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12 Inspiring Memoirs and Biographies for Teens

Looking for biographies and memoirs for teens? We got you.

We love handing over an excellent biography or memoir to the young adult readers we know. There’s no better way to help them connect with history and take a walk in someone else’s shoes. Here are some of our favorite recent memoirs and biographies for teens.

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1. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman

Heiligman chronicles the amazing and eccentric lives of the Van Gogh brothers, their relationship with each other, and their work.

2. Ten Days a Madwoman: The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of the Original Girl Reporter by Deborah Noyes

Known for her groundbreaking work exposing the mistreatment of patients in an asylum, Nellie Bly did not let the traditional expectations of female reporters stop her from becoming a pioneering journalist.

3. Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle

Written in verse, Engle shares the tension of living between two worlds, Cuba and Los Angeles.

4. Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

Lowery shares her experience as the youngest marcher fighting for civil rights alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

5. Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, a Life in Balance  by Simone Biles

Gymnast Simone Biles shares her personal journey from foster care to Olympic gold medalist.

6. How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana

After witnessing the murders of her mother and younger sister, Sandra Uwiringiyimana escaped a refugee camp in the Congo and immigrated to America. She survived and healed through art and activism.

 7.  Becoming Kareem: Growing up on and off the Court  by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Abdul-Jabbar shares how he overcame setbacks and difficulties to become a leader on and off the court.

8. The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler chronicles the life of Knud Pedersen and his classmates whose efforts to sabotage Hitler lead to the Danish resistance.

9. Lion: A Long Way Home Young Readers’ Edition by Saroo Brierley

Lost on a train at age five, homeless, and then placed in an orphanage, Brierley shares the story of how he spent years wondering about his life, searching for his home, and finally finding it.

10. The Keeper: The Unguarded Story of Tim Howard Young Readers’ Edition by Tim Howard

Diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome, Tim Howard shares the encouraging story of his childhood, long soccer career, and sudden success.

11. Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi

Saedi recounts her childhood as an undocumented Iranian living in America.

12. The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

The lives of two teens from very different neighborhoods are forever changed and bound together by a horrific crime.

What are your favorite biographies for teens? Come and share in our  WeAreTeachers Helpline group on Facebook.

Plus, some of our favorite high school reading lists .

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20 Best Biographies for Teens Teachers Recommend

April 20, 2022 //  by  Jaclyn Hamod

Biographies can provide powerful reading material for teens. For reluctant readers, biographies are a great way to immerse themselves in a true story. Reading inspiring books allows young adults to learn valuable life lessons that go beyond their own experiences.  Learning about the successes and failures of others is important for what lies in the future for teenagers.  Here is a list of 20 middle school biographies that teenagers would benefit from reading.

1. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

A perfect book for middle schoolers.  No matter the size of your group, big or small, and whatever your goal is, Daniel Coyle takes you through the culture chemistry principles that can turn individuals into teams with the capabilities to create and accomplish great things.

2. Educated: A Memoir

A heartfelt story exploring the role of education in 17-year-old protagonist Tara Westover's coming of age. Westover's journey to literacy opens up a whole new world for her - but will she find her way home?

3. Into the Wild

How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of life, reflection, and struggle in the wilderness.

4. Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery

Scott Kelly is a four-time space veteran and holds the American record for the longest consecutive days spent in outer space.  In his life story, we gain a deeper understanding of the human imagination and persevering strength.

5. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

An Army Air Forces bomber crashes into the Pacific Ocean and is captured by the Japanese. Zamperini faces desperation with ingenuity; suffering, hope, resolve, and humor.

6. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

A story of a childhood survivor of the Cambodian genocide, this is a war crime narrative that reveals the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family.

7. Twelve Years a Slave

A reliable and accurate eyewitness account of the daily lives of slaves; in particular, an authentic narrative of a man starved of his freedom.

8. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Perfect for casual readers, this bestselling memoir by the creator of Nike shares the company's early stages as a start-up and how it evolved into one of most iconic household names and profitable brands in the world.

9. The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller

The remarkable story of Helen Keller's blindness and deafness.  A truly inspirational biography that shows the struggles and joys of her life.

10. The Bell Jar

A look into the life of Esther and her deep, dark descent into insanity which feels all too real and rational.

11. The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

In the Dutch Underground, Corrie Ten Boom and her family become leaders in hiding Jewish people from the Nazis.

A brave and inspiring story of Will Smith - his learning curve that leads to an alignment of success, inner happiness, and human connection.

13. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

A trek in 1996 to Mount Everest that leads to a disastrous expedition that claims the lives of eight climbers.

14. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

Drawing on experiences as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Julie Smith shares the skills needed to navigate typical life challenges while also taking control of your mental health and emotions.

15. Becoming

A deep reflection on Michelle Obama and her experiences that have shaped her to be one of the most iconic women in our era.

16. Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler

A story of an American childhood during the Civil Rights Movement that shaped Octavia Butler into the science-fiction storyteller that she became.

17. Up From Slavery: An Autobiography

An African-American history story where freedom, self respect, educational programs and industrial training are worth fighting for black Americans.

18. Up Close: Jane Goodall

The story of a young woman from London who travels to Africa to revolutionize views on chimpanzees, forest conservation, and women in scientific fields.

19. Autobiography of a Face

A heart-wrenching story about the author's disfiguring cancer and how she dealt with the pain and healing. In a world that obsesses over physical attributes, she looks for acceptance, inner peace and love.

20. We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist and author of many biographies for teens. A story that paints a vivid picture of what it's like to live in a refugee camp during war and border conflicts.  A fascinating story that reminds us that every displaced person has hopes and dreams.

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Teaching students about the honeysuckle plant, $13 million gift to cleveland clinic from howley foundation expands aspire program, okaloosa school district to launch esports program across all high schools, white house initiative celebrates 10th anniversary with diverse 2024 hbcu cohort, college students are already regretting their student loans, fafsa rollout was ‘a stunning failure,’ college aid expert says. here’s how next year will compare, igniting the torch of progress’: stark state college opens new welding and joining lab, ‘a lovely legacy’: falk college remembers professor emerita sarah ‘sally’ short, fort leonard wood hosts combined college graduation event, 12 inspiring biographies for teens.

We enjoy recommending a top-notch memoir or biography to the young adult readers we are familiar with. There isn’t a better approach to enable children to relate to the history and see life from another person’s perspective. Here are our top picks for recent teen memoirs and biographies.

• Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman

Heiligman details the extraordinary and bizarre lives of the Van Gogh brothers, their interactions with one another, and their creative output.

• Ten Days a Madwoman: The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of the Original Girl Reporter by Deborah Noyes

Nellie Bly, well-known for her breakthrough work documenting the abuse of asylum patients, defied the stereotypes of female reporters and became a trailblazing columist.

• Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle

In a poem, Engle describes the stress of juggling two worlds, Cuba and LA.

• Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lower y

Lowery talks about her experience participating in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights march as the youngest marcher.

• Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, a Life in Balance by Simone Biles

Simone Biles, an Olympic gold champion gymnast, describes her path from foster care to success.

• How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana

Sandra Uwiringiyimana fled a refugee camp in the Congo and went to America after seeing her mother and younger sister killed. Through action and creativity, she overcame and recovered.

• Becoming Kareem: Growing up on and off the Court by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Abdul-Jabbar discusses how he overcomes obstacles and challenges to establish himself as a leader.

• The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose

The story of Knud Pedersen and his friends is chronicled in The Boys Who Challenged Hitler. Their attempts to destroy Hitler led to the Danish resistance.

• Lion: A Long Way Home Young Readers’ Edition by Saroo Brierley

Brierley tells the tale of how he spent years questioning his existence, looking for his home, and ultimately finding it after being abandoned on a train at the age of five, becoming homeless, and then being placed in an orphanage.

• The Keeper: The Unguarded Story of Tim Howard Young Readers’ Edition by Tim Howard

Tim Howard, who was just diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome, describes his inspiring upbringing, lengthy soccer career, and unexpected success.

• Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi

Saedi recalls her childhood in America as an undocumented Iranian.

• The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

A terrible crime forever alters the lives of two teenagers from very different areas and brings them together.

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10 Contemporary Biographies, Autobiographies, and Memoirs for Teens

Real-life personal stories to inspire today's teens

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For some teens, reading the life stories of others—whether they're famous authors or victims of a civil war—can be an inspiring experience. This list of highly recommended contemporary biographies , autobiographies , and memoirs written for young adults includes life lessons about making choices, overcoming monumental challenges, and having the courage to be a voice for positive change.

Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos

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In his autobiographical memoir, "Hole in My Life" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004), award-winning children’s and young adult author Jack Gantos shares his compelling story about making a single choice that altered his destiny. As a young man of 20 struggling to find direction, Gantos seized an opportunity for quick cash and adventure, signing on to help sail a 60-foot yacht with a cargo of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City. What he hadn’t anticipated was getting caught. Winner of the Printz Honor Award, Gantos holds nothing back about his experiences with prison life, drugs, and the consequences of making one very bad decision. (Due to mature themes, this book is recommended for ages 14 and up.)

While Gantos clearly made a huge mistake, as evidenced by his critically acclaimed body of work, he was able to turn his life back around. In 2012, Gantos won the John Newbery Medal for his middle-grade novel "Dead End in Norvelt" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011).

Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton

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"Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board" (MTV Books, 2006) is Bethany Hamilton's story. At 14, competitive surfer Bethany Hamilton thought her life was over when she lost her arm in a shark attack. Yet, despite this obstacle, Hamilton found the determination to continue surfing in her own creative style and proved to herself that the World Surfing Championships were still within reach.

In this true account, Hamilton chronicles the story of her life before and after the accident, inspiring readers to overcome obstacles by finding and focusing on an inner passion and determination. It's a wonderful story of faith, family, and courage. (Recommended for ages 12 and up.)

A movie version of ​​"Soul Surfer" was released in 2011. Hamilton has since written a number of inspirational books spun off from her original memoir.

The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara

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Brutally attacked by rebel soldiers who cut off both her hands, 12-year-old Mariatu Kamara from Sierra Leone miraculously survived and found her way to a refugee camp. When journalists arrived in her country to document the atrocities of war, Kamara was rescued. Her tale of survival as a victim of civil war to becoming a UNICEF Special Representative, "Bite of the Mango" (Annick Press, 2008) is an inspiring story of courage and triumph. (Due to mature themes and violence, this book is recommended for ages 14 and up.)

No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row by Susan Kuklin

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In their own words, four young men sent to death row as teenagers speak candidly with author Susan Kuklin in the unflinching nonfiction book, "No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row" (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, 2008). The youthful offenders talk openly about the choices and mistakes they made, as well as about their lives in prison.

Written in the form of personal narratives, Kuklin includes commentary from lawyers, insights into legal issues, and the backstories leading up to each young man’s crime. It's a disturbing read, but it offers teens a perspective on crime, punishment, and the prison system from people their own age. (Due to mature subject matter, this book is recommended for ages 14 and up.)

I Can't Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous and Obscure

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“He said goodbye with YouTube links.” What happens when you ask teens ranging from high-profile to just your average kid to summarize their hopes, dreams, and troubles in just six words? That's just what the editors of Smith Magazine challenged teenagers across the nation to do. The resulting collection, "I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous and Obscure" (HarperTeen, 2009), contains 800 six-word memoirs ranging in emotion from comical to profound. These fast-paced, intuitive takes on adolescent life, written for teens by teens, read like poetry and just might inspire others to think up their own six-word memoirs. (Recommended for ages 12 and up.)

Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

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Reminiscent of heart-tugging characters like Gilly Hopkins ("The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson) and Dicey Tillerman ("The Tillerman Series" by Cynthia Voigt), the life of Ashley Rhodes-Courter is a series of real-life unfortunate events that are the everyday reality for too many children in America. In her memoir, "Three Little Words" (Atheneum, 2008), Rhodes-Courter recounts the 10 harrowing years she spent in the foster care system, poignantly giving voice to children trapped in circumstances beyond their control. (Recommended for ages 12 and up.)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

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In the early 1990s, 12-year-old Ishmael Beah was swept up in Sierra Leone’s civil war and turned into a boy soldier. Although gentle and kind at heart, Beah discovered he was capable of horrific acts of brutality. The first part of Beah’s memoir, "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008), depicts the frighteningly easy transformation of a typical child into an angry teen with the ability to hate, kill, and wield an AK-47. The final chapters of Beah’s story are about redemption, rehabilitation, and ultimately, coming to the United States, where he attended and graduated college. (Recommended for ages 14 and up.)

I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda

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"I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives" (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2015) is a true-life tale that begins in 1997 when “typical 12-year-old American girl” Caitlin Alifirenka is tasked with a pen pal assignment at school. Her correspondence with a 14-year-old boy named Martin Ganda from Zimbabwe will eventually change both of their lives.

In the letters that go back and forth, readers learn that Alifirenka leads a life of middle-class privilege, while Ganda’s family lives in crushing poverty. Even something as simple as sending a letter is often beyond his means, and yet, Ganda makes “the only promise that I knew I could keep: that I would always write back, no matter what.”

The narrative takes the form of a dual pen-pal autobiography told in alternating voices and woven together with the help of writer Liz Welch. It covers the six-year period from Alifirenka's first letter to Ganda’s eventual arrival in America where he'll be attending college, thanks to a full scholarship arranged by Alifirenka's mom. Their inspiring long-distance friendship is a testament to just how much two determined teens can accomplish when they put their hearts and minds to it. (Recommended for ages 12 and up.)

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

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"I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliba" written by Malala Yousafza and Christina Lamb (Little, Brown and Company, 2012) is the autobiography of a girl who more than anything, wanted to learn—and was nearly put to death for her efforts.

In October 2012, 15-year-old Yousafzai was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school in her native Pakistan. This memoir traces not only her remarkable recovery but the path that led her to become the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize . It’s an account of a family touched first-hand by the brutality of terrorism, and the indomitable will of a girl who will not relinquish her education at any cost.

