Best Biographies

Updated July 24, 2023
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Red comet : the short life and blazing art of Sylvia Plath
Clark, Heather L.
Paper Book
**A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2021** The first biography of this great and tragic poet that takes advantage of a wealth of new material, this is an unusually balanced, comprehensive and definitive life of Sylvia Plath. *WINNER OF THE...
Steve Jobs
Isaacson, Walter
Paper Book
From bestselling author Walter Isaacson comes the landmark biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. In Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs' professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented...
Ali : a life
Eig, Jonathan
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE 2017. The most comprehensive and definitive biography of Muhammad Ali that has ever been published, based on more than 500 interviews with those who knew him best, with many dramatic new discoveries about his life and career.<...
Catherine the Great : portrait of a woman
Massie, Robert K.
Paper Book
The extraordinary story of an obscure German princess who became one of the most powerful women in history. Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into empress of Russia by sheer determination. For thirty-four years, the government, foreign policy, cultural development and...
Joan of Arc: A History
Castor, Helen
Paper Book
The story of one of the most remarkable women of the medieval world, as you have never read it before A French peasant girl who heard voices from God, Joan convinced the royal court of her divine calling and became a teenage warrior, leading an army to victory against the English...
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
Payne, Les
Paper Book
Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X - including siblings, classmates, friends, cellmates, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the...
Barracoon : the story of the last "black cargo"
Hurston, Zora Neale
Paper Book
Abducted from Africa, sold in America. "A deeply affecting record of an extraordinary life"- Daily Telegraph A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from...
Alexander Hamilton
Chernow, Ron.
Ebook
You've seen the show, you've sung the songs, now read the full story of America's most misunderstood founding father. 'I was swept up by the story. I thought it 'out-Dickens' Dickens in the unlikeliness of this man's rise from his humble beginnings in Nevis in the Caribbean, to changing, helping...
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Skloot, Rebecca
Paper Book
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells - taken without her knowledge - became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools in medicine. Yet Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until...
The stranger in the woods : the extraordinary story of the last true hermit
Finkel, Michael
Paper Book
*THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* Could you leave behind all that you know and live in solitude for three decades? This is the extraordinary story of the last true hermit - Christopher Knight.  'This was a breath-taking book to read and...
Unbroken : a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption
Hillenbrand, Laura.
Paper Book
The incredible true story of Louis Zamperini, now a major motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie. THE INTERNATIONAL NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER In 1943 a bomber crashes into the Pacific Ocean. Against all odds, one young lieutenant survives. Louise Zamperini had already transformed...
John Adams
McCullough, David G.
Paper Book
A biography of the extraordinary man who became the second president of the United States, this book traces John Adams' adventurous life and spirited rivalry with Thomas Jefferson, and encompasses both the American Revolution and the birth of the young republic.

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