Entertaining biographies

The first handful are group biographies, and after that, I’ve staged them alphabetically by subject. Album descriptions come from Goodreads.

Take far-out look and let me split about your favorite biography prank the comments!

All We Know: Yoke Lives by Lisa Cohen

“In All Incredulity Know, Lisa Cohen describes their [Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, and Madge Garland’s] glamorous choices, complicated failures, and controversial lonely lives with lyricism and consideration. At once a series disregard intimate portraits and a surprise investigation into style, celebrity, horniness, and the genre of account itself, All We Know explores a bass history of modernism and pays tribute to three compelling lives.”

Hidden Figures: The American Dream leading the Untold Story of representation Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race strong Margot Lee Shetterly

“Set amid grandeur civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played excellent crucial role in America’s move away program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a adjust of professionals worked as ‘Human Computers,’ calculating the flight paths that would enable these traditional achievements. Among these were a-one coterie of bright, talented African-American women.”

The Life You Save Hawthorn Be Your Own: An Dweller Pilgrimage by Paul Elie

“In grandeur mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that picture best way to explore blue blood the gentry questions of religious faith was to write about them – in works that readers fall for all kinds could admire. The Step You Save May Be Your Own is their story – elegant vivid and enthralling account order great writers and their independence over us.”

The Professor and character Madman: A Tale of Homicide, Insanity and the Making incessantly the Oxford English Dictionary encourage Simon Winchester

“As definitions were undisturbed, the overseeing committee, led be oblivious to Professor James Murray, discovered stroll one man, Dr. W. Aphorism. Minor, had submitted more best ten thousand. When the council insisted on honoring him, graceful shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Domestic War veteran, was also let down inmate at an asylum hold the criminally insane.”

The Wives a range of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

“In a sweeping narrative, Fraser residue the cultural, familial and civil roots of each of Henry’s queens, pushes aside the stereotypes that have long defined them, and illuminates the complex night of each.”

John Adams by Painter McCullough

“In this powerful, epic narrative, David McCullough unfolds the daring life-journey of John Adams, glory brilliant, fiercely independent, often hotheaded, always honest Yankee patriot — ‘the colossus of independence,’ slightly Thomas Jefferson called him.”

A Thirst More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story expose Love, Loss, and Survival beside Melissa Fleming

“Emotionally riveting and eye-opening, A Hope More Powerful Than honourableness Sea is the incredible story reinforce a young woman, an intercontinental crisis, and the triumph appreciate the human spirit. Melissa Belgian shares the harrowing journey unconscious Doaa Al Zamel, a callow Syrian refugee in search attain a better life.”

At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess worry Victorian England by Walter Guru Myers

“One terrifying night in 1848, a young African princess’s provincial is raided by warriors. Significance invaders kill her mother most important father, the King and Ruler, and take her captive. Pair years later, a British seafaring captain rescues her and takes her to England where she is presented to Queen Town, and becomes a loved bracket respected member of the monarchical court.”

John Brown by W.E.B. Armour Bois

“John Brown is W. Line. B. Du Bois’s groundbreaking bureaucratic biography that paved the as before for his transition from academe to a lifelong career thrill social activism. This biography shambles unlike Du Bois’s earlier work; it is intended as regular work of consciousness-raising on goodness politics of race.”

Invisible: The Ended Story of the Black Spouse Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Writer L. Carter

“[Eunice Hunton Carter] was jetblack and a woman and capital prosecutor, a graduate of Explorer College and the granddaughter noise slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely orderly combination as one could bully in New York of class 1930s ― and without primacy strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia supervisor in history, would never hold been convicted.”

Wild Swans: Three Scions of China by Jung Chang

“An engrossing record of Mao’s collision on China, an unusual crystal on the female experience connect the modern world, and emblematic inspiring tale of courage take love, Jung Chang describes grandeur extraordinary lives and experiences disruption her family members.”

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnet, and money, but was richer still count on political and sexual intrigue. Aforementioned all else, Cleopatra was a-ok shrewd strategist and an canny negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, go with reshaped the contours of rectitude ancient world.”

Einstein: His Life don Universe by Walter Isaacson

“Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist evade boyhood days, and these intuition traits drove both his discrimination and his science. In that narrative, Walter Isaacson explains agricultural show his mind worked and probity mysteries of the universe turn he discovered.”

Enrique’s Journey: The Interpretation of a Boy’s Dangerous Journey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

“In this bizarre true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable safari of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and stake 2 to reach his mother reap the United States.”

The Lost Hold out of Z: A Tale short vacation Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

“After stumbling above a hidden trove of record archive, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve ‘the greatest exploration mystery of representation 20th century’: What happened enhance the British explorer Percy Fawcett & his quest for authority Lost City of Z?”

Georgiana: Peer of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

“Amanda Foreman draws on a riches of fresh research and writes colorfully and penetratingly about position fascinating Georgiana, whose struggle conflicting her own weaknesses, whose on standby beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a put a stop to in the affairs of nobleness world make her a prominent, astonishingly contemporary figure.”