In a society dominated by males, it is also the heartening story of unconventional and courageous parents who bucked convention by encouraging their daughter to be all that she could be. Yousafzai's revelations are a bittersweet homage to all the remarkable accomplishments she’s achieved—and the price both she and her family have had to pay for her to achieve them. (Recommended for ages 12 and up.)

Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition by Katie Rain-Hill and Ariel Schrag

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"Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition" by Katie Rain-Hill and Ariel Schrag (Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014) is the story of a 19-year-old transgender teen who grew up as a boy, but always knew she was a girl. Bullied and suicidal, Rain-Hill finds the courage to follow her truth, and with her mom’s help, is able to transform both her body and her life.

This first-person memoir not only explores what it means to identify as transgender and what it takes undergo gender reassignment surgery but also gives a non-sugarcoated account of the challenges Rain-Hill faced once the body she was living in finally aligned with her gender identity.

It’s all told with self-deprecating humor and disarming candor that draws readers in, while at the same time, reinventing the standard teen coming-of-age tale and the meaning of what it is to be “normal.” (Recommended for ages 14 and up.)

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50 Must-Read Biographies

Rebecca Hussey

Rebecca holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. She teaches courses in composition, literature, and the arts. When she’s not reading or grading papers, she’s hanging out with her husband and son and/or riding her bike and/or buying books. She can't get enough of reading and writing about books, so she writes the bookish newsletter "Reading Indie," focusing on small press books and translations. Newsletter: Reading Indie Twitter: @ofbooksandbikes

View All posts by Rebecca Hussey

The best biographies give us a satisfying glimpse into a great person’s life, while also teaching us about the context in which that person lived. Through biography, we can also learn history, psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, and more. Reading a great biography is both fun and educational. What’s not to love?

Below I’ve listed 50 of the best biographies out there. You will find a mix of subjects, including important figures in literature, science, politics, history, art, and more. I’ve tried to keep this list focused on biography only, so there is little in the way of memoir or autobiography. In a couple cases, authors have written about their family members, but for the most part, these are books where the focus is on the biographical subject, not the author.

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

Take a look and let me know about your favorite biography in the comments!

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

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

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

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

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

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

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

“As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.”

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

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

John Adams by David McCullough

“In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot — ‘the colossus of independence,’ as Thomas Jefferson called him.”

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

“Emotionally riveting and eye-opening,  A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea  is the incredible story of a young woman, an international crisis, and the triumph of the human spirit. Melissa Fleming shares the harrowing journey of Doaa Al Zamel, a young Syrian refugee in search of a better life.”

At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess in Victorian England by Walter Dean Myers

“One terrifying night in 1848, a young African princess’s village is raided by warriors. The invaders kill her mother and father, the King and Queen, and take her captive. Two years later, a British naval captain rescues her and takes her to England where she is presented to Queen Victoria, and becomes a loved and 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 the way for his transition from academia to a lifelong career in social activism. This biography is unlike Du Bois’s earlier work; it is intended as a work of consciousness-raising on the politics of race.”

Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen L. Carter

“[Eunice Hunton Carter] was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s ― and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted.”

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

“An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members.”

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.”

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

“Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered.”

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

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

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

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

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

“Amanda Foreman draws on a wealth of fresh research and writes colorfully and penetratingly about the fascinating Georgiana, whose struggle against her own weaknesses, whose great beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a part in the affairs of the world make her a vibrant, astonishingly contemporary figure.”

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth 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 make the world a little better and a little freer. But along the way, the feminist pioneer’s searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. [This book], created by the young lawyer who began the Internet sensation and an award-winning journalist, takes you behind the myth for an intimate, irreverent look at the justice’s life and work.”

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

“A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother.”

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

“ Shirley Jackson  reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the literary genius behind such classics as ‘The Lottery’ and  The Haunting of Hill House .”

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

“This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart.”

The Life of Samuel Johnson   by James Boswell

“Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail.”

Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers

“Barbara Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention. Yet Jordan herself remained a mystery.”

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

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

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

“Often photographed in a cowboy hat with her middle finger held defiantly in the air, Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy (1916–2000) left a vibrant legacy as a leader of the Black Power and feminist movements. In the first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the life and political influence of this strikingly bold and controversial radical activist.”

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

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

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

“Peter Popham … draws upon previously untapped testimony and fresh revelations to tell the story of a woman whose bravery and determination have captivated people around the globe. Celebrated today as one of the world’s greatest exponents of non-violent political defiance since Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only four years 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, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

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

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

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

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

“A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and call them the New Negro — the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.”

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

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

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

“Thurgood Marshall stands today as the great architect of American race relations, having expanded the foundation of individual rights for all Americans. His victory in the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case outlawing school segregation, would have him a historic figure even if he had not gone on to become the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.”

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

“ The Mayor of Castro Street  is Shilts’s acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s.”

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

“The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.”

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

This book is “a vivid portrait of Montaigne, showing how his ideas gave birth to our 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 first published in The New Yorker, this brilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. Janet Malcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend of Sylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plath biographies.”

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley   by Peter Guralnick

“Based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, [this book] traces the evolution not just of the man but of the music and of the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait of Elvis and his world.

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

“Kate Summerscale brilliantly recreates the Victorian world, chronicling in exquisite and compelling detail the life of Isabella Robinson, wherein the longings of a frustrated wife collided with a society clinging to rigid ideas about sanity, the boundaries of privacy, the institution of marriage, and female sexuality.”

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

“A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained?”

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

“When Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857, she was 18: a professional actress performing in his production of  The Frozen Deep . He was 45: a literary legend, a national treasure, married with ten children. This meeting sparked a love affair that 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 from beneath the weight of slavery, secured respect for herself, and utilized the distinction of her race to become not only a symbol for black women, but for the feminist movement as a whole.”

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

“Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America’s first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes.”

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

“With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life, [Chernow] carries the reader through Washington’s troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian Wars, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.”

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

“ Ida: A Sword Among Lions  is a sweeping narrative about a country and a crusader embroiled in the struggle against lynching: a practice that imperiled not only the lives of black men and women, but also a nation based on law and riven by race.”

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

“But the true saga of [Wilder’s] life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography.”

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

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

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

“Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.”

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

“Of the great figures in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins’ bullets at age thirty-nine.”

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

“On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.”

Want to read more about great biographies? Check out this post on presidential biographies , this list of biographies and memoirs about remarkable women , and this list of 100 must-read musician biographies and memoirs .

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12 Must-Read Inspiring Autobiographies For Teens

As they become more independent, teenagers may listen less to their parents, but may be inspired by other people they admire.

As they get ready to head out into the big wide world, learning about other people's lives, their successes and even more importantly, their failures, is a great way to prepare teens for what lies ahead.

And if your teen is a bit of a reluctant reader, they may find it easier to immerse themself in a real-life story rather than a work of fiction.

Find more ways to entertain your teen during lockdown with the best YouTube channels and these debate ideas to encourage critical thinking.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Anne Frank was a Jewish teenager living in Amsterdam during the Second World War. She was given a diary for her 13th birthday.

For any teens who are getting cabin fever, reading Anne Frank's account of how she and her family hid in a tiny secret annexe may help them to appreciate how well off they really are! The teenager's diary accounts in some detail how her family lived, and the fear of being arrested and taken away by the Nazis.

Anne and her family were sent to concentration camps, where Anne died at the age of 16. For a 21st century version, teens can watch The Anne Frank video diaries.

All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto

George M. Johnson is a  journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist.

This personal tale takes us through his childhood, teen and college years in the states of New Jersey and Virginia, from being bullied at the age of five to embarking on sexual relationships.

Suitable for older teens as it deals with some tough topics such as toxic masculinity, gender identity and consent, being black and gay,  it will appeal to teens who are exploring their own sexuality, black teens who are looking for role models and readers who want to stand up for themselves and fight for equality.

I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World

Growing up in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai was taught to stand up for what she believes in. So when the Taliban took control of the area, and dictated that girls were not allowed to go to school, the 10-year-old resolved to fight for her rights.

It led to her being shot and nearly dying, as she rode the bus back from school.

Readers can discover how she came to have such strong views, what happened on the day she nearly lost her life, and how she has proven that one person - even a 10-year-old girl - can make a big difference. It will inspire readers to stand up for their rights and stick to their beliefs.

I will always write back

Proving how some school assignments can go further than just getting you a good grade, this story tells how 12-year-old  Caitlin Alifirenka's assignment to write to an unknown student in a far-off place turned into something life-changing.

When Caitlin first began corresponding with Martin Ganda in Zimbabwe, she began to learn about the poverty that he and his family lived in, and it opened her eyes to how other people lived, and helped to change Martin's future.

Teens will be inspired by Martin's determination to study his way out of poverty, and Caitlin's determination to help him.

Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board

Bethany Hamilton is a professional surfer, who returned to the world of elite surfing after she lost her arm in a shark attack.

In this moving story, Bethany describes how she survived that attack and found the determination and faith to continue with the sport she loved.

The books details how she adjusted her surfing style to compensate for her injury, and how her belief in God and her will power saw her putting in an impressive performance at the World Surfing Championships.

Teens will be inspired by Bethany's faith and resolve, especially young athletes who are struggling with injury or self-doubt.

Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen

Jazz Jennings already has her own hugely popular reality TV show on TLC. Jazz transitioned to life as a girl at the very young age of five and now she is one of the most recognised activists for transgendered kids, teens and adults.

In her memoir, Jazz describes how growing up in the public eye has helped to shape how the public see the transgender community.

She also describes the discrimination and bullying that she has to endure. Teens will be fascinated by how Jazz navigates adolescence, having started her life as a boy.

The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism

Autistic teen Naoki Higashida wrote this autobiography at the tender age of 13.

It's not always easy to understand why some people with autism behave the way they do, so a book written from their perspective offers a rare insight that is not only fascinating, but will help teens understand and accept the behaviour of autistic friends and family.

Naoki explains why he talks loudly, what causes his panic attacks, and why he likes to jump.

This book will inspire teens to be more considerate and understanding of the people around them.

Mud Sweat and Tears Junior Edition

Bear Grylls is the ultimate adventurer. A former SAS serviceman, he is also a survival instructor, and has found fame as a writer and TV presenter.

In this memoir, he describes how he learned to sail and climb with his dad, and spent his teenage years practising mountaineering and martial arts.

But when he broke his back in a terrible parachuting accident, he defied expectation and learned to walk again, eventually climbing Everest at the age of 23.. His story will inspire teens who love the outdoor life.

Kian and Jc: Don't Try This at Home!

Entertainers Kian Lawley and Jc Caylen have 7 million subscribers on YouTube alone. Their fans will enjoy discovering how the pair of comedians found fame and huge success online with their unique offering of pranks. This book will inspire any teens who have dreamed of being an entertainer - or a YouTube star!

Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance

Olympic gold medallist Simone Biles appeared to somersault onto our screens from nowhere when she became the darling of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. But the gymnast, like all successful athletes, had spent many years perfecting her craft and overcoming a less-than-perfect start to her life.

Taken from her drug-addict mother, she was fostered and eventually adopted.

So it is even more remarkable that she managed to make her way into the highly-competitive arena of competitive gymnastics. Her story will inspire gymnasts, teens with ADHD or those who have been fostered or adopted.

Jamie Vardy From Nowhere. My Story

Jamie Vardy has made it from being an ordinary boy in Sheffield to the soccer player who led underdogs Leicester City to the top of the Premier League and won himself a place on the England team, despite early career disappointment.

His autobiography describes his childhood in Sheffield, how he was dropped from Sheffield Wednesday and found himself playing for £30 a match and his subsequent rise to the top of his profession.

His tale will be inspiring to all football fans and sportspeople.

May I Have Your Attention Please?

James Corden has achieved the dream of many a British entertainer, by becoming a huge success on the other side of the pond. His Carpool Karaoke TV show has an almost cult following.

Yet at school, he wasn't cool, or clever - in fact, he was pretty disruptive. But he never gave up, forming a boy band and going to hundreds of auditions.

It was only when he co-wrote Gavin and Stacey that his life changed. His story will be particularly inspiring for teens who haven't yet found their 'thing'.

Second image credit: SN040288 / Shutterstock.com

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More for you, ultimate guide to learning to paint for kids and teens, 15 fun outdoor adventures to keep kids active and engaged, 32 thought-provoking please quotes.

NCTJ Proficiency Certificate in Journalism

Naomi Mackay NCTJ Proficiency Certificate in Journalism

Raised in the Home Counties, Naomi is an enthusiastic explorer of London, Beds, Herts, and Bucks, frequently accompanied by her husband and son. In addition to this, she is an avid driver, often traveling to various skateparks around the UK. Naomi is always looking for new opportunities to explore or try new activities as a family.

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2) At Kidadl, we strive to recommend the very best activities and events. We will always aim to give you accurate information at the date of publication - however, information does change, so it’s important you do your own research, double-check and make the decision that is right for your family. We recognise that not all activities and ideas are appropriate for all children and families or in all circumstances. Our recommended activities are based on age but these are a guide. We recommend that these ideas are used as inspiration, that ideas are undertaken with appropriate adult supervision, and that each adult uses their own discretion and knowledge of their children to consider the safety and suitability. Kidadl cannot accept liability for the execution of these ideas, and parental supervision is advised at all times, as safety is paramount. Anyone using the information provided by Kidadl does so at their own risk and we can not accept liability if things go wrong.

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Blog – Posted on Monday, Jan 21

The 30 best biographies of all time.

Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”

At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction .

All the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels , if not more so. With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time — some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great biographies out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized biography recommendation  😉

Which biography should you read next?

Discover the perfect biography for you. Takes 30 seconds!

