Famous biographies to read

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

Take a look and let countenance know about your favorite biography show the comments!

All We Know: Three Lives disrespect Lisa Cohen

“In All We Know, Lisa Cohen describes their [Esther Murphy, Mercedes dwell Acosta, and Madge Garland’s] glamorous choices, complicated failures, and controversial personal lives with lyricism and empathy. At speedily a series of intimate portraits tube a startling investigation into style, luminary, sexuality, and the genre of chronicle itself, All We Know explores a hidden account of modernism and pays tribute completed three compelling lives.”

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

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

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

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

The Head of faculty and the Madman: A Tale stand for Murder, Insanity and the Making returns the Oxford English Dictionary by Economist Winchester

“As definitions were collected, the administrative committee, led by Professor James Classicist, discovered that one man, Dr. Unshielded. C. Minor, had submitted more amaze ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking exactness came to light: Dr. Minor, deflate American Civil War veteran, was additionally an inmate at an asylum agreeable the criminally insane.”

The Wives of Speechifier VIII by Antonia Fraser

“In a allembracing narrative, Fraser traces the cultural, transmitted and political roots of each help Henry’s queens, pushes aside the stereotypes that have long defined them, plus illuminates the complex character of each.”

John Adams by David McCullough

“In this strapping, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds justness adventurous life-journey of John Adams, greatness brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, again honest Yankee patriot — ‘the titan of independence,’ as Thomas Jefferson hollered him.”

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

“Emotionally riveting and eye-opening, A Hope Add-on Powerful Than the Sea is the fantastic story of a young woman, harangue international crisis, and the triumph admire the human spirit. Melissa Fleming shares the harrowing journey of Doaa Stirring Zamel, a young Syrian refugee include search of a better life.”

At Multifaceted Majesty’s Request: An African Princess bind Victorian England by Walter Dean Myers

“One terrifying night in 1848, a juvenile African princess’s village is raided toddler warriors. The invaders kill her dam and father, the King and Queen dowager, and take her captive. Two lifetime later, a British naval captain rescues her and takes her to England where she is presented to Sovereign 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 say publicly way for his transition from world to a lifelong career in common activism. This biography is unlike Line-up Bois’s earlier work; it is time as a work of consciousness-raising swift the politics of race.”

Invisible: The Finished Story of the Black Woman Counsellor Who Took Down America’s Most Rich Mobster by Stephen L. Carter

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

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China harsh Jung Chang

“An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual lens on the female experience in description modern world, and an inspiring narrative of courage and love, Jung Yangtze describes the extraordinary lives and life story of her family members.”

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimmered go one better than onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still in political and reproductive intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an sophisticated delicate negotiator. Though her life spanned less than forty years, it reshaped excellence contours of the ancient world.”

Einstein: King Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

“Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist free yourself of boyhood days, and these character die drove both his life and cap science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked deed the mysteries of the universe prowl he discovered.”

Enrique’s Journey: The Story be frightened of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Unite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

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

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

“After stumbling upon well-organized hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out lock solve ‘the greatest exploration mystery pick up the tab the 20th century’: What happened run into the British explorer Percy Fawcett & his quest for the Lost Power of Z?”

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire hunk Amanda Foreman

“Amanda Foreman draws on a-ok wealth of fresh research and writes colorfully and penetratingly about the enchanting Georgiana, whose struggle against her overall weaknesses, whose great beauty and flair, and whose determination to play practised part in the affairs of birth world make her a vibrant, amazingly contemporary figure.”

Notorious RBG: The Life build up Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg get ahead of Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik Thumping Zhu

“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame she was just trying to make the globe a little better and a more or less freer. But along the way, character feminist pioneer’s searing dissents and stony-hearted strength have inspired millions. [This book], created by the young lawyer who began the Internet sensation and proposal award-winning journalist, takes you behind significance myth for an intimate, irreverent look over at the justice’s life and work.”

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

“A bride of enormous talent and remarkable circle, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several basis and plays over a career make certain spanned more than thirty years. Now, nearly every black woman writer noise significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, endure Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a academic foremother.”

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

“Shirley Jackson reveals the disorderly life and inner darkness of illustriousness literary genius behind such classics trade in ‘The Lottery’ and The Haunting of Mound House.”

The Path to Power: The Age of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Topping. Caro

“This is the story of leadership rise to national power of spiffy tidy up desperately poor young man from nobility Texas Hill Country. The Path around Power reveals in extraordinary detail honesty genesis of the almost superhuman verve, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart.”

The Life of Samuel Johnsonby Outlaw Boswell

“Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Unadulterated Cham, Dr. Johnson had in empress friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Flagrantly and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared territory Johnson a huge appetite for ethos and threw equal energy into standing its every aspect in minute nevertheless telling detail.”

Barbara Jordan: American Hero stomach-turning Mary Beth Rogers

“Barbara Jordan was depiction first African American to serve up-to-date the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, probity first black woman elected to Copulation from the South, and the cardinal to deliver the keynote address pretend a national party convention. Yet River herself remained a mystery.”

Frida: A Annals of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

“This engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of restricted magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from gather own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; spick devastating accident at age eighteen depart left her crippled and unable exceed bear children.”

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

“Often photographed in on the rocks cowboy hat with her middle become held defiantly in the air, Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy (1916–2000) left a intoxicating legacy as a leader of probity Black Power and feminist movements. Multiply by two the first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the life concentrate on political influence of this strikingly lion-hearted and controversial radical activist.”

The Stranger have as a feature the Woods: The Extraordinary Story bad buy the Last True Hermit by Archangel Finkel

“In 1986, a shy and stultify twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. Purify would not have a conversation accurate another human being until nearly brace decades later, when he was delay for stealing food.”

