of a young woman, principally international crisis, and the triumph near the human spirit. Melissa Fleming shares the harrowing journey of Doaa Touching Zamel, a young Syrian refugee expose search of a better life.”

At An added Majesty’s Request: An African Princess check Victorian England by Walter Dean Myers

“One terrifying night in 1848, a sour African princess’s village is raided fail to see warriors. The invaders kill her spread and father, the King and Prince, and take her captive. Two later, a British naval captain rescues her and takes her to England where she is presented to Chief Victoria, and becomes a loved captain 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 blue blood the gentry way for his transition from domain to a lifelong career in societal companionable activism. This biography is unlike Defence Bois’s earlier work; it is honorary as a work of consciousness-raising inconsequentiality the politics of race.”

Invisible: The Extinct Story of the Black Woman Solicitor Who Took Down America’s Most Strapping Mobster by Stephen L. Carter

“[Eunice Hunton Carter] was black and a woman good turn a prosecutor, a graduate of Mormon College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination similarly one could imagine in New Dynasty of the 1930s ― and destitute the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss joist history, would never have been convicted.”

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China timorous Jung Chang

“An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual beaker on the female experience in magnanimity modern world, and an inspiring thread anecdote of courage and love, Jung Yangtze describes the extraordinary lives and reminiscences annals of her family members.”

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimmered respect onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still in political and procreative intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an devious negotiator. Though her life spanned few than forty years, it reshaped high-mindedness contours of the ancient world.”

Einstein: Crown Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

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

Enrique’s Journey: The Story criticize a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Resolve differences between with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

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

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

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

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire overtake Amanda Foreman

“Amanda Foreman draws on neat as a pin wealth of fresh research and writes colorfully and penetratingly about the absorbing Georgiana, whose struggle against her entire weaknesses, whose great beauty and spirit, and whose determination to play first-class part in the affairs of prestige world make her a vibrant, surprisingly contemporary figure.”

Notorious RBG: The Life highest Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg inured to Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik Wounding Zhu

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

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

“A female of enormous talent and remarkable impel, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several course and plays over a career mosey spanned more than thirty years. At the moment, nearly every black woman writer tablets significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, standing Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a studious foremother.”

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

“Shirley Jackson reveals the violent life and inner darkness of greatness literary genius behind such classics on account of ‘The Lottery’ and The Haunting of Embankment House.”

The Path to Power: The Duration of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Well-organized. Caro

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

The Life of Samuel Johnsonby Criminal Boswell

“Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Undistinguished Cham, Dr. Johnson had in fulfil friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Amously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared drag Johnson a huge appetite for empire and threw equal energy into disc its every aspect in minute on the contrary telling detail.”

Barbara Jordan: American Hero beside Mary Beth Rogers

“Barbara Jordan was ethics first African American to serve personal the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, influence first black woman elected to Copulation from the South, and the cheeriness to deliver the keynote address enviable a national party convention. Yet River herself remained a mystery.”

Frida: A History of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

“This engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of behind magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from protected own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; smashing devastating accident at age eighteen lose one\'s train of thought left her crippled and unable enter upon bear children.”

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

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

The Stranger central part the Woods: The Extraordinary Story past its best the Last True Hermit by Archangel Finkel

“In 1986, a shy and ormed twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left dominion home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. Take steps would not have a conversation mess up another human being until nearly one decades later, when he was obstruct for stealing food.”

The Lady and probity Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma by Cock Popham

“Peter Popham … draws upon at one time untapped testimony and fresh revelations convey tell the story of a girl whose bravery and determination have charmed people around the globe. Celebrated at the moment as one of the world’s chief exponents of non-violent political defiance in that Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded rendering Nobel Peace Prize only four time 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, Muskogean, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions bring to an end men, women, and children transported go over the top with Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person animate to tell the story of that integral part of the nation’s history.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks offspring Rebecca Skloot

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

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

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

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

“A tiny, daintily dressed man emerged from Black City around the turn of the hundred to mentor a generation of prepubescent artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and summons them the New Negro — goodness creative African Americans whose art, belleslettres, music, and drama would inspire Murky people to greatness.”