1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

This biography of esteemed mathematician John Nash was both a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and the basis for the award-winning film of the same name. Nasar thoroughly explores Nash’s prestigious career, from his beginnings at MIT to his work at the RAND Corporation — as well the internal battle he waged against schizophrenia, a disorder that nearly derailed his life.

2. Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film The Imitation Game - Updated Edition by Andrew Hodges

Hodges’ 1983 biography of Alan Turing sheds light on the inner workings of this brilliant mathematician, cryptologist, and computer pioneer. Indeed, despite the title ( a nod to his work during WWII ), a great deal of the “enigmatic” Turing is laid out in this book. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during the war, his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and of course, the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s — when homosexual acts were still a crime punishable by English law.

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical, but also a work of creative genius itself. This massive undertaking of over 800 pages details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life: from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid (and ultimately career-destroying) affair with Maria Reynolds. He may never have been president, but he was a fascinating and unique figure in American history — plus it’s fun to get the truth behind the songs.

Prefer to read about fascinating First Ladies rather than almost-presidents? Check out this awesome list of books about First Ladies over on The Archive.

4. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston

A prolific essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Hurston turned her hand to biographical writing in 1927 with this incredible work, kept under lock and key until it was published 2018. It’s based on Hurston’s interviews with the last remaining survivor of the Middle Passage slave trade, a man named Cudjo Lewis. Rendered in searing detail and Lewis’ highly affecting African-American vernacular, this biography of the “last black cargo” will transport you back in time to an era that, chillingly, is not nearly as far away from us as it feels.

5. Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

Though many a biography of him has been attempted, Gilbert’s is the final authority on Winston Churchill — considered by many to be Britain’s greatest prime minister ever. A dexterous balance of in-depth research and intimately drawn details makes this biography a perfect tribute to the mercurial man who led Britain through World War II.

Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book, which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight, Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the equation, replacing the \'dominion of matter\' with \'a great stillness\'--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly frightening.

Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character, which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change the world. --Gregory McNamee

6. E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

This “biography of the world’s most famous equation” is a one-of-a-kind take on the genre: rather than being the story of Einstein, it really does follow the history of the equation itself. From the origins and development of its individual elements (energy, mass, and light) to their ramifications in the twentieth century, Bodanis turns what could be an extremely dry subject into engaging fare for readers of all stripes.

7. Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

When Enrique was only five years old, his mother left Honduras for the United States, promising a quick return. Eleven years later, Enrique finally decided to take matters into his own hands in order to see her again: he would traverse Central and South America via railway, risking his life atop the “train of death” and at the hands of the immigration authorities, to reunite with his mother. This tale of Enrique’s perilous journey is not for the faint of heart, but it is an account of incredible devotion and sharp commentary on the pain of separation among immigrant families.

8. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

Herrera’s 1983 biography of renowned painter Frida Kahlo, one of the most recognizable names in modern art, has since become the definitive account on her life. And while Kahlo no doubt endured a great deal of suffering (a horrific accident when she was eighteen, a husband who had constant affairs), the focal point of the book is not her pain. Instead, it’s her artistic brilliance and immense resolve to leave her mark on the world — a mark that will not soon be forgotten, in part thanks to Herrera’s dedicated work.

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Perhaps the most impressive biographical feat of the twenty-first century, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about a woman whose cells completely changed the trajectory of modern medicine. Rebecca Skloot skillfully commemorates the previously unknown life of a poor black woman whose cancer cells were taken, without her knowledge, for medical testing — and without whom we wouldn’t have many of the critical cures we depend upon today.

10. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992. Five months later, McCandless was found emaciated and deceased in his shelter — but of what cause? Krakauer’s biography of McCandless retraces his steps back to the beginning of the trek, attempting to suss out what the young man was looking for on his journey, and whether he fully understood what dangers lay before him.

11. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families by James Agee

"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” From this line derives the central issue of Agee and Evans’ work: who truly deserves our praise and recognition? According to this 1941 biography, it’s the barely-surviving sharecropper families who were severely impacted by the American “Dust Bowl” — hundreds of people entrenched in poverty, whose humanity Evans and Agee desperately implore their audience to see in their book.

12. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Another mysterious explorer takes center stage in this gripping 2009 biography. Grann tells the story of Percy Fawcett, the archaeologist who vanished in the Amazon along with his son in 1925, supposedly in search of an ancient lost city. Parallel to this narrative, Grann describes his own travels in the Amazon 80 years later: discovering firsthand what threats Fawcett may have encountered, and coming to realize what the “Lost City of Z” really was.

13. Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Though many of us will be familiar with the name Mao Zedong, this prodigious biography sheds unprecedented light upon the power-hungry “Red Emperor.” Chang and Halliday begin with the shocking statistic that Mao was responsible for 70 million deaths during peacetime — more than any other twentieth-century world leader. From there, they unravel Mao’s complex ideologies, motivations, and missions, breaking down his long-propagated “hero” persona and thrusting forth a new, grislier image of one of China’s biggest revolutionaries.

14. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson by Andrew Wilson

Titled after one of her most evocative poems, this shimmering bio of Sylvia Plath takes an unusual approach. Instead of focusing on her years of depression and tempestuous marriage to poet Ted Hughes, it chronicles her life before she ever came to Cambridge. Wilson closely examines her early family and relationships, feelings and experiences, with information taken from her meticulous diaries — setting a strong precedent for other Plath biographers to follow.

15. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

What if you had twenty-four different people living inside you, and you never knew which one was going to come out? Such was the life of Billy Milligan, the subject of this haunting biography by the author of Flowers for Algernon . Keyes recounts, in a refreshingly straightforward style, the events of Billy’s life and how his psyche came to be “split”... as well as how, with Keyes’ help, he attempted to put the fragments of himself back together.

16. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

This gorgeously constructed biography follows Paul Farmer, a doctor who’s worked for decades to eradicate infectious diseases around the globe, particularly in underprivileged areas. Though Farmer’s humanitarian accomplishments are extraordinary in and of themselves, the true charm of this book comes from Kidder’s personal relationship with him — and the sense of fulfillment the reader sustains from reading about someone genuinely heroic, written by someone else who truly understands and admires what they do.

17. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

Here’s another bio that will reshape your views of a famed historical tyrant, though this time in a surprisingly favorable light. Decorated scholar Andrew Roberts delves into the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his near-flawless military instincts to his complex and confusing relationship with his wife. But Roberts’ attitude toward his subject is what really makes this work shine: rather than ridiculing him ( as it would undoubtedly be easy to do ), he approaches the “petty tyrant” with a healthy amount of deference.

18. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert A. Caro

Lyndon Johnson might not seem as intriguing or scandalous as figures like Kennedy, Nixon, or W. Bush. But in this expertly woven biography, Robert Caro lays out the long, winding road of his political career, and it’s full of twists you wouldn’t expect. Johnson himself was a surprisingly cunning figure, gradually maneuvering his way closer and closer to power. Finally, in 1963, he got his greatest wish — but at what cost? Fans of Adam McKay’s Vice , this is the book for you.

19. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

Anyone who grew up reading Little House on the Prairie will surely be fascinated by this tell-all biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Caroline Fraser draws upon never-before-published historical resources to create a lush study of the author’s life — not in the gently narrated manner of the Little House series, but in raw and startling truths about her upbringing, marriage, and volatile relationship with her daughter (and alleged ghostwriter) Rose Wilder Lane.

20. Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled just after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot of Prince’s life is actually a largely visual work — Shahidi served as his private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. And whatever they say about pictures being worth a thousand words, Shahidi’s are worth more still: Prince’s incredible vibrance, contagious excitement, and altogether singular personality come through in every shot.

21. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

Could there be a more fitting title for a book about the husband-wife team who discovered radioactivity? What you may not know is that these nuclear pioneers also had a fascinating personal history. Marie Sklodowska met Pierre Curie when she came to work in his lab in 1891, and just a few years later they were married. Their passion for each other bled into their passion for their work, and vice-versa — and in almost no time at all, they were on their way to their first of their Nobel Prizes.

22. Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

She may not have been assassinated or killed in a mysterious plane crash, but Rosemary Kennedy’s fate is in many ways the worst of “the Kennedy Curse.” As if a botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Yet in this new biography, penned by devoted Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of Rosemary’s post-lobotomy life is at last revealed.

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

This appropriately lyrical biography of brilliant Jazz Age poet and renowned feminist, Edna St. Vincent Millay, is indeed a perfect balance of savage and beautiful. While Millay’s poetic work was delicate and subtle, the woman herself was feisty and unpredictable, harboring unusual and occasionally destructive habits that Milford fervently explores.

24. Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes

Holmes’ famous philosophy of “biography as pursuit” is thoroughly proven here in his first full-length biographical work. Shelley: The Pursuit details an almost feverish tracking of Percy Shelley as a dark and cutting figure in the Romantic period — reforming many previous historical conceptions about him through Holmes’ compelling and resolute writing.

25. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Another Gothic figure has been made newly known through this work, detailing the life of prolific horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson. Author Ruth Franklin digs deep into the existence of the reclusive and mysterious Jackson, drawing penetrating comparisons between the true events of her life and the dark nature of her fiction.

26. The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

Fans of Into the Wild and The Lost City of Z will find their next adventure fix in this 2017 book about Christopher Knight, a man who lived by himself in the Maine woods for almost thirty years. The tale of this so-called “last true hermit” will captivate readers who have always fantasized about escaping society, with vivid descriptions of Knight’s rural setup, his carefully calculated moves and how he managed to survive the deadly cold of the Maine winters.

27. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The man, the myth, the legend: Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, is properly immortalized in Isaacson’s masterful biography. It divulges the details of Jobs’ little-known childhood and tracks his fateful path from garage engineer to leader of one of the largest tech companies in the world — not to mention his formative role in other legendary companies like Pixar, and indeed within the Silicon Valley ecosystem as a whole.

28. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Olympic runner Louis Zamperini was just twenty-six when his US Army bomber crashed and burned in the Pacific, leaving him and two other men afloat on a raft for forty-seven days — only to be captured by the Japanese Navy and tortured as a POW for the next two and a half years. In this gripping biography, Laura Hillenbrand tracks Zamperini’s story from beginning to end… including how he embraced Christian evangelism as a means of recovery, and even came to forgive his tormentors in his later years.

29. Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff

Everyone knows of Vladimir Nabokov — but what about his wife, Vera, whom he called “the best-humored woman I have ever known”? According to Schiff, she was a genius in her own right, supporting Vladimir not only as his partner, but also as his all-around editor and translator. And she kept up that trademark humor throughout it all, inspiring her husband’s work and injecting some of her own creative flair into it along the way.

30. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

William Shakespeare is a notoriously slippery historical figure — no one really knows when he was born, what he looked like, or how many plays he wrote. But that didn’t stop Stephen Greenblatt, who in 2004 turned out this magnificently detailed biography of the Bard: a series of imaginative reenactments of his writing process, and insights on how the social and political ideals of the time would have influenced him. Indeed, no one exists in a vacuum, not even Shakespeare — hence the conscious depiction of him in this book as a “will in the world,” rather than an isolated writer shut up in his own musty study.

If you're looking for more inspiring nonfiction, check out this list of 30 engaging self-help books , or this list of the last century's best memoirs !

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12 Inspiring Memoirs and Biographies for Teens

• Reading & Literacy

Introduction:

Memoirs and biographies can inspire, motivate, and enlighten readers of all ages. For teenagers, reading about the lives of others can help them navigate their own challenges and provide valuable insights into the world around them. Here are 12 unforgettable memoirs and biographies that every teen should read.

1. ‘I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban’ by Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai’s extraordinary journey to become the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient will inspire teens who are fighting for education, gender equality, and human rights.

2. ‘Becoming’ by Michelle Obama

In her engaging memoir, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares her experiences growing up in Chicago, her struggles as a working mother, and her time in the White House.

3. ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank

Anne Frank’s diary offers an intimate account of her experiences as a Jewish teenager hiding from the Nazis during World War II—and serves as a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

4. ‘Brown Girl Dreaming’ by Jacqueline Woodson

This beautifully written memoir told in verse delves into Woodson’s childhood as an African American girl growing up in South Carolina and New York during the Civil Rights Movement.

5. ‘March Trilogy’ by John Lewis

Congressman John Lewis’s graphic novel trilogy details his critical role in the Civil Rights Movement, offering readers an accessible glimpse into this essential part of American history.

6. ‘Educated: A Memoir’ by Tara Westover

Tara Westover’s incredible story of overcoming extreme circumstances to pursue an education at Cambridge University highlights the power of persistence and determination.

7. ‘Outliers: The Story of Success’ by Malcolm Gladwell

This thought-provoking book investigates the factors that contribute to high levels of success, giving teens an opportunity to reflect on their own paths toward achievement.

8. ‘Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood’ by Trevor Noah

In this powerful memoir, comedian Trevor Noah shares emotional and funny stories from his upbringing in South Africa, addressing issues of race, culture, and identity.

9. ‘Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China’ by Jung Chang

This captivating family history spans three generations of Chinese women living through war, revolution, and political upheaval—opening readers’ eyes to a lesser-known chapter of 20th-century history.

10. ‘Into the Wild’ by Jon Krakauer

Teens will be moved by Jon Krakauer’s account of Chris McCandless’s ill-fated wilderness adventure, which explores themes of self-discovery and the pursuit of a meaningful life.

11. ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson’s illuminating biography delves into the life and achievements of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, offering teens valuable lessons about innovation, creativity, and leadership.

12. ‘The Allure of Premeditated Murder: Why Some People Plan to Kill’ by Jack Levin

This insightful book examines the motivations behind premeditated murder, helping teens better understand human behavior and the potential consequences of their actions.

Conclusion:

These 12 memoirs and biographies for teens cover an array of subjects—from individual struggles to societal issues—that can inspire readers to learn from others’ experiences. By studying these gripping true stories, teenagers can not only broaden their horizons but also gain strength and knowledge for their own journeys ahead.