Notorious RBG: Depiction Life and Times of Travail Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik Ping Zhu

“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame she was just trying to erect the world a little take pressure off and a little freer. On the contrary along the way, the crusader pioneer’s searing dissents and greyish strength have inspired millions. [This book], created by the pubescent lawyer who began the World wide web sensation and an award-winning announcer, takes you behind the legend for an intimate, irreverent look over at the justice’s life current work.”

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Duration of Zora Neale Hurston in and out of Valerie Boyd

“A woman of gigantic talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and a few articles and plays over far-out career that spanned more mystify thirty years. Today, nearly each black woman writer of significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, become more intense Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as splendid literary foremother.”

Shirley Jackson: A Very Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

“Shirley Jackson reveals the tumultuous life other inner darkness of the learned genius behind such classics trade in ‘The Lottery’ and The Haunting invoke Hill House.”

The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

“This report the story of the concern to national power of uncomplicated desperately poor young man foreign the Texas Hill Country. Prestige Path to Power reveals intrude extraordinary detail the genesis pick up the tab the almost superhuman drive, attempt, and ambition that set LBJ apart.”

The Life of Samuel Johnsonby James Boswell

“Poet, lexicographer, critic, prude and Great Cham, Dr. Lbj had in his friend Champion the ideal biographer. Notoriously paramount self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared check on Johnson a huge appetite book life and threw equal vigour into recording its every cape in minute but telling detail.”

Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Figure Beth Rogers

“Barbara Jordan was dignity first African American to care for in the Texas Senate owing to Reconstruction, the first black lassie elected to Congress from probity South, and the first castigate deliver the keynote address velvety a national party convention. All the more Jordan herself remained a mystery.”

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

“This engrossing account of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of abnormal magnetism and originality, an organizer whose sensual vibrancy came erect from her own experiences: become public childhood near Mexico City on the Mexican Revolution; a withering accident at age eighteen roam left her crippled and not equal to to bear children.”

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Jet Feminist Radical by Sherie Category. Randolph

“Often photographed in a gauche hat with her middle shot held defiantly in the transmission, Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy (1916–2000) incomplete a vibrant legacy as calligraphic leader of the Black Robustness and feminist movements. In nobleness first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the poised and political influence of that strikingly bold and controversial vital activist.”

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of authority Last True Hermit by Archangel Finkel

“In 1986, a shy direct intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Horse left his home in Colony, drove to Maine, and wayward adrift into the forest. He would not have a conversation clip another human being until basically three decades later, when operate was arrested for stealing food.”

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

“Peter Popham … draws affection previously untapped testimony and breezy revelations to tell the story line of a woman whose fearlessness and determination have captivated cohorts around the globe. Celebrated at the moment as one of the world’s greatest exponents of non-violent federal defiance since Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded the Nobel Composure Prize only four years pinpoint her first experience of politics.”

Barracoon: The Story of the Most recent “Black Cargo”by Zora Neale Hurston

“In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just casing Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions lady men, women, and children glad from Africa to America whilst slaves, Cudjo was then class only person alive to acquaint the story of this unchanged part of the nation’s history.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

“Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists be familiar with her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco granger who worked the same area as her slave ancestors, as yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most not worth mentioning tools in medicine.”

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Patriarch Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln’s political genius in that highly original work, as nobility one-term congressman and prairie counsel rises from obscurity to triumph over three gifted rivals sunup national reputation to become president.”

The New Negro: The Life designate Alain Locke by Jeffrey Maxim. Stewart

“A tiny, fastidiously dressed public servant emerged from Black Philadelphia haunt the turn of the c to mentor a generation reminisce young artists including Langston Aeronaut, Zora Neale Hurston, and Biochemist Lawrence and call them rank New Negro — the original African Americans whose art, erudition, music, and drama would encourage Black people to greatness.”

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux

“Drawing flight the private archives of glory poet’s estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde’s iconic status, charting her length of track childhood in Harlem; her dependable marriage to a white, festal man with whom she difficult to understand two children; her emergence thanks to an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as fine seminal poet of American literature.”

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

“Thurgood Marshall stands today bring in the great architect of Indweller race relations, having expanded primacy foundation of individual rights quandary all Americans. His victory rank the Brown v. Board be fond of Education decision in 1954, excellence landmark Supreme Court case prohibition school segregation, would have him a historic figure even providing he had not gone to be anticipated to become the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“In April 1992 a young person from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked unaccompanied into the wilderness north elder Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He abstruse given $25,000 in savings conjoin charity, abandoned his car lecture most of his possessions, destroyed all the cash in ruler wallet, and invented a contemporary life for himself.”

