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Best Biography ever written?

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07-21-2008 , 03:40 AM

PayPerChase

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Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 2,405

Auto or not. What is the best biography you've ever read?

The purpose of this thread isn't to decide what the best biography ever is. But for me to figure out what ones people have read and enjoyed so that I also may read and enjoy them. I'm going through a reading phase.

Jordan

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07-21-2008 , 04:40 AM

Number27

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Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 2,233

The best one I've read recently was John Adams by David McCullough. Knowing only what I'd read in history books it was fascinating to get a complete portrait of the man. McCullough does a great job of creating the world that he lived in and the driving motivations that led him to help start a revolution.

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07-21-2008 , 05:28 AM

Shadowrun

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Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 3,220

For me its not so much who writes the biography but the subject. The people I find fascinating I read and enjoy by any author who writes about them.

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07-21-2008 , 05:53 AM

dtemp

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Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 3,505

Quote:

Originally Posted by Number27

McCullough's biography on Truman is also really good.

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07-21-2008 , 06:00 AM

diebitter

Grotesquely Handsome

Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 65,711

I usually only read autobiographies, and the best I can recall was The Moon's a Balloon by David Niven. Especially the part where he house-shared with Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn was unbelievable.

I also liked Michael Caine's one an awful lot.

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07-21-2008 , 06:22 AM

Stagger_Lee

old hand

Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,325

Hence the phrase "In like Flynn"

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07-21-2008 , 06:40 AM

LittleChamp

centurion

Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 135

autobiography of malcolm x

autobiography of lucky luciano

and

the greatest

were my favorites.

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07-21-2008 , 06:42 AM

Aftermath

grinder

Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 502

Beyond Band of Brothers - The War Memoirs of Maj. Dick Winters

does that count?

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07-21-2008 , 07:08 AM

GeraldGiraffe

adept

Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 1,139

Isn't really a biography, but Spirit of The Age by William Hazlitt is very worth reading. Basicially it contains chapter-long mini-biographical articles on prominent public figures from the early 1800s, including Lord Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Robert Southey, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Malthus, Sir Walter Scott, William Wilberforce etc etc.

I found it very interesting and Hazlitt writes extremely well. It's even on Project Gutenburg http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11068

I also recently read Room Full of Mirrors by Charles R. Cross, a biography of Hendrix. It wasn't bad.

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07-21-2008 , 07:40 AM

#10

diebitter

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Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 65,711

The Greatest is also pretty damn good

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07-21-2008 , 09:31 AM

#11

Splendour

banned

Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 18,896

I'd have to put "The Diary of Anne Frank" up there.

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07-21-2008 , 10:20 AM

#12

revots33

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Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 13,454

For me it's "It's Not About the Bike", by Lance Armstrong. The guy is a real hero of mine.

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07-21-2008 , 10:28 AM

#13

diddy!

Twas diddyeinstein

Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 10,849

The best one I've read recently is "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer". Really just a phenomenal book. I wrote a review about it in the "What are you reading tonight thread".

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07-21-2008 , 11:03 AM

#14

Thug Bubbles

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Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 4,183

Quote:

Originally Posted by LittleChamp

autobiography of malcolm x

autobiography of lucky luciano

and

the greatest

were my favorites.

Definitely. That book should be required reading at all schools. It's just amazing to see the dramatic swings in Malcolm X's life as he traveled towards his ultimate ideology of unity, which then became his downfall. It's not just an interesting read, but very easy, and his charm and charisma emanate through the words.

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07-21-2008 , 11:40 AM

#15

drjay

grinder

Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 477

i read a good one on teddy roosevelt, is was good because they said he was really sickly as a child but then become like a rugged cowboy,

weird though they didn't mention mental illness but then today i read he's supposed to be bipolar

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07-22-2008 , 12:18 AM

#16

RJT

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Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 4,517

Quote:

Originally Posted by revots33

For me it's "It's Not About the Bike", by Lance Armstrong. The guy is a real hero of mine.

Architectural Digest did an article on his house. Awesome, very classy digs. In his game room he has all his yellow jerseys framed and hung on the wall. It was a few months ago.

Bill Clinton's auto was quite a good read.

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07-22-2008 , 01:51 AM

#17

Golden_Rhino

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Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 9,056

Shake hands with the devil : the failure of humanity in Rwanda by Romeo Dallaire.

For those of you who have seen Hotel Rwanda, Nick Nolte's character was loosely based on this guy.

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07-22-2008 , 06:15 AM

#18

Rick Nebiolo

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Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 8,690

Quote:

Originally Posted by diebitter

I usually only read autobiographies, and the best I can recall was The Moon's a Balloon by David Niven. Especially the part where he house-shared with Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn was unbelievable.

This was some sort of Trivial Pursuit game question that Lounger John Cole got right about 25 years ago. At the time no one could believe he had already read it.

~ Rick

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