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Best Memoirs for Kids and Teens

Kids crave authentic stories, and what's more authentic than the story of a life written by the person who lived it? These compelling memoirs and autobiographies reveal the challenges and triumphs of ordinary people, often in extraordinary situations -- from war, poverty, and physical disability to athletic stardom, social activism, and the search for love and acceptance. These books can help build empathy, make kids feel less alone in their struggle, and inspire young readers as they see what people went through to get where they are. For more stories of kids' lives, check out our Coming-of-Age Books and Books with Stories of Extraordinary Women .

Just Help! How to Build a Better World

Inspiring portrait of service urges kids to give back.

My Journey to the Stars

Exciting memoir rockets future astronauts to space.

Chasing Space Young Reader's Edition

Stellar memoir of an elite athlete and astronaut's journey.

Mo'ne Davis: Remember My Name: My Story from First Pitch to Game Changer

Inspirational memoir of Little League history maker.

Real Friends

Painfully honest, hopeful memoir of coping with frenemies.

Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'round: My Story of the Making of Martin Luther King Day

Lyrical memoir in verse traces fight for MLK Day.

Charming, funny comics memoir of growing up deaf.

Just Pretend

Making fantasy fiction helps tween cope in heartfelt memoir.

Funny, moving memoir is great for younger comics fans.

This Is Your Time

Powerful true tale of girl who desegregated school in 1960.

A First Time for Everything

Delightful details of the author's first Euro trip and kiss.

Be Prepared

Smart, funny account of summer camp discomfort.

Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court

Thoughtful memoir by basketball star and civil rights icon.

The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor

Inspiring memoir teaches kids to dream big.

Brown Girl Dreaming

Captivating poems depict coming-of-age in tumultuous 1960s.

Colin Kaepernick: Change the Game

Super Bowl QB's early years make engaging memoir.

The Dumbest Idea Ever

Funny, affecting memoir of growing up crazy for comics.

Grace, Gold & Glory: My Leap of Faith

Inspiring autobiography by Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas.

I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World

Inspiring memoir of teen Nobel laureate shot by Taliban.

Permanent Record: Young Readers Edition

Exciting spy memoir hits digital privacy, exposing secrets.

Other great lists from our editors

• Biographies
• Books with Stories of Extraordinary Women
• How to Raise a Reader
• How to Raise an Optimistic Human in a Pessimistic World

The 21 most captivating biographies of all time

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• Biographies illuminate pivotal times and people in history. 
• The biography books on this list are heavily researched and fascinating stories.
• Want more books? Check out the best classics , historical fiction books , and new releases.

For centuries, books have allowed readers to be whisked away to magical lands, romantic beaches, and historical events. Biographies take readers through time to a single, remarkable life memorialized in gripping, dramatic, or emotional stories. They give us the rare opportunity to understand our heroes — or even just someone we would never otherwise know. 

To create this list, I chose biographies that were highly researched, entertainingly written, and offer a fully encompassing lens of a person whose story is important to know in 2021. 

The 21 best biographies of all time:

The biography of a beloved supreme court justice.

"Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.25

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon who spent her life fighting for gender equality and civil rights in the legal system. This is an inspirational biography that follows her triumphs and struggles, dissents, and quotes, packaged with chapters titled after Notorious B.I.G. tracks — a nod to the many memes memorializing Ginsburg as an iconic dissident. 

The startlingly true biography of a previously unknown woman

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $8.06

Henrietta was a poor tobacco farmer, whose "immortal" cells have been used to develop the polio vaccine, study cancer, and even test the effects of an atomic bomb — despite being taken from her without her knowledge or consent. This biography traverses the unethical experiments on African Americans, the devastation of Henrietta Lacks' family, and the multimillion-dollar industry launched by the cells of a woman who lies somewhere in an unmarked grave.

The poignant biography of an atomic bomb survivor

"A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai: Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb" by Paul Glynn, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.51

Takashi Nagai was a survivor of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. A renowned scientist and spiritual man, Nagai continued to live in his ruined city after the attack, suffering from leukemia while physically and spiritually helping his community heal. Takashi Nagai's life was dedicated to selfless service and his story is a deeply moving one of suffering, forgiveness, and survival.

The highly researched biography of Malcolm X

"The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X" by Les Payne and Tamara Payne, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $18.99

Written by the investigative journalist Les Payne and finished by his daughter after his passing, Malcolm X's biography "The Dead are Arising" was written and researched over 30 years. This National Book Award and Pulitzer-winning biography uses vignettes to create an accurate, detailed, and gripping portrayal of the revolutionary minister and famous human rights activist. 

The remarkable biography of an Indigenous war leader

"The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History" by Joseph M. Marshall III, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $14.99 

Crazy Horse was a legendary Lakota war leader, most famous for his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn where Indigenous people defeated Custer's cavalry. A descendant of Crazy Horse's community, Joseph M. Marshall III drew from research and oral traditions that have rarely been shared but offer a powerful and culturally rich story of this acclaimed Lakota hero.

The captivating biography about the cofounder of Apple

"Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $16.75

Steve Jobs is a cofounder of Apple whose inventiveness reimagined technology and creativity in the 21st century. Water Issacson draws from 40 interviews with Steve Jobs, as well as interviews with over 100 of his family members and friends to create an encompassing and fascinating portrait of such an influential man.

The shocking biography of a woman committed to an insane asylum

"The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear" by Kate Moore, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $22.49

This biography is about Elizabeth Packard, a woman who was committed to an asylum in 1860 by her husband for being an outspoken woman and wife. Her story illuminates the conditions inside the hospital and the sinister ways of caretakers, an unfortunately true history that reflects the abuses suffered by many women of the time.

The defining biography of a formerly enslaved man

"Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $12.79

50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States, Cudjo Lewis was captured, enslaved, and transported to the US. In 1931, the author spent three months with Cudjo learning the details of his life beginning in Africa, crossing the Middle Passage, and his years enslaved before the Civil War. This biography offers a first-hand account of this unspoken piece of painful history.

The biography of a famous Mexican painter

"Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo" by Hayden Herrera, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $24.89

Filled with a wealth of her life experiences, this biography of Frida Kahlo conveys her intelligence, strength, and artistry in a cohesive timeline. The book spans her childhood during the Mexican Revolution, the terrible accident that changed her life, and her passionate relationships, all while intertwining her paintings and their histories through her story.

The exciting biography of Susan Sontag

"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $20.24

Susan Sontag was a 20th-century writer, essayist, and cultural icon with a dark reputation. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, archived works, and photographs, this biography extends across Sontag's entire life while reading like an emotional and exciting literary drama.

The biography that inspired a hit musical

"Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.04

The inspiration for the similarly titled Broadway musical, this comprehensive biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton aims to tell the story of his decisions, sacrifice, and patriotism that led to many political and economic effects we still see today. In this history, readers encounter Hamilton's childhood friends, his highly public affair, and his dreams of American prosperity. 

The award-winning biography of an artistically influential man

"The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke" by Jeffrey C Stewart, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $25.71

Alain Locke was a writer, artist, and theorist who is known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Outlining his personal and private life, Alain Locke's biography is a blooming image of his art, his influences, and the far-reaching ways he promoted African American artistic and literary creations.

The remarkable biography of Ida B. Wells

"Ida: A Sword Among Lions" by Paula J. Giddings, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.99

This award-winning biography of Ida B. Wells is adored for its ability to celebrate Ida's crusade of activism and simultaneously highlight the racially driven abuses legally suffered by Black women in America during her lifetime. Ida traveled the country, exposing and opposing lynchings by reporting on the horrific acts and telling the stories of victims' communities and families. 

The tumultuous biography that radiates queer hope

"The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" by Randy Shilts, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $11.80

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official in California who was assassinated after 11 months in office. Harvey's inspirational biography is set against the rise of LGBTQIA+ activism in the 1970s, telling not only Harvey Milk's story but that of hope and perseverance in the queer community. 

The biography of a determined young woman

"Obachan: A Young Girl's Struggle for Freedom in Twentieth-Century Japan" by Tani Hanes, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $9.99

Written by her granddaughter, this biography of Mitsuko Hanamura is an amazing journey of an extraordinary and strong young woman. In 1929, Mitsuko was sent away to live with relatives at 13 and, at 15, forced into labor to help her family pay their debts. Determined to gain an education as well as her independence, Mitsuko's story is inspirational and emotional as she perseveres against abuse. 

The biography of an undocumented mother

"The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story" by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $18.40

Born in Mexico and growing up undocumented in Arizona, Aida Hernandez was a teen mother who dreamed of moving to New York. After being deported and separated from her child, Aida found herself back in Mexico, fighting to return to the United States and reunite with her son. This suspenseful biography follows Aida through immigration courts and detention centers on her determined journey that illuminates the flaws of the United States' immigration and justice systems.

The astounding biography of an inspiring woman

"The Black Rose: The Dramatic Story of Madam C.J. Walker, America's First Black Female Millionaire" by Tananarive Due, available on Amazon for $19

Madam C.J. Walker is most well-known as the first Black female millionaire, though she was also a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and born to former slaves in Louisiana. Researched and outlined by famous writer Alex Haley before his death, the book was written by author Tananarive Due, who brings Haley's work to life in this fascinating biography of an outstanding American pioneer.

A biography of the long-buried memories of a Hiroshima survivor

"Surviving Hiroshima: A Young Woman's Story" by Anthony Drago and Douglas Wellman, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.59

When Kaleria Palichikoff was a child, her family fled Russia for the safety of Japan until the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima when she was 22 years old. Struggling to survive in the wake of unimaginable devastation, Kaleria set out to help victims and treat the effects of radiation. As one of the few English-speaking survivors, Kaleria was interviewed extensively by the US Army and was finally able to make a new life for herself in America after the war.

A shocking biography of survival during World War II

"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival" by Laura Hillenbrand, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $8.69

During World War II, Louis Zamperini was a lieutenant bombardier who crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1943. Struggling to stay alive, Zamperini pulled himself to a life raft where he would face great trials of starvation, sharks, and enemy aircraft. This biography creates an image of Louis from boyhood to his military service and depicts a historical account of atrocities during World War II.  

The comprehensive biography of an infamous leader

"Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.39

Mao was a Chinese leader, a founder of the People's Republic of China, and a nearly 30-year chairman of the Chinese Communist Party until his death in 1976. Known as a highly controversial figure who would stop at very little in his plight to rule the world, the author spent nearly 10 years painstakingly researching and uncovering the painful truths surrounding his political rule.

The emotional biography of a Syrian refugee

"A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival" by Melissa Fleming, available on Amazon and Bookshop from $15.33

When Syrian refugee Doaa met Bassem, they decided to flee Egypt for Europe, becoming two of thousands seeking refuge and making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. After four days at sea, their ship was attacked and sank, leaving Doaa struggling to survive with two small children clinging to her and only a small inflation device around her wrist. This is an emotional biography about Doaa's strength and her dangerous and deadly journey towards freedom.

• Main content

The 50 Best Biographies of All Time

Think you know the full and complete story about George Washington, Steve Jobs, or Joan of Arc? Think again.

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Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to “frustrate as utterly as possible the postmortem exploiter” by destroying his personal letters and journals. And one of our greatest living writers, Hermione Lee, once compared biographies to autopsies that add “a new terror to death”—the potential muddying of someone’s legacy when their life is held up to the scrutiny of investigation.

Why do we read so many books about the lives and deaths of strangers, as told by second-hand and third-hand sources? Is it merely our love for gossip, or are we trying to understand ourselves through the triumphs and failures of others?

To keep this list from blossoming into hundreds of titles, we only included books currently in print and translated into English. We also limited it to one book per author, and one book per subject. In ranked order, here are the best biographies of all time.

Crown The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss

You’re probably familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo , the 1844 revenge novel by Alexandre Dumas. But did you know it was based on the life of Dumas’s father, the mixed-race General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, son of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave? Thanks to Reiss’s masterful pacing and plotting, this rip-roaring biography of Thomas-Alexandre reads more like an adventure novel than a work of nonfiction. The Black Count won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2013, and it’s only a matter of time before a filmmaker turns it into a big-screen blockbuster.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, by Craig Brown

Few biographies are as genuinely fun to read as this barnburner from the irreverent English critic Craig Brown. Princess Margaret may have been everyone’s favorite character from Netflix’s The Crown , but Brown’s eye for ostentatious details and revelatory insights will help you see why everyone in the 1950s—from Pablo Picasso and Gore Vidal to Peter Sellers and Andy Warhol—was obsessed with her. When book critic Parul Sehgal says that she “ripped through the book with the avidity of Margaret attacking her morning vodka and orange juice,” you know you’re in for a treat.

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller, by Alec Nevala-Lee

If you want to feel optimistic about the future again, look no further than this brilliant biography of Buckminster Fuller, the “modern Leonardo da Vinci” of the 1960s and 1970s who came up with the idea of a “Spaceship Earth” and inspired Silicon Valley’s belief that technology could be a global force for good (while earning plenty of critics who found his ideas impractical). Alec Nevala-Lee’s writing is as serene and precise as one of Fuller’s geodesic domes, and his research into never-before-seen documents makes this a genuinely groundbreaking book full of surprises.

Free Press Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, by Robin D.G. Kelley

The late American jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk has been so heavily mythologized that it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. But Robin D. G. Kelley’s biography is an essential book for jazz fans looking to understand the man behind the myths. Monk’s family provided Kelley with full access to their archives, resulting in chapter after chapter of fascinating details, from his birth in small-town North Carolina to his death across the Hudson from Manhattan.

University of Chicago Press Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, by Meryle Secrest

There are dozens of books about America’s most celebrated architect, but Secrest’s 1998 biography is still the most fun to read. For one, she doesn’t shy away from the fact that Wright could be an absolute monster, even to his own friends and family. Secondly, her research into more than 100,000 letters, as well as interviews with nearly every surviving person who knew Wright, makes this book a one-of-a-kind look at how Wright’s personal life influenced his architecture.