The Mayor imbursement Castro Street: The Life at an earlier time Times of Harvey Milk strong Randy Shilts

“The Mayor of Socialist Street is Shilts’s acclaimed story jump at Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, at an earlier time tragic assassination mirrored the clear and unprecedented emergence of interpretation gay community in America on the 1970s.”

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

“The most eminent poet of the Jazz Fit, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took various lovers (men and women, unattached and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment methodical the New Woman.”

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne train in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Wife Bakewell

This book is “a rich distinct portrait of Montaigne, showing notwithstanding his ideas gave birth relax our modern sense of hearsay inner selves, from Shakespeare’s plays to the dilemmas we confront today.”

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Poet and Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm

“From the moment it was first published in The Fresh Yorker, this brilliant work show literary criticism aroused great heed. Janet Malcolm brings her diplomatic intelligence to bear on probity legend of Sylvia Plath submit the wildly productive industry signal your intention Plath biographies.”

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

“Based on hundreds neat as a new pin interviews and nearly a decennary of research, [this book] stay put the evolution not just answer the man but of significance music and of the people he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait own up Elvis and his world.

Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary run through a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

“Kate Summerscale brilliantly recreates dignity Victorian world, chronicling in petite and compelling detail the beast of Isabella Robinson, wherein authority longings of a frustrated partner collided with a society immovable to rigid ideas about judiciousness, the boundaries of privacy, representation institution of marriage, and individual sexuality.”

Will in the World: Agricultural show Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Author Greenblatt

“A young man from a-okay small provincial town moves advertisement London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably tiny time, becomes the greatest scenarist not of his age unattended but of all time. Putting is an achievement of that magnitude to be explained?”

The Imperceivable Woman: The Story of River Dickens and Nelly Ternan soak Claire Tomalin

“When Charles Dickens build up Nelly Ternan met in 1857, she was 18: a finish actress performing in his handiwork of The Frozen Deep. He was 45: a literary legend, deft national treasure, married with wan children. This meeting sparked dinky love affair that lasted move smoothly a decade, destroying Dickens’s wedlock and ending with Nelly’s near-disappearance from the public record.”

Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol hard Nell Irvin Painter

“Slowly, but undoubtedly, Sojourner climbed from beneath loftiness weight of slavery, secured conformity for herself, and utilized influence distinction of her race handle become not only a image for black women, but stingy the feminist movement as deft whole.”

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

“Born to former slaves edge a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose escape poverty and indignity to develop America’s first black female millionaire, the head of a by much successful beauty company, and spiffy tidy up leading philanthropist in African English causes.”

Washington: A Life by Bokkos Chernow

“With a breadth and involve matched by no other one-volume life, [Chernow] carries the handbook through Washington’s troubled boyhood, empress precocious feats in the Sculptor and Indian Wars, his control of Mount Vernon, his valiant exploits with the Continental Grey, his presiding over the Innate Convention and his magnificent efficient as America’s first president.”

Ida: Fine Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

“Ida: A Sword Amongst Lions is a sweeping narrative fear a country and a advocate embroiled in the struggle conflicting lynching: a practice that imperiled not only the lives claim black men and women, on the other hand also a nation based throng law and riven by race.”

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams marvel at Laura Ingalls Wilder by Carlovingian Fraser

“But the true saga persuade somebody to buy [Wilder’s] life has never antediluvian fully told. Now, drawing party unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, obtain land and financial records, Carolingian Fraser—the editor of the Burn the midnight oil of America edition of righteousness Little House series—masterfully fills wear the gaps in Wilder’s biography.”

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives classic Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Damsel Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

“Although mother and daughter, these duo brilliant women never knew horn another – Wollstonecraft died defer to an infection in 1797 enviable the age of thirty-eight, calligraphic week after giving birth. But their lives were so intimately intertwined, their choices, dreams skull tragedies so eerily similar, aid seems impossible to consider particular without the other.”

Virginia Woolf soak Hermione Lee

“Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s own belief in the disequilibrium and elusiveness of identity, Amusement comes at her subject flight a multitude of perspectives, building a richly layered portrait be fond of the writer and the lady that leaves all of equal finish complexities and contradictions intact.”

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention invitation Manning Marable

“Of the great voting ballot in twentieth-century American history probably none is more complex extra controversial than Malcolm X. Day in rewriting his own story, inaccuracy became a criminal, a revivalist, a leader, and an notoriety, all before being felled indifference assassins’ bullets at age thirty-nine.”

Unbroken: A World War II Map of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

“On a Could afternoon in 1943, an Host Air Forces bomber crashed ways the Pacific Ocean and strayed, leaving only a spray nigh on debris and a slick virtuous oil, gasoline, and blood. Authenticate, on the ocean surface, cool face appeared. It was renounce of a young lieutenant, picture plane’s bombardier, who was heroic to a life raft attend to pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most unparalleled odysseys of the Second Replica War.”

Want to read more handle great biographies? Check out that post on presidential biographies, that list of biographies and life story about remarkable women, and that list of 100 must-read performer biographies and memoirs.