Biographies anyone?

I'm trying to branch my reading out to biographies, which I almost never touch. Does anyone have any ones they would recommend? Any time period, any culture would be great. I saw someone reading I was married to Wyatt Earp and thought that would be an interesting read. Thanks in advance!!

I'm the same, .. rarely find ones I enjoy. However I really liked Samuel Pepys: the unequalled self by Claire Tomalin. Her writing made the period he lived in come alive and explained the context of his diary writings very well in terms of his career and life.

A popular autobiography was Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. It was an absorbing (if sad) read about his childhood of poverty in Ireland, won a Pulitzer prize, and was made into a movie. If you like it, you can go on to read the two sequels (neither of which is as good as his first book, though).

A favorite of mine was A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz which was the autobiography of the well-known Israeli author. I found it fascinating because he was living in Jerusalem at the time Israel became a state. It was interesting to read how his personal ideas (the author being very anti-war) developed over the course of his lifetime.

How about Mao:The Unknown Story? Unrelieved horror. A man with no redeeming features. It certainly was the terrible 20th century.

I loved American Sphinx : The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Ellis. Very readable, and also gave insights to others of that era. I have a bookcrossing copy if you'd like me to send it. Jus leave a note on my profile.

I mentioned this one earlier today somewhere else, but Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton by Edward Rice is a very engaging read ... and although it's actually an autobiography, Erroll Flynn's My wicked wicked ways was very good, too ... he led a pretty incredible life outside of Hollywood.

Whoop! Flynn led a pretty incredible life in the courts of Hollywood, too. Reading newspaper accounts about his infamous statutory-rape-on-a-boat trial was my very first brush with the erotic way of the world. It was the origin of "In like Flynn", and the hushed, behind the scenes whispering in my fifth or sixth grade.

(Math majors may now attempt to determine my age, but please take pity and be discrete.)

Bluepencil - gosh. ;-) It took me longer to figure out how old someone was in fifth grade than it did to work out how long ago that was, mind you.

Biographies I've enjoyed in recent years include: Stan and Ollie by Simon Louvish, And It's Goodnight From Him... by Ronnie Corbett, Elizabeth and Mary by Jane Dunn, John Simpson's series of war-reporter memoirs (and his childhood memoir Days from a Different World), Georgiana by Amanda Foreman, Round Mr Horne by Barry Johnston, Dr Johnson's Dictionary by Henry Hitchings. Two of those are a bit UK-specific but are still very good all the same, if you have any interest in radio and tv comedy.

Some of my favorite autobiographies/memoirs:

* Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks
* The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
* The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
* Bill Peet by Bill Peet
* Boy by Roald Dahl

And biographies:
* John Adams by David McCullough
* The Nightingale's Song by Robert Timberg
* almost anything by Antonia Fraser

Napoleon Bonaparte: A Life by Alan Schom

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson

Albert Camus: A Biography by Herbert R. Lottman

Awesome list everyone!! Thanks for your help and suggestions. I'm looking through the selections now to see what to read first!!

I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson (account of her life during the Holocaust when she was 14)

And that's really the only one I have to suggest, since a. I don't have many biographies and b. haven't read most of the ones I do have. :/

Happy reading!

Madame Curie by Eve Curie. A biography of the famous scientist, twice awarded the Nobel Prize, written by her daughter. An excellent reading.

See also Biographies, Memoirs and Autobiographies

So you want more recommendations? ;-)

Here are some others I liked:

1. Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam ..about a NASA scientist
2. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar ... about a Nobel prize winning mathematician with schizophrenia
3. The Pianist by Wlodyslaw Szpilman ...about a Warsaw ghetto survivor
4. Night by Elie Wiesel ...about the Holocaust (Poland)
5. Bitter Herbs by Margo Minco ...also about the Holocaust (the Netherlands)

Fascinating factoid: The movie they did of Rocket Boys was called "October Sky" ... which is an anagram of the book title!

Right now I'm reading Madison Smart Bell's biography of Toussaint Louverture -- very interesting so far, and Bell's talents as a novelist show through in his writing.

rebeccanyc: have you read Bell's Haiti novels?

A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten by Julie Winch. Fascinating story of an interesting black man at an interesting time in American history. Gives a lot of detail of Revolutionary Era slavery, Philadelphia, etc. One of my favorite books.

One of my favorite autobiographies is "Surely you're Joking, mr. Feynman!" adventures of a curious character it is very readable, and very very funny, and i second whoever said Boy by Roald Dahl, it's an interesting (and entertaining) look at english boarding schools, among other things

I just bought Born on a blue day by Daniel Tammet and am very much looking forward to reading it :-D

Can I suggest Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin. Beautifully told - you don't have to know anything about ballet or even like it to enjoy this book.

I enjoyed David McCullough's biography of John Adams.

To follow up on Bibliophilus' recommendation, Phyllis Lee Levin's biography of Abigail Adams is awfully good. I also liked American Jezebel, about Anne Hutchinson and biographies of Elizabeth I by J.E. Neale (can't get the tag to work) and Alison Weir.

If you want a lengthy read it would be American Prometheus He is an amazing person, extremely intelligent yet under appreciated. An amazing character.

Masterpiece: Coming Out of the Ice: An Unexpected Life by Victor Herman. The autobiography is a survival story full of love for family and a woman and much pain though no self-pity, and chronicles Herman's helllish experiences tortured under Stalin. Herman was a teen when he followed his dad from Detroit to Russia to work (supposedly temporarily) in a Ford Motor Co. plant. Only decades later in the 1970's did Herman, no thanks to Ford, make it back to the U.S., even Detroit! Masterpiece.

I read Elia Kazan: A Life by Elia Kazan. It's probably the best autobiography I've read. He's no egomaniac. One may not like his politics but he writes almost as well as he directs. He explains his reasons or how he came about naming names.

One of the most interesting biograpies, if you're into that sort of thing (which I am) is Boswell's Presumptuous Task...it's a biography about the biographer of Dr. Johnson (who wrote the first dictionary among other things)...it is incredibly well written and I couldn't put it down!

One I enjoyed terrifically was London: A biography by Peter Ackroyd. It's about the city, not Jack London.

I 2nd "Surely you're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". What a fascinating man--not just a one track mind on physics, but curious about everything. The 3rd book about him, Tuva or Bust, was also delightful.

Not sure if its been mentioned but one I really loved was Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera
about a girl who runs away from the concept of having an arranged marriage & is rejected by her family & left to survive on her own.
& also Call me Elizabeth by Dawn Annandale was a good one about a mother/wife, who was abused as a child & became a prostitute to sort out her families' debts.