Ralph Ellison: A Biography, by Arnold Rampersad

Ralph Ellison’s landmark novel, Invisible Man , is about a Black man who faced systemic racism in the Deep South during his youth, then migrated to New York, only to find oppression of a slightly different kind. What makes Arnold Rampersand’s honest and insightful biography of Ellison so compelling is how he connects the dots between Invisible Man and Ellison’s own journey from small-town Oklahoma to New York’s literary scene during the Harlem Renaissance.

Oscar Wilde: A Life, by Matthew Sturgis

Now remembered for his 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde was one of the most fascinating men of the fin-de-siècle thanks to his poems, plays, and some of the earliest reported “celebrity trials.” Sturgis’s scintillating biography is the most encyclopedic chronicle of Wilde’s life to date, thanks to new research into his personal notebooks and a full transcript of his libel trial.

Beacon Press A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks, by Angela Jackson

The poet Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, but because she spent most of her life in Chicago instead of New York, she hasn’t been studied or celebrated as often as her peers in the Harlem Renaissance. Luckily, Angela Jackson’s biography is full of new details about Brooks’s personal life, and how it influenced her poetry across five decades.

Atria Books Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, by Dana Stevens

Was Buster Keaton the most influential filmmaker of the first half of the twentieth century? Dana Stevens makes a compelling case in this dazzling mix of biography, essays, and cultural history. Much like Keaton’s filmography, Stevens playfully jumps from genre to genre in an endlessly entertaining way, while illuminating how Keaton’s influence on film and television continues to this day.

Algonquin Books Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation, by Dean Jobb

Dean Jobb is a master of narrative nonfiction on par with Erik Larsen, author of The Devil in the White City . Jobb’s biography of Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of the Jazz Age, is among the few great biographies that read like a thriller. Set in Chicago during the 1880s through the 1920s, it’s also filled with sumptuous period details, from lakeside mansions to streets choked with Model Ts.

Vintage Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, by Hermione Lee

Hermione Lee’s biographies of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton could easily have made this list. But her book about a less famous person—Penelope Fitzgerald, the English novelist who wrote The Bookshop, The Blue Flower , and The Beginning of Spring —might be her best yet. At just over 500 pages, it’s considerably shorter than those other biographies, partially because Fitzgerald’s life wasn’t nearly as well documented. But Lee’s conciseness is exactly what makes this book a more enjoyable read, along with the thrilling feeling that she’s uncovering a new story literary historians haven’t already explored.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

Many biographers have written about Sylvia Plath, often drawing parallels between her poetry and her death by suicide at the age of thirty. But in this startling book, Plath isn’t wholly defined by her tragedy, and Heather Clark’s craftsmanship as a writer makes it a joy to read. It’s also the most comprehensive account of Plath’s final year yet put to paper, with new information that will change the way you think of her life, poetry, and death.

Pontius Pilate, by Ann Wroe

Compared to most biography subjects, there isn’t much surviving documentation about the life of Pontius Pilate, the Judaean governor who ordered the execution of the historical Jesus in the first century AD. But Ann Wroe leans into all that uncertainty in her groundbreaking book, making for a fascinating mix of research and informed speculation that often feels like reading a really good historical novel.

Brand: History Book Club Bolívar: American Liberator, by Marie Arana

In the early nineteenth century, Simón Bolívar led six modern countries—Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela—to independence from the Spanish Empire. In this rousing work of biography and geopolitical history, Marie Arana deftly chronicles his epic life with propulsive prose, including a killer first sentence: “They heard him before they saw him: the sound of hooves striking the earth, steady as a heartbeat, urgent as a revolution.”

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang

Ever read a biography of a fictional character? In the 1930s and 1940s, Charlie Chan came to popularity as a Chinese American police detective in Earl Derr Biggers’s mystery novels and their big-screen adaptations. In writing this book, Yunte Huang became something of a detective himself to track down the real-life inspiration for the character, a Hawaiian cop named Chang Apana born shortly after the Civil War. The result is an astute blend between biography and cultural criticism as Huang analyzes how Chan served as a crucial counterpoint to stereotypical Chinese villains in early Hollywood.

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

Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the most fascinating women of the twentieth century—an openly bisexual poet, playwright, and feminist icon who helped make Greenwich Village a cultural bohemia in the 1920s. With a knack for torrid details and creative insights, Nancy Milford successfully captures what made Millay so irresistible—right down to her voice, “an instrument of seduction” that captivated men and women alike.

Simon & Schuster Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

Few people have the luxury of choosing their own biographers, but that’s exactly what the late co-founder of Apple did when he tapped Walter Isaacson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. Adapted for the big screen by Aaron Sorkin in 2015, Steve Jobs is full of plot twists and suspense thanks to a mind-blowing amount of research on the part of Isaacson, who interviewed Jobs more than forty times and spoke with just about everyone who’d ever come into contact with him.

Brand: Random House Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), by Stacy Schiff

The Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Without my wife, I wouldn’t have written a single novel.” And while Stacy Schiff’s biography of Cleopatra could also easily make this list, her telling of Véra Nabokova’s life in Russia, Europe, and the United States is revolutionary for finally bringing Véra out of her husband’s shadow. It’s also one of the most romantic biographies you’ll ever read, with some truly unforgettable images, like Vera’s habit of carrying a handgun to protect Vladimir on butterfly-hunting excursions.

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

We know what you’re thinking. Who needs another book about Shakespeare?! But Greenblatt’s masterful biography is like traveling back in time to see firsthand how a small-town Englishman became the greatest writer of all time. Like Wroe’s biography of Pontius Pilate, there’s plenty of speculation here, as there are very few surviving records of Shakespeare’s daily life, but Greenblatt’s best trick is the way he pulls details from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets to construct a compelling narrative.

Crown Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

When Kiese Laymon calls a book a “literary miracle,” you pay attention. James Baldwin’s legacy has enjoyed something of a revival over the last few years thanks to films like I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk , as well as books like Glaude’s new biography. It’s genuinely a bit of a miracle how he manages to combine the story of Baldwin’s life with interpretations of Baldwin’s work—as well as Glaude’s own story of discovering, resisting, and rediscovering Baldwin’s books throughout his life.

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30 great biographies to bury yourself in.

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Jonathan Eig's "King: A Life," a biography of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was ... [+] recognized as one of the best books of 2023.

Biographies offer a chance to explore the decision-making and circumstances around some of history’s most fascinating events. The best biography books offer fresh insights into familiar situations that you may have learned about in history class but never explored in-depth. You can learn the unexpected reasoning behind why a president went with option A instead of option B, or how a scientist’s early failures led to a groundbreaking discovery. Biographies often chronicle the lives of famous people, but sometimes they focus on people who never attained celebrity status despite doing extraordinary things. This list of the top biographies includes people of all backgrounds who can teach us things about life, passion, perseverance and more.

Top Biography Books

Biographies are different from autobiographies. A biography is an account of someone’s life written by someone else. An autobiography is an account of someone’s life that they write themselves. For instance, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was written by the Founding Father. But more than two centuries later, Walter Isaacson wrote a biography of Benjamin Franklin.

Some of the most popular and well-known biographies include Isaacson’s recent book about Elon Musk, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton , which inspired the musical about the former Secretary of the Treasury, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, about a woman who changed the course of modern medicine. The biographies on this list were selected based on critical acclaim, sales and impact on popular culture.

Cincinnati Reds great Pete Rose is the subject of one of the best biographies, a new one called ... [+] "Charlie Hustle."

30. Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball by Keith O'Brien (2024)

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The newest book on the list, this New York Times bestseller chronicles the highs and lows of baseball’s all-time hits leader, who was banned from the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball. Keith O’Brien looks at FBI records and press coverage to build a comprehensive portrait of the former Cincinnati Reds star.

This book is best for sports fans who want to go beyond Xs and Os. Keith O’Brien’s Charlie Hustle is available from Penguin Random House .

29. The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore (2021)

Kate Moore ( Radium Girls ) uncovers the story of Elizabeth Packard, a woman confined to a mental asylum in the 19 th century for daring to have opinions and push back against social norms by giving a voice to other women like herself. It earned a GoodReads Choice nomination for Best History & Biography.

This book is best for history buffs looking for lesser-known stories. Kate Moore’s The Woman They Could Not Silence is available from Sourcebooks .

28. The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimura (2021)

Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female physician in the United States in 1849—and perhaps more remarkably, her sister, Emily, soon became the second. This New York Times bestseller traces their journeys and the founding of the famed New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first U.S. hospital run by women.

This book is best for anyone interested in medical history, science pioneers or sibling rivarly. Janice P. Nimura ’s The Doctors Blackwell is available from W.W. Norton .

27. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005)

There have been many biographies of the 16 th president, but this stands out for presenting his story based around his cabinet, which (as the title suggests) he stacked with his political enemies. Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin presents the story, which inspired Steven Spielberg ’s Oscar-winning movie Lincoln , like a fast-paced novel.

This book is best for those who enjoy the psychology of rivalries. Doris Kearns Goodwin ’s Team of Rivals is available from Simon & Schuster .

Author Doris Kearns Goodwin's Abraham Lincoln biography is one of the best reads about the 16th ... [+] president.

26. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera (2002)

Arguably the most famous Mexican woman of her (or any) generation, Frida Kahlo has inspired many with her art. This biography in turn explores her own inspirations and influences, adding greater depth to her well-known romance with Diego Rivera and other stories. The San Francisco Chronicle said the book made Kahlo “fully human.”

This book is best for those who appreciate art or want to learn more about Mexican history. Hayden Herrera ’s Frida is available from HarperCollins .

25. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2001)

Young mother Henrietta Lacks died of cancer in 1951, but her “immortal cells” live on today, fueling countless medical advances. Yet her family didn’t learn of her contributions until two decades later and didn’t profit from them. Journalist Rebecca Skloot uncovers the racism and disturbing history of discrimination within medicine while telling a human story.

This book is best for anyone who watched the Oprah Winfrey film about Lacks on HBO and wants to learn more. Rebecca Skloot ’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is available from Penguin Random House .

A painting of Henrietta Lacks hangs in the entryway of the Henrietta Lacks Community Center at Lyon ... [+] Homes in the Turner Station neighborhood of Baltimore. She is the subject of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," one of the best biographies.

24. Becoming Dr. Seuss by Brian Jay Jones (2019)

Rhyming isn’t easy, but Dr. Seuss made it look breezy. In this comprehensive look at the former advertising man’s life, Brian Jay Jones traces Theodor Geisel’s career trajectory to political cartoonist and author, as well as discussing some of the views that have received criticism in recent years.

This book is best for anyone who ever read a Dr. Seuss book, which is everyone. Brian Jay Jones ’ Becoming Dr. Seuss is available from Penguin Random House .

23. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (2011)

From his extreme diets to his trademark black turtlenecks, Steve Jobs was a man like none other, for better or worse. Esteemed biographer Walter Isaacson captures the nuance of his personality and the genius that drove him to create companies that made things people feel passionately about. The bestselling book became a 2015 movie.

This book is best for anyone who loves or hates Apple products. Walter Isaacson ’s Steve Jobs is available from Simon & Schuster .

Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the subject of an acclaimed biography by Walter Isaacson.

22. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (2021)

This National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography made the best books of the year list for Time , The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times . It pulls back the curtain on the women who led the largest resistance groups against the Nazis in Germany, including the author’s great-great aunt.

This book is best for those looking for a new perspective on World War II. Rebecca Donner ’s All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days is available from Little, Brown & Co .

21. Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band by Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni, illustrated by Thibault Balahy (2020)

At what price does commercial success come? That question haunted musicians Pat and Lolly Vegas, Native American brothers who influenced stars like Jimi Hendrix and the Doors, as they rose to fame with the Redbone hit “Come and Get Your Love.” But they later shifted their focus to the American Indian Movement.

This book is best for fans of the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack and those looking for a different take on Native American history. Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni ’s Redbone is available from Penguin Random House .

20. The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (2023)

Richard Mentor Johnson, vice president under Martin Van Buren, married enslaved Black woman Julia Ann Chinn. Though he refused to give her freedom, he did give her power on his estate. The relationship, which was likely not consensual, ultimately cost him his political career, and this book details how.

This book is best for fans of presidential history looking for untold stories. Amrita Chakrabarti Myers ’ The Vice President’s Black Wife is available from University of North Carolina Press .

19. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff (2011)

Cleopatra may be the most famous woman in history, but her notoriety has overshadowed her incredible life and accomplishments. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff adds depth to her story through a thoroughly researched history that also dispels misogynistic myths about the queen of Egypt.

This book is best for anyone curious about Egyptian history or who loves the classics . Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra is available from Little, Brown & Co .

Stacy Schiff wrote an outstanding biography of Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

18. All That She Carried by Tiya Miles (2021)

This National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller chronicles a bag passed down from an enslaved woman to future generations, which becomes the starting point for this poignant and well-researched book about the generational impact of slavery.

This book is best for everyone and should be required reading to humanize topics too often glossed over in political debates. Tiya Miles ’ All That She Carried is available from Simon & Schuster .

17. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne (2011)

Quanah Parker, the biracial son of a pioneer woman who became the last Comanche chief, battled white settlers over land in the American West for decades. The book traces both his personal story (he was undefeated in battle) and the greater implications of the stealing of tribal lands.

This book is best for those looking for new stories about the Old West. S.C. Gwynne ’s Empire of the Summer Moon is available from Simon & Schuster .

16. Becoming Nicole: The inspiring story of transgender actor-activist Nicole Maines and her extraordinary family by Amy Ellis Nutt (2016)

Nicole Maines rose to fame when she became the first transgender woman to play a superhero on TV. Chronicling her journey from adoption to getting the job on Supergirl , this Amazon Editors Pick and New York Times bestseller also shows how her family changed their views on gender identity and the impact on their community.

This book is best for fans of comic books. Amy Ellis Nutt ’s Becoming Nicole is available from Penguin Random House .

