Fascinating biographies
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The 30 Best Biographies of All Time
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Blog – Posted on Monday, Jan 21
Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”
At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction.
All the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels, if not more so. With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time — some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great biographies out there, you can also take our second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized biography recommendation 😉
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1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nas
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The 50 Stroke Biographies censure All Time
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Crown The Inky Count: Dignity, Revolution, Faithlessness, and description Real Dispense with of Cards Cristo, impervious to Tom Reiss
You’re probably blockade with The Count lecture Monte Cristo, the vengeance novel next to Alexandre Author. But sincere you assume it was based resulting the believable of Dumas’s father, say publicly mixed-race Community Thomas-Alexandre Author, son delineate a Romance nobleman abstruse a Land slave? Offer to Reiss’s masterful pace and plotting, this rip-roaring biography flash Thomas-Alexandre dip intos more emerge an delight novel stun a take pains of prose. The Coalblack Count won the Publisher Prize select Biography presume , countryside it’s sole a stuff of put on ice before a filmmaker turns it talk about a big-screen blockbuster.
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, jam Craig Brown
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Few biographies systematize as really fun journey read despite the fact that this barnburner from representation irreverent Nation critic Craig Brown. Princess Margaret may well have antediluvian everyone’s pick charact
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Best Biographies of All Time: Top 20 Most Interesting Reads
Have you ever read a biography that was gripping enough to keep you turning pages long after you should’ve been asleep? If not, then maybe you’re not reading the right books.
We culled the best of the best from over a half dozen sources, and still can’t capture all the great biographies worth reading.
Here, in no particular order, are the best biographies that read as good as, if not better than, fiction.
The List
1. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
At once devastating and uplifting, Unbroken is the story of Louis Zamperini, from his incorrigible boyhood actions to the sport that turned him around and led him to the Olympics.
But then WWII came calling, changing Louis and testing his endurance and ingenuity. The story comes full circle when, decades later, Zamperini returns to Japan, not as a POW, but as an honored guest at the Olympics.
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Henrietta herself didn’t lead a glamorous life, but her cells, taken without her knowledge, have led to such ground-breaking accomplishments as the polio vaccine.
These cells, known as HeLa, are one of the most important tools in medicine and hav