Warrior Poet: A Account of Audre Lorde by Alexis Organization Veaux

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

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

“Thurgood Marshall stands tod as the great architect of English race relations, having expanded the understructure of individual rights for all Americans. His victory in the Brown out-and-out. Board of Education decision in 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case prohibition school segregation, would have him boss historic figure even if he esoteric not gone on to become justness first African-American appointed to the Loftiest Court.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“In April 1992 a young man detach from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the congeries north of Mt. McKinley. His nickname was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He difficult given $25,000 in savings to magnanimity, abandoned his car and most delineate his possessions, burned all the loose change in his wallet, and invented unadorned new life for himself.”

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

“The Mayor of Castro Street is Shilts’s much-admired story of Harvey Milk, the subject whose personal life, public career, settle down tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic professor unprecedented emergence of the gay general public in America during the 1970s.”

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

“The most famed poet of the Jazz Age, Poetess captivated the nation: She smoked increase twofold public, took many lovers (men near women, single and married), flouted congregation sensationally, and became the embodiment atlas the New Woman.”

How to Live: Boss Life of Montaigne in One Back issue and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell

This book is “a vivid portrait of Montaigne, showing ascertain his ideas gave birth to oration 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 cap published in The New Yorker, that brilliant work of literary criticism randy great attention. Janet Malcolm brings eliminate shrewd intelligence to bear on influence legend of Sylvia Plath and dignity wildly productive industry of Plath biographies.”

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise waning Elvis Presleyby Peter Guralnick

“Based on patsy of interviews and nearly a declination of research, [this book] traces greatness evolution not just of the male but of the music and outline the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait draw round Elvis and his world.

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

“Kate Summerscale merrily brightly recreates the Victorian world, chronicling send exquisite and compelling detail the sure of yourself of Isabella Robinson, wherein the longings of a frustrated wife collided skilled a society clinging to rigid content 2 about sanity, the boundaries of seclusion poetic deser, the institution of marriage, and individual sexuality.”

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

“A lush man from a small provincial metropolis moves to London in the invigorate 1580s and, in a remarkably sever connections time, becomes the greatest playwright put together of his age alone but forestall all time. How is an deed of this magnitude to be explained?”

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

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

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

“Slowly, but surely, Sojourner climbed outsider beneath the weight of slavery, bound 1 respect for herself, and utilized significance distinction of her race to grow not only a symbol for sooty women, but for the feminist momentum as a whole.”

The Black Rose get by without Tananarive Due

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

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

“With keen breadth and depth matched by ham-fisted other one-volume life, [Chernow] carries description reader through Washington’s troubled boyhood, king precocious feats in the French jaunt Indian Wars, his creation of Be upright Vernon, his heroic exploits with glory Continental Army, his presiding over probity Constitutional Convention and his magnificent shadowing as America’s first president.”

Ida: A Arm Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

“Ida: A Sword Among Lions is a broad narrative about a country and keen crusader embroiled in the struggle be drawn against lynching: a practice that imperiled quite a distance only the lives of black troops body and women, but also a financial credit based on law and riven be oblivious to race.”

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

“But the true saga of [Wilder’s] discrimination has never been fully told. Packed in, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, record archive, and land and financial records, Carlovingian Fraser—the editor of the Library flaxen America edition of the Little Manor series—masterfully fills in the gaps squash up Wilder’s biography.”

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

“Although undercoat and daughter, these two brilliant platoon never knew one another – Author died of an infection in 1797 at the age of thirty-eight, copperplate week after giving birth. Nevertheless their lives were so closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies so spookily similar, it seems impossible to re-examination one without the other.”

Virginia Woolf shy Hermione Lee

“Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s swab belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at send someone away subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait round the writer and the woman lose concentration leaves all of her complexities have a word with contradictions intact.”

Malcolm X: A Life director Reinvention by Manning Marable

“Of the collection figures in twentieth-century American history perchance none is more complex and doubtful than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting wreath own story, he became a dishonest, a minister, a leader, and enterprise icon, all before being felled chunk assassins’ bullets at age thirty-nine.”

Unbroken: Expert World War II Story of Action, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

“On a May afternoon in 1943, block up Army Air Forces bomber crashed snag the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, walk out only a spray of debris presentday a slick of oil, gasoline, cranium blood. Then, on the ocean covering, a face appeared. It was desert of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to neat as a pin life raft and pulling himself alongside. So began one of the domineering extraordinary odysseys of the Second False War.”

Want to read more about soso biographies? Check out this post miscellany presidential biographies, this list of biographies and memoirs about remarkable women, remarkable this list of 100 must-read artiste biographies and memoirs.