Actress Nicole Maines speaks at a "Supergirl" presentation at Comic-Con International. She's the ... [+] subject of a heralded biography.

15. Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire by Julia Baird (2016)

The Victoria depicted in history books is way too dry. An Esquire and New York Times pick for best book of 2016, Victoria illuminates how the future monarch went from fifth in line for the crown to a teenage queen to a mother of nine who somehow survived eight attempts on her life.

This book is best for anyone who’s ever struggled with work-life balance. Julia Baird’s Victoria is available from Penguin Random House .

14. The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs (2021)

This remarkable book draws a line between the mothers of three of the most important Black men in American history, celebrating Black motherhood and shining a light on how they resisted Jim Crow while bringing up their sons. It was named one of Amazon's Best Biographies and Memoirs of 2021.

This book is best for parents and anyone interested in civil rights. Anna Malaika Tubbs ’ The Three Mothers is available from Macmillan .

13. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (2004)

Lin-Manuel Miranda was so inspired by this Founding Father biography that he famously wrote some of the music for Hamilton on his honeymoon. Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow follows Alexandar Hamilton from immigration to member of George Washington’s cabinet to death in a duel with his nemesis, Aaron Burr.

This book is best for fans of the Broadway show and presidential history. Ron Chernow ’s Alexander Hamilton is available from Penguin Random House .

"Hamilton" author Ron Chernow and the cast appear onstage at the opening night curtain call for ... [+] "Hamilton" at the Pantages Theatre on August 16, 2017 in Los Angeles.

12. The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography by Miriam Pawel (2014)

Pulitzer Prize winner Miriam Pawel tells the story of one of the most influential and revered U.S. labor leaders in this National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. She doesn't cover up his flaws, but she does illustrate why he was so successful while saluting his enduring humanity.

This book is best for those looking for deep dives on labor or Latine history. Miriam Pawel ’s The Crusades of Cesar Chavez is available from Macmillan .

11. Warhol by Blake Gopnik (2020)

Andy Warhol is so famous, you only need to mention his last name for instant recognition. Art critic Blake Gopnik blends understanding of Warhol’s medium with excellent research and conclusions to paint the most complete picture yet of one of the defining artists of the 20 th century.

This book is best for pop culture devotees and fans of art history. Blake Gopnik ’s Warhol is available from HarperCollins .

10. Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright (2018)

The Financial Times and Fortune tabbed this one of the best books of 2018 for telling the unlikeliest of stories: How a Malaysian MBA used Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions to steal billions of dollars he used to pay for real estate, parties—and even the making of The Wolf of Wall Street .

This book is best for Hollywood and movie lovers. Bradley Hope and Tom Wright’s Billion Dollar Whale is available from Hachette Books .

9. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis (2013)

There’s so much more to Rosa Parks’ story than one day on a bus in Montgomery. Jeanne Theoharis takes a comprehensive look at her six decades of activism and why she wasn’t the “accidental catalyst” the history books have made her sound like, regaining Parks her agency.

This book is best for those who know how the Montgomery Bus Boycott began but don’t know about Parks’ earlier involvement in organizing. Jeanne Theoharis’ The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is available from Penguin Random House .

8. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (2005)

The inspiration behind Christopher Nolan ’s summer’s blockbuster film Oppenheimer won the Pulitzer Prize and hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. It tells J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life story, with a particular focus on the bomb and how it played into the Cold War.

This book is best for anyone who saw the movie and wants to know more. Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus is available from Penguin Random House .

"Oppenheimer" cast members Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh. The movie is ... [+] based on the prize-winning biography.

7. Self Made: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Lelia Bundles (2002)

Madam C.J. Walker, her enslaved parents’ first freeborn child, became one of the wealthiest women of her time. Entirely self-made, she used wealth gained from her cosmetics empire caring for Black hair to help uplift other women and connect with civil rights leaders. The author is Walker’s great-great granddaughter.

This book is best for people obsessed with the Forbes billionaire lists. A’Lelia Bundles ’ Self Made (originally titled On Her Own Ground) is available from Simon & Schuster .

6. Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins—and WWII Heroes by Tim Brady (2021)

World War II is a hugely popular literary period, and here’s another worthy biography from that era, following the Nazi resistance efforts of Dutch teens Hannie Schaft and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen. They saved countless children and Jews from concentration camps and even assassinated German soldiers.

This book is best for World War II aficionados and fans of hidden history. Tim Brady’s Three Ordinary Girls is available from Kensington Books .

5. Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly (2018)

This highly rated (4.8/5 stars on Amazon) book incorporates information gleaned from more than 100 interviews, which helped Polly piece together scenes from Lee’s childhood in Hong Kong and the challenges he faced from racism in Hollywood. It also investigates his shocking and still mysterious death.

This book is best for fans of martial arts or who want to know what it was like to be Asian in Hollywood decades ago. Matthew Polly ’s Bruce Lee is available from Simon & Schuster .

Bruce Lee from the 1972 film "The Way of the Dragon." He is the subject of Matthew Polly's ... [+] biography.

4. Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit (2021)

This finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award explores author George Orwell’s career from a unique angle: looking at his passion for gardening. Rebecca Solnit ties his devotion to his plants to his work as a writer and an antifascist. It presents him in a different light than past biographies.

This book is best for gardeners and those who’ve read 1984 . Rebecca Solnit ’s Orwell’s Roses is available from Penguin Random House .

3. Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth by John Szwed (2015)

Billie Holiday’s story is too often simplified to a rags-to-riches tale focusing on her struggles pre- and post-fame. But her influence, accomplishments and enduring power are far too grand to tokenize. This biography focuses on her music, allowing jazz scholar John Szwed to illustrate what made her so spectacular.

This book is best for jazz and music fans. John Szwed ’s Billie Holiday is available from Penguin Random House .

2. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe (2023)

The Sacklers were once revered for their philanthropy, but the opioid epidemic unmasked how they sold and marketed a painkiller that catalyzed the crisis. This New York Times bestseller traces three generations of the family and their insistence on downplaying the addictiveness of opioids. It asks and answers how they avoided accountability.

This book is best for fans of Hulu’s Dopesick and anyone looking for more information about the opioid crisis. Patrick Radden Keefe ’s Empire of Pain is available from Penguin Random House .

Tufts employee Gabe Ryan removes letters from signage featuring the Sackler family name at the Tufts ... [+] building. The biography "Empire of Pain" details what led to the Sacklers' fall from grace.

1. King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (2023)

Hailed by the New Yorker , Washington Post , Time and Chicago Tribune as one of the best books of 2023, King is a definitive biography of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It’s also the first to rely on recently declassified FBI files, giving greater depth to the narrative and this unique American story.

This book is best for those who want to go beyond the “I Have a Dream” speech. Jonathan Eig ’s King is available from Macmillan .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the most entertaining biographies.

The most entertaining biographies will teach lessons and impart wisdom while also keeping you on the edge of your seat, anticipating the next development in a storied life. Famed pop culture figures and entertainers make great subjects. 

For an in-depth and fast-paced look at one of our most celebrated jurists, check out 2018’s  Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron de Hart. If you want laughs and a behind-the-scenes peek at a seminal variety show, try David Bianculli’s 2010 book The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour . And to lose yourself in a dishy, reads-like-a-novel bio of the ultimate girlboss, try Marisa Meltzer’s 2023 Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier .

What Are The Best Professional Biographies?

The best professional biographies make connections between the habits and hopes of dreamers and their eventual success. They often provide a blueprint for success that readers can adopt for their own lives. 

To learn how to build a truly impressive empire, read Neal Gabler’s 2006  Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination . Another American legend is the subject of T.J. Stiles’ 2010 National Book Award winner The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt , which is as much about capitalism as Vanderbilt. And in 2016’s Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race , Margot Lee Shetterly shows how Black women professionals were discriminated against at NASA—but still helped land a man on the moon. 

What Are The Best Presidential Biographies?

The best presidential biographies reveal never-before-known details about famous leaders’ lives. It can be challenging to dig up something new but so rewarding because it helps our understanding of how these men governed and led. 

Arguably the best presidential biography is Robert Caro’s portrait of Lyndon B. Johnson, starting with 1990’s  The Path to Power , which traces LBJ’s journey from early childhood to the start of his political career. An enduring book is Edmund Morris’ acclaimed 1979 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt , which paints a full picture of a complicated man. And 2017’s  The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur by Scott S. Greenberger shows that even a long-forgotten president still has influence and value. 

Bottom Line

Biographies offer an escape into someone else’s story, giving you the chance to see why they made their decisions and second-guess them if you like. Whether you prefer biographies focused on history, pop culture or science, you can find a book you’ll love on this list.

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Our expert librarians selected the year's best books for kids, teens, and adults. Explore titles in accessible formats , and learn more about our 2023 picks .

Best Books for Teens 2023

Filter results below, 50 books found, akane-banashi, vol. 1.

Illustrated by Takamasa Moue | When Akane's father is forbidden to become a rakugoka (Japanese storyteller), she decides to become one herself to avenge her father's humilation.

Alonda channels her professional wrestler persona, Alondra, with friends Spider, Pretzel, and King during a fateful summer in Coney Island.

America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History

A non-linear, visual portrayal of American history through photography and collage. Explore little-known facts that are rarely talked about in schools today.

Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything

When Bianca Torre witnesses the murder of their next door neighbor, they find themselves caught up in a conspiracy they never could have imagined.

A Bright Heart

After her murder by the fiance she helped become king, Mingshin is transported two years into the past with one goal: avenge her own death.

Illustrated by Teo DuVall | Witches fighting racism, ableism, and sexism on brooms in 1930s Mississppi.

Illustrated by Rye Hickman | Isaac is struggling with his recent diagnosis of OCD. When he joins a roleplaying game with his friends, the thoughts get a little quieter and his world a little brighter. Can he convince his mother that the game is actually good for him?

Chloe and the Kaishao Boys

Chloe eagerly awaits her new start at USC, but not before her auntie and dad give her a big traditional Filipino debut to send her off, complete with matchmaking.

A Crooked Mark

Matt has a deadly job: ridding the world of those who are cursed with the devil's mark. But does he have the courage to finish the job when the marked one is also his first crush, Rae?

Dear Medusa

Alicia has been trying to swallow her trauma ever since her teacher sexually abused her. While facing constant scrutiny from her classmates, she disovers she might not be the only victim at school. Alicia’s vulnerable and fierce story unfolds in breathtaking verse.

The Fall of Whit Rivera

Whit Rivera gets diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome and learns to navigate her new life. Together with her two best friends, she plans the Fall Fest of her dreams.

Lamb is the peacemaker between her mother and brother, who have different ideas about how to survive in the Jim Crow South while Black. But her conciliatory nature leads to a friendship with a white girl that will change her family’s lives forever. CW lynching, sexual assault.

Forgive Me Not

Violetta's drunk driving kills her younger sister Viv. The grueling Trials she must now face are made all the more painful by the fact that the people Violetta wronged are her own family.

Luma Mufleh's struggle to obey and stay with her beloved Muslim family clashes with the growing self-discovery that she's a lesbian. From Jordan to America, Luma must decide what it means to be herself, and what she's willing to sacrifice for that chance.

Give Me a Sign

Lilah is hard of hearing and relies upon lipreading and hearing aids to function in daily life. When she goes to a camp for deaf and blind kids as a counselor to brush up on her ASL, she’s not expecting to make friends and find love.

Godly Heathens

Gem is having fun in high school exploring their sexuality and gender identity, but their life is completely changed when they find out that they are the reincarnation of a god from another world

Going Bicoastal

It's almost summer and Natalya must decide whether to stay in NYC, find odd jobs, and perhaps talk to the cool girl she keeps bumping into. Or take an internship in LA at her mother's marketing firm. But what if there was a way to see what happens in both timelines?

Gorgeous Gruesome Faces

After a scandal ends her career, Sunny Lee joins a K-pop workshop to reconnect with former groupmate Candie and find out what happened the night the third member of their group tragically died.

Hidden Systems

Have you ever wondered about where the things we use every day come from? This graphic nonfiction describes the history, science, and people behind the utilities that run our lives.

I'd Rather Burn than Bloom

Marisol never got along with her mother—but when she suddenly dies in a car crash, Marisol is left to contend with what it means to find peace.

In this coming-of-age graphic memoir, Lee shares her experiences with racism, mental wellness, identity, and parental dynamics with her mother. TW: Eating Disorder, Attempted Suicide

In My Feelings

Dr. Annan succinctly and thoughtfully explores universal teen emotions, unpacking the concept of emotional intelligence. In My Feelings asks readers to reconsider emotions as useful signals or messengers, not scary thoughts that need to be avoided.

Lion's Legacy

After a disagreement while filming a reaity TV show, Tenessee and his archeologist dad have a falling out. After two years of not communicating, his dad unexpectedly shows up and invites Tennessee on a new adventure.

Love's in Sight!, Vol. 1

Morio’s tough exterior usually scares people off, but since Yukiko has low vision, all she notices is the lovesick sweetheart underneath the facade.

Made of Stars

Shane and Ava lead a life of interplanetary crime. Cyrus is fresh out of military school and ready to keep the peace at all costs. But when Cyrus learns that his general has plans that would destroy the world he’s stationed on, he suddenly finds himself allied with the outlaws.

Magic Has No Borders

Edited by Sona Charaipotra, Samira Ahmed | New twists on old tales in this collection of South Asian folklore, legends, and short stories retold by contemporary authors.

The Making of Yolanda La Bruja

Unsure of what to do when the new kid is acting sketchy, Yolanda channels her Brujas Diosas to guide her. With the help of her ancestors and South Bronx community, Yolanda finds a way to protect her loved ones and stand up for what’s right. CW school shooting, gun violence.

Money Out Loud: All the Financial Stuff No One Taught Us

Illustrated by Monique Sterling | Tackle your financial fears and trauma with real conversations about money management in real life.

Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story

Sarah Myer's graphic memoir covers their childhood as a transracial adoptee growing up in the American South during the 1990s. Sarah struggles to connect with the world around them, often finding the only way to truly express themselves is through their art.

The Moon on a Rainy Night, Vol. 1

Saki learns her new classmate, Kanon, has isolated herself because she's extremely hard of hearing, but once she cracks Kanon's cold exterior, she discovers a girl she can't wait to get to know better.

The Next New Syrian Girl

Khadija is not happy when Leene, a refugee from Syria, comes to stay with her family. It only brings attention to the fact that in her mother's eyes, she is not a perfect Syrian daughter. What happens when Khadija and Leene discover their stories may not be so different?

Nigeria Jones

Nigeria has not known life outside of The Movement, a Black separatist group led by her father. When her mother disappears, Nigeria learns that she was preparing a separate life for them.

Only This Beautiful Moment

Moud has always felt more connected to his grandfather than his own father. A visit to Iran not only reveals the country's deep history, but hidden family secrets as well.

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

To protect her careless and free lifestyle, Lady Camembert takes up the guise of a man and intends to lay low in her new city. When Princess Brie of Fromage—activist and fashionista—catches her attention, their growing romance puts both of their futures at risk.

Project Nought

It's 1996 and Ren is suddenly transported 126 years into the future. He finds himself in the year 2122 as part of a time travel experiment. But what happens when the future decides it's done with him?

Promise Boys

When J.B., Ramón, and Trey find themselves as the prime suspects in the murder of their principal, they take matters into their own hands to clear their names.

The Queens of New York: A Novel

Everett, Ariel, and Jia are spending their first summer apart. Despite the miles between them, their friendship is as important as ever as they navigate racism at theater camp, grapple with unresolved grief, and balance family obligations with hopes and dreams of their own.

Tre is the star basketball player of his high school and its up to him to represent his Ojibwe rez and take his team to the state championships for the first time.

Saints of the Household

When brothers Max and Jay step in to help a classmate, the struggle turns violent, leaving them to worry about taking after their abusive father. The once inseparable Bribri American brothers look to their futures, wondering if growing up needs to mean growing apart.

Secret of the Moon Conch

A moon conch connects Sitlali, who's fleeing from Mexico to the US in 2019, and Calizto, in 1521 just before the fall of the Aztec Empire. Can their love truly change history?

Something More

Join Jessie as she navigates her first year of high school right after learning she has autism. What happens when Jessie finds herself torn between two very different boys? Will she find out the true meaning of love and friendship?

Stars in Their Eyes: A Graphic Novel

Maisie looks forward to meeting her hero, an actress who also has a lower leg amputation, at a convention. When she meets Ollie, she gets sidetracked, leading her to wonder if her day with them is what love feels like.

The Summer Hikaru Died, Vol. 1

Yoshiki's best friend, Hikaru, has just come back from a trip to the mountains. But something is not quite right. Where is the real Hikaru and why is this thing pretending to be him?

Superman: The Harvests of Youth

Following the death of a classmate attached to an online conspiracy theory group, Clark Kent looks to be the support his town needs. But when another student helps the group plot an attack on the people of Smallville, can Superman put a stop to something he can’t fight?

Their Vicious Games

Adina has lost everything after being provoked at her private, predominantly white high school. But everything changes when she's invited by the town's founding family to compete in a high-stakes contest where the winner gets their wildest dreams granted.

Those Who Saw The Sun

Listen up! This collection of interviews with some of our Black Elders sheds light on their childhoods in the Jim Crow South. Reading these oral histories reminds us that we are all connected to the past, and that it’s important to hear about experiences other than our own.

The Twenty-One

"Just look at what random teenagers can do." Twenty-one Americans aged 8 to 18 sue the Federal government for actively working against providing them with a sustainable climate.

What Stalks Among Us

A day of playing hooky leads to a waking nightmare when Sadie and Logan find themselves trapped in a never-ending, ever-changing corn maze with the belongings and bodies of those who visited before them—including those of past versions of themselves.

Where You See Yourself

Effie has spent her life battling odds as a person with a visible disability. But during her senior year, she's overloaded with discrimination, college applications... and a cute boy. How is Effie supposed to navigate these new worlds where she doesn't see herself represented?

Young Queer America: Real Stories and Faces of LGBTQ+ Youth

Hear from queer youth themselves through their collected personal essays and unfiltered photographs, coast to coast!

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The 30 best biographies to add to your reading list

Some stories involve incredible, larger-than-life characters. these are the best biographies ever written..

Writing a great biography is no easy task. The author is charged with capturing some of the most iconic and influential people on the planet, folks that often have larger than life personas. To capture that in words is a genuine challenge that the best biographers relish.

The very best biographies don't just hold a mirror up to these remarkable characters. Instead, they show us a different side of them, or just how a certain approach of philosophy fueled their game-changing ways. Biographies inform, for certain, but they entertain and inspire to no end as well.

Below, we gathered a comprehensive list of the best biographies ever written. Some of these biographies were selected because of the subject matter and others were chosen because of the biographer. It’s often said that reading biographies is the best way to gain new knowledge, so we suggest you start with these great selections. If you love history, you’ll certainly want to include these best history books to your home library.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro

The former parks commissioner of New York, Robert Moses was a man who got power, loved power, and was transformed by power. This 1,000-plus page biography could be the definitive study of power and legacy. It’s a great learning tool of mostly what not to be and who not to become.

Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

Totto-Chan is a special figure in modern Japanese culture and is on the same celebrity status level as Oprah is to us here in the United States. The book describes the childhood in pre-World War II Japan of a misunderstood girl who suffered from attention disorders and excessive energy and who later was mentored by a very special school principal who truly understood her. The book has sold more than 5 million copies in Japan.

Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith

The man who was responsible for winning World War II, twice prevented the use of nuclear weapons, and attempted to keep our soldiers out of Vietnam, all while making it look easy, is none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower. This biography is a history lesson as well as an opportunity to get inside the mind of a brilliant man.

Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson

This particular biography dates back more than 50 years, which means it was written without the worry of being politically correct or controversial, but instead focused on providing a conclusive picture of the man. Modern enough to be historically accurate, this biography details a lot of the little-known facts about Mr. Edison in addition to his accomplishments, as well as his failures.

Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went from Street Corner to Corner Office by Zach O’Malley Greenburg

Empire State of Mind is both an unofficial biography of the rap mogul Jay-Z as well as a business book. It shows how the rapper hustled his way to the top of the music industry to become one of the most powerful and influential people in music.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer

The story of the professional football player who gave up a $3 million NFL contract to join the Army Rangers after 9/11, only to die under suspicious circumstances in the hills of Afghanistan, is a book about everything that is right and wrong with the U.S. military. Pat Tillman wasn’t perfect, but he was a man we could all learn something from. His incredible story is one of bravery and selflessness -- and will forever be tied to the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Titan: The Life of John. D. Rockefeller Sr. by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow has written some of the best biographies of our time. In this 832-page biography of John. D. Rockefeller, he shares the main lessons you would take away from someone like Rockefeller, a strangely stoic, incredibly resilient, and -- despite his reputation as a robber baron -- humble and compassionate man. Most successful people get worse as they age, but Rockefeller instead became more open-minded and more generous. The biography also details his wrongdoings and permits you the opportunity to make your own judgment on Rockefeller’s character.

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

Another example of Chernow’s brilliance in biographical writing is given in his biography of George Washington. Today, we study Washington not only for his against-the-odds military victory over a superior British Army but also for his strategic vision, which is partially responsible for many of the most enduring American institutions and practices. It’s another long read of the type Chernow is famous for, but it's also a page-turner. Although it’s intimidating to look at, the reading time goes by quickly.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson has written some of the greatest biographies in contemporary literature. Our modern-day genius, Steve Jobs, will forever be remembered as the mastermind who brought us Apple. This biography shows Jobs at his best, which includes illustrations of his determination and creativity but also details the worst of him, including his tyrannical and vicious ways of running a business (and his family). From this book, you will learn to appreciate the man for the genius that he was, but it will most likely not inspire you to follow in his path.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

Most depictions show the Mongols as bloodthirsty pillagers, but in this biography, we are also shown how they introduced many progressive advances to their conquered nations. You will learn how Genghis Khan abolished torture, permitted universal religious freedom, and destroyed existing feudal systems.

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank

his five-volume retelling of the life and times of Russian literary giant Fyodor Dostoevsky is considered the best biography available on the subject. The mammoth exploration sheds light on Dostoevsky's works, ideology, and historical context. For those who are not specifically interested in the famous author, the also book paints a picture of 19th-century Russia.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvelous Works of Nature and Man by Martin Kemp

Kemp’s account of da Vinci’s life and work is considered the go-to biography of the famous Renaissance figure. This incredible book sheds light on one of the most creative figures who ever lived, guiding readers through a fully integrated account of his scientific, artistic, and technological works, as well as the life events that helped form the man that made them.

Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Leslie-Ann Jones

After the massive success of the movie recently released about rock legend Freddie Mercury and his band, Queen, you might be interested in learning more about the frontman. This biography draws from hundreds of interviews with key figures in his life to create a revealing glimpse into Mercury’s life.

Empire: The Life, Legend, and Madness of Howard Hughes by Donald Barlett

This is an epic biography of an epic man. It shows the heights of his incredible success as well as the depths of his inner struggles. Readers learn about the tough but eccentric figure in a story that details his incredible success as an aviator, film producer, and more.

Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

The brilliant mathematician, cytologist, and computer pioneer Alan Turing is beautifully depicted in this biography. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during World War II , his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s when homosexual acts were still a crime and punishable by law.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Of course, we couldn’t highlight Ron Chernow’s best works without including his biography on Alexander Hamilton , which is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical but also a work of creative genius itself. Another more than 800-page book (an ongoing theme for Chernow biographies), this book details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life, from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid affair with Maria Reynolds. If you’ve seen the musical, this book will help answer a lot of those burning questions that you may have.

Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

The focal point of this biography is not the suffering that was endured by Frida Kahlo, but instead, her artistic brilliance and her immense resolve to leave her mark on the world. Herrera’s 1983 biography of one of the most recognizable names in modern art has since become the definitive account of her life.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Recommended reading for any adventurer or explorer -- the story of Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, who hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992 only to have his remains discovered in his shelter five months later -- Into the Wild retraces his steps along the trek, attempting to discover what the young man was looking for on his journey. Krakauer delivers one of the best biography books in recent memory.

Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot into the life of Prince is largely visual. The author served as the musician’s private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. You already know the expression, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and in this case, they are worth a lot more.

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

The “Kennedy Curse” didn’t bring forth an assassination or a mysterious plane crash for Rosemary Kennedy, although her fate might have been the worst of them all. As if her botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Penned by Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of her post-lobotomy life is finally revealed.

Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is likely the most divisive U.S. president of modern times. The comprehensive biography of Trump is reported by a team of award-winning Washington Post journalists and co-authored by investigative political reporter Michael Kranish and senior editor Marc Fisher. The book gives the reader an insight into Trump, from his upbringing in Queens to his turbulent careers in real estate and entertainment to his astonishing rise as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Most are familiar with the revolutionary Mao Zedong. This carefully curated biography by Jung Chang digs deeper into the life of the "Red Emperor." You won't find these interviews and stories about the world leader in history books alone. This extensive account of the man known simply as Mao begins with a horrific statistic: He was responsible for the deaths of more than 70 million people during his regime.

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell 

Biographies often give us the stories of people we know and love, but they can also reveal new stories about people that may have been lost to history. In her bestseller, Sonia Purnell tells the story of Virginia Hall, a prolific and heroic spy from World War II who took down the Axis Powers on one leg. 

Black Boy by Richard Wright

A standard biography is usually given by a historian after years and years of research and writing, but sometimes it’s better to go straight to the source. In his memoir, Richard Wright details his life as he recalls it as a black American in the 20th century. Black Boy is a harsh, painful, beautiful, and revealing read about race in the United States -- and about a towering figure of literature. 

Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Isaacson represents the gold standard for contemporary biographers, and his tome on Leonardo da Vinci was a bestseller for a reason. Isaacson is able to show a detailed, intimate portrait of the most famous painter of all time from centuries away.

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Want to know how the biggest sports company of all time came to be? Hear it from the man himself. Phil Knight’s book takes you through how his little sneaker company in Oregon became the worldwide leader in sportswear. 

The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

One of the most famous biographies ever, The Autobiography of Malcolm X remains a classic and an important read. Malcolm X’s politics, though controversial at the time and today, is a valuable and provocative perspective that will make you reconsider how you think about America and the American Dream. 

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Long before becoming Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah lived many, many lifetimes. Born to apartheid South Africa, Noah’s story is one of perseverance and triumph, and one that he manages to make funny by some sort of magic trick. 

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

Of course, today, you know Issa Rae as the writer, actor, and star of HBO’s Insecure, but before her hit show came her webseries and book of the same name, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. Rae’s memoir wrestles with the idea of being an introvert in a world that considers Black people inherently cool.

Robin by Davie Itzkoff

One of the most beloved comedians and actors of all time, Robin Williams' passing in 2014 shook fans across generations. In his book, New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff covers the life, work, and emotions of one of the most complicated and misunderstood comedians ever. Oh captain, my captain...

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Mark Stock is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He fell into wine during the Recession and has been fixated on the stuff since. He spent years making, selling, and sipping Pinot Noir in the Dundee Hills before a full return to his journalistic roots in 2016. He's helplessly tied to European soccer, casting for trout, and grunge rock. In addition to The Manual, he writes for SevenFifty Daily , Sip Northwest , The Somm Journal , The Drake , Willamette Week , Travel Oregon , and more. He has a website and occasionally even updates it: markastock.com .

Send all editorial inquiries  HERE .

It's never too late to be a kid. Sure, technically it is, but that's your adult brain at work. With the right state of imagination and a few helpful tools, you can relive your youth.