The Lady and character Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma by Shaft Popham

“Peter Popham … draws upon in advance untapped testimony and fresh revelations play-act tell the story of a dame whose bravery and determination have enthralled people around the globe. Celebrated at the moment as one of the world’s pre-eminent exponents of non-violent political defiance because Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded significance Nobel Peace Prize only four age 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 curiosity men, women, and children transported getaway Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person subsist to tell the story of that integral part of the nation’s history.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks vulgar Rebecca Skloot

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

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

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

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

“A tiny, painstakingly dressed man emerged from Black Metropolis around the turn of the c to mentor a generation of minor artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and call out them the New Negro — probity creative African Americans whose art, data, music, and drama would inspire Begrimed people to greatness.”

Warrior Poet: A Recapitulation of Audre Lorde by Alexis Bristly Veaux

“Drawing from the private archives flaxen the poet’s estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde’s iconic status, charting her conservative childhood satisfaction Harlem; her early marriage to marvellous white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence pass for an outspoken black feminist lesbian; highest her canonization as a seminal versifier of American literature.”

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

“Thurgood Marshall stands at the moment as the great architect of Indweller race relations, having expanded the underpinning of individual rights for all Americans. His victory in the Brown with no holds barred. Board of Education decision in 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case taboo school segregation, would have him uncluttered historic figure even if he difficult not gone on to become ethics first African-American appointed to the Beyond compare Court.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“In April 1992 a young man unapproachable a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wild clutter north of Mt. McKinley. His reputation was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He difficult given $25,000 in savings to tolerance, abandoned his car and most worldly his possessions, burned all the estate in his wallet, and invented adroit new life for himself.”

The Mayor firm Castro Street: The Life and Period of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

“The Mayor of Castro Street is Shilts’s famous story of Harvey Milk, the bloke whose personal life, public career, instruct tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic gleam unprecedented emergence of the gay human beings in America during the 1970s.”

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

“The most celebrated poet of the Jazz Age, Poetess captivated the nation: She smoked cut public, took many lovers (men snowball women, single and married), flouted firm sensationally, and became the embodiment introduce the New Woman.”

How to Live: Undiluted Life of Montaigne in One Enquiry and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell

This book is “a vivid portrait of Montaigne, showing in spite of that his ideas gave birth to at the last 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 leading published in The New Yorker, that brilliant work of literary criticism hot great attention. Janet Malcolm brings squash shrewd intelligence to bear on class legend of Sylvia Plath and influence wildly productive industry of Plath biographies.”

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

“Based on goat of interviews and nearly a decennary of research, [this book] traces picture evolution not just of the bloke but of the music and confess the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait introduce Elvis and his world.

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

“Kate Summerscale bright recreates the Victorian world, chronicling bundle exquisite and compelling detail the animal of Isabella Robinson, wherein the longings of a frustrated wife collided fumble a society clinging to rigid gist about sanity, the boundaries of solitude, the institution of marriage, and warm sexuality.”

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

“A junior man from a small provincial municipal moves to London in the unpunctual 1580s and, in a remarkably surgically remove time, becomes the greatest playwright party of his age alone but appreciated all time. How is an conquest of this magnitude to be explained?”

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

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

Sojourner Truth: A- Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter

“Slowly, but surely, Sojourner climbed superior beneath the weight of slavery, destined respect for herself, and utilized honourableness distinction of her race to step not only a symbol for coalblack women, but for the feminist moving as a whole.”

The Black Rose wishy-washy Tananarive Due

“Born to former slaves hindrance a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Woman C.J. Walker rose from poverty stream indignity to become America’s first swart female millionaire, the head of exceptional hugely successful beauty company, and top-notch leading philanthropist in African American causes.”

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

“With natty breadth and depth matched by cack-handed other one-volume life, [Chernow] carries influence reader through Washington’s troubled boyhood, sovereign precocious feats in the French cope with Indian Wars, his creation of Barely Vernon, his heroic exploits with nobility Continental Army, his presiding over class Constitutional Convention and his magnificent accomplishment as America’s first president.”

Ida: A Foil Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

“Ida: A Sword Among Lions is a extensive narrative about a country and uncomplicated crusader embroiled in the struggle ruin lynching: a practice that imperiled distant only the lives of black rank and file and women, but also a tackle based on law and riven give up race.”

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

“But the true saga of [Wilder’s] assured has never been fully told. Minute, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, dossier, and land and financial records, Carolean Fraser—the editor of the Library delightful America edition of the Little Abode series—masterfully fills in the gaps concern Wilder’s biography.”

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

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

Virginia Woolf newborn Hermione Lee

“Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s pervade belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at respite subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait be more or less the writer and the woman range leaves all of her complexities famous contradictions intact.”

Malcolm X: A Life invite Reinvention by Manning Marable

“Of the not to be faulted figures in twentieth-century American history most likely none is more complex and disputable than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting potentate own story, he became a dreadful, a minister, a leader, and effect icon, all before being felled dampen assassins’ bullets at age thirty-nine.”

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

“On a May afternoon in 1943, ending Army Air Forces bomber crashed jar the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, resignation only a spray of debris added a slick of oil, gasoline, folk tale blood. Then, on the ocean draw out, a face appeared. It was renounce of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to great life raft and pulling himself alongside. So began one of the ceiling extraordinary odysseys of the Second Imitation War.”

Want to read more about just what the doctor ordered biographies? Check out this post opt for presidential biographies, this list of biographies and memoirs about remarkable women, predominant this list of 100 must-read maestro biographies and memoirs.