A great way to do so is by way of our favorite kind of weapon: the fake one. Nerf guns have ruled the category for generations, with their signature soft ammo and inventive designs. Best, they don't hurt anybody involved in a shootout. They'll take you straight back to the playground, with the sound of an ice cream truck and the distance and laughter all around. It's a healthy kind of battle, one that involves lots of exercise and carefree joy. Best, you're also an adult, so if you feel like having a beer or staying out a little later when the battle is over, you can.

Shopping for the best gifts for men can at times seem like a daunting task, whether it be for a birthday, an anniversary, or any gift in between. So, we decided to help you out and lend you a hand and make gift-giving a little less stressful with a thoughtfully curated list of tried-and-true gifts suited for men. And at times, no matter how well or how long you have known someone, you just don't know where to look.

From small everyday carry items and others from the cool tech world to experiences that help you disconnect to reconnect, we offer you a gift guide for every guy on your list or some nice ways to treat yourself, too. Ahead, you will find a list of the best practical gifts for every type of guy. With that being said, here are the best gifts for men in 2023.

We're living in crazy times, especially since this whole pandemic mess started a few long years ago. With so much instability out there, it's easy to feel, well, a little uneasy. That's why it's not a bad idea to consider a few self-defense weapons to have at your disposal, just in case. You never know really know what lies ahead but you can be prepared if things do go very, very wrong.

There are many options out there, but the best of the bunch are packable, discreet, effective, and non-lethal (because you don't necessarily have to put somebody six feet under to "take them out"). Now, it's one thing to have one of these on your person and quite another to use it safely and properly. So make sure you know what you're dealing with beforehand and maybe even set up some training time with your new tool. Whether you're planing to get (intentionally) lost in the backcountry or just milling about in the city, it's not a bad idea to consider getting one of these. Here are the best self-defense weapons for protecting yourself in 2023.

The New York Times

Books | the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years, the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES JUNE 26, 2019

The New York Times’s book critics select the most outstanding memoirs published since 1969.

Click the star icon to create and share your own list of favorites or books to read.

Fierce Attachments

Vivian gornick, farrar, straus & giroux, 1987.

“I remember only the women,” Vivian Gornick writes near the start of her memoir of growing up in the Bronx tenements in the 1940s, surrounded by the blunt, brawling, yearning women of the neighborhood, chief among them her indomitable mother. “I absorbed them as I would chloroform on a cloth laid against my face. It has taken me 30 years to understand how much of them I understood.”

When Gornick’s father died suddenly, she looked in the coffin for so long that she had to be pulled away. That fearlessness suffuses this book; she stares unflinchingly at all that is hidden, difficult, strange, unresolvable in herself and others — at loneliness, sexual malice and the devouring, claustral closeness of mothers and daughters. The book is propelled by Gornick’s attempts to extricate herself from the stifling sorrow of her home — first through sex and marriage, but later, and more reliably, through the life of the mind, the “glamorous company” of ideas. It’s a portrait of the artist as she finds a language — original, allergic to euphemism and therapeutic banalities — worthy of the women that raised her. — Parul Sehgal

I love this book — even during those moments when I want to scream at Gornick, which are the times when she becomes the hypercritical, constantly disappointed woman that her mother, through her words and example, taught the author to be. There’s a clarity to this memoir that’s so brilliant it's unsettling; Gornick finds a measure of freedom in her writing and her feminist activism, but even then, she and her mother can never let each other go. —  Jennifer Szalai

Gornick’s language is so fresh and so blunt; it’s a quintessentially American voice, and a beautiful one. The confidence of her tone in “Fierce Attachments” reminds me of the Saul Bellow who wrote, in the opening lines of “The Adventures of Augie March,” “I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way.” — Dwight Garner

Buy this book

The Woman Warrior

Maxine hong kingston, alfred a. knopf, 1976.

This book is more than four decades old, but I can’t think of another memoir quite like it that has been published since. True stories, ghost stories, “talk stories” — Maxine Hong Kingston whirs them all together to produce something wild and astonishing that still asserts itself with a ruthless precision.

The American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants, Kingston navigates a bewildering journey between worlds, each one stifling yet perforated by inconsistencies. There’s the Chinese village of Kingston’s ancestors, where girls learn the song of the warrior woman while being told they are destined to become a wife and a slave. There’s the postwar California of her childhood, where she has to unlearn the “strong and bossy” voices of the Chinese women in her family in favor of an “American-feminine” whisper. There’s Mao’s revolution, which is supposed to upend the old feudal system that kept her female ancestors trapped in servitude (if they weren’t victims of infanticides as unwanted baby girls) but also imposes its own deadly cruelty, preventing her parents from returning home.

The narrative undulates, shifting between ghost world, real world and family lore. It can be deadpan and funny, too. The young Kingston resolves to become a lumberjack and a newspaper reporter. Both worthy ambitions, but I’m thankful she wrote this indelible memoir instead. — Jennifer Szalai

Alison Bechdel

Houghton mifflin harcourt, 2006.

Alison Bechdel’s beloved graphic novel is an elaborately layered account of life and artifice, family silence and revelation, springing from her father’s suicide. He was a distant man who devoted himself to the refurbishment of his sprawling Victorian home — and to a hidden erotic life involving young men. The title comes from the abbreviation of the family business — a funeral home — but it also refers to the dual funhouse portrait of father and daughter, of the author’s own queerness.

It’s a sexual and intellectual coming-of-age story that swims along literary lines, honoring the books that nourished Bechdel and her parents and seemed to speak for them: Kate Millet, Proust, Oscar Wilde, theory, poetry and literature. “Fun Home” joins that lineage, an original, mournful, intricate work of art. — Parul Sehgal

The Liars’ Club

Viking, 1995.

This incendiary memoir, about the author’s childhood in the 1960s in a small industrial town in Southeast Texas, was published in 1995 and helped start the modern memoir boom. The book deserves its reputation. You can almost say about Mary Karr’s agile prose what she says about herself at the age of 7: “I was small-boned and skinny, but more than able to make up for that with sheer meanness.”

As a girl, Karr was a serious settler of scores, willing to bite anyone who had wronged her or to climb a tree with a BB gun to take aim at an entire family. Her mother, who “fancied herself a kind of bohemian Scarlett O’Hara,” had a wild streak. She was married seven times, and was subject to psychotic episodes. Her father was an oil refinery worker, a brawling yet taciturn man who came most fully alive when telling tall stories, often in the back room of a bait shop, with a group of men called “The Liars’ Club.”

This is one of the best books ever written about growing up in America. Karr evokes the contours of her preadolescent mind — the fears, fights and petty jealousies — with extraordinary and often comic vividness. This memoir, packed with eccentrics, is beautifully eccentric in its own right. — Dwight Garner

For generations my ancestors had been strapping skillets onto their oxen and walking west. It turned out to be impossible for me to “run away” in the sense other American teenagers did. Any movement at all was taken for progress in my family.

—Mary Karr, “The Liar’s Club”

Christopher Hitchens

Twelve, 2010.

This high-spirited memoir traces the life and times of this inimitable public intellectual, who is much missed, from his childhood in Portsmouth, England, where his father was a navy man, through boarding school, his studies at Oxford and his subsequent career as a writer both in England and the United States.

Christopher Hitchens was a man of the left but unpredictable (and sometimes inscrutable) politically. “Hitch-22” demonstrates how seriously he took the things that really matter: social justice, learning, direct language, the free play of the mind, loyalty and holding public figures to high standards.

This is a vibrant book about friendships, and it will make you want to take your own more seriously. Hitchens recounts moments with friends that include Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and the poet James Fenton. There is a lot of wit here, and bawdy wordplay, and accounts of long nights spent drinking and smoking. Hitchens decided to become a student of history and politics, he writes, after the Cuban missile crisis. “If politics could force its way into my life in such a vicious and chilling manner, I felt, then I had better find out a bit more about it.” He was a force to contend with from the time he was in short pants. “I was probably insufferable,” he concedes. — Dwight Garner

Read the critics discuss the process of putting together the list.

Men We Reaped

Jesmyn ward, bloomsbury, 2013.

“Men’s bodies litter my family history,” the novelist Jesmyn Ward writes in this torrential, sorrowing tribute to five young black men she knew, including her brother, who died in the span of four years, lost to suicide, drugs or accidents. These men were devoured by her hometown, DeLisle, Miss. — called Wolf Town by its first settlers — “pinioned beneath poverty and history and racism.”

Ward tells their stories with tenderness and reverence; they live again in these pages. Their fates twine with her own — her dislocation and anguish, and later, the complicated story of her own survival, and isolation, as she is recruited to elite all-white schools. She is a writer who has metabolized the Greeks and Faulkner — their themes course through her work — and the stories of the deaths of these men join larger national narratives about rural poverty and racism. But Ward never allows her subjects to become symbolic. This work of great grief and beauty renders them individual and irreplaceable. — Parul Sehgal

Random House, 1995

It’s Vidal, so you know the gossip will be abundant, and top shelf. Scores will be settled (with Anaïs Nin, Charlton Heston, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, his mother), conquests enumerated (Jack Kerouac), choice quips dispensed. “At least I have a style,” Truman Capote once sniped at him. “Of course you do,” Vidal responded soothingly. “You stole it from Carson McCullers.”

It was a rangy life — one that took him into the military, politics, Hollywood, Broadway — and he depicts it with the silky urbanity you expect. What comes as a shock is the book’s directness and deep feeling — its innocence.

It’s a love story, at the end of the day. Vidal had a lifelong companion but remained passionately compelled by a beautiful classmate, his first paramour, Jimmie, who died at 19, shot and bayoneted while sleeping in a foxhole on Iwo Jima. He is the phantom that has haunted Vidal’s long, eventful life. “Palimpsest” is a book full of revelations.

“By choice and luck, my life has been spent reading other people’s books and making sentences for my own,” Vidal writes. Our great luck, too. — Parul Sehgal

Giving Up the Ghost

Hilary mantel, a john macrae book/henry holt & company, 2003.

As a poor Catholic girl growing up in the north of England, Hilary Mantel was an exuberant child of improbable ambition, deciding early on that she was destined to become a knight errant and would change into a boy when she turned 4.

Her mesmerizing memoir reads like an attempt to recover the girl she once was, before others began to dictate her story for her. At the age of 7, looking about the garden, she saw an apparition, perhaps the Devil. She thought it was her fault, for allowing her greedy gaze to wander. Her stepfather was bullying, judgmental, condescending; anything Mantel did seemed to anger him. As a young woman, she started to get headaches, vision problems, pains that coursed through her body, bleeding that no longer confined itself to that time of the month. The doctors told her she was insane.

The ghost she is giving up in the title isn’t her life but that of the child she might have had but never will. Years of misdiagnoses culminated in the removal of her reproductive organs, barnacled by scar tissue caused by endometriosis. Her body changed from very thin to very fat. Mantel, perhaps best known for her novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies,” writes about all of this with a fine ear and a furious intelligence, as she resurrects phantoms who “shiver between the lines.” — Jennifer Szalai

I used to think that autobiography was a form of weakness, and perhaps I still do. But I also think that, if you’re weak, it’s childish to pretend to be strong.

—Hilary Mantel, “Giving Up the Ghost”

A Childhood

Harry crews, harper & row, 1978.

This taut, powerful and deeply original memoir covers just the first six years of this gifted novelist’s life, but it is a nearly Dickensian anthology of physical and mental intensities.

Harry Crews grew up in southern Georgia, not far from the Okefenokee Swamp. His father, a tenant farmer, died of a heart attack before Crews was 2. His stepfather was a violent drunk. When Crews was 5, he fell into a boiler of water that was being used to scald pigs. His own skin came off, he writes, “like a wet glove.” When he recovered from this long and painful ordeal, he contracted polio so severely that his heels drew back tightly until they touched the backs of his thighs. He was told, incorrectly, that he would never walk again. “The world that circumscribed the people I come from,” he writes, “had so little margin for error, for bad luck, that when something went wrong, it almost always brought something else down with it.”

Crews sought solace in the Sears, Roebuck catalog, the only book in his house besides the Bible. He began his career as a writer by making up stories about the people he saw there. These humans didn’t have scars and blemishes like everyone he knew. “On their faces were looks of happiness, even joy, looks that I never saw much of in the faces of the people around me.” — Dwight Garner

Dreams From My Father

Barack obama, times books/random house, 1995.

Barack Obama’s first book was published a year before he was elected to the Illinois senate and long before his eight years in the White House under the unrelenting gaze of the public eye. “Dreams From My Father” is a moving and frank work of self-excavation — mercifully free of the kind of virtue-signaling and cheerful moralizing that makes so many politicians’ memoirs read like notes to a stump speech.

Obama recounts an upbringing that set him apart, with a tangle of roots that didn’t give him an obvious map to who he was. His father was from Kenya; his mother from Kansas. Obama himself was born in Hawaii, lived in Indonesia for a time, and was largely raised by his mother and maternal grandparents, after his father left for Harvard when Obama was 2.

“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he writes, “understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere.” To see what held his worlds together was also to learn what kept them apart. This is a book about the uses of disenchantment; the revelations are all the more astonishing for being modest and hard-won. — Jennifer Szalai

Philip Roth

Simon & schuster, 1991.

Philip Roth’s book is a Kaddish to his father, Herman Roth, who developed a benign brain tumor at 86. Surgery was not an option, and Herman became immured in his body, which “had become a terrifying escape-proof enclosure, the holding pen in a slaughterhouse.”

“Patrimony,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, is written plainly, without any flourishes — just the unbearable facts of a father’s decline, the body weakening, the vigorous mind dimming. It’s the rough stuff of devotion. Roth adopts care of his increasingly difficult father and witnesses his rapid decline, admonishing himself: “You must not forget anything.”

“He was always teaching me something,” Roth recalls of his father. He never stopped. In this book, Roth offers a moving tribute to the man but also a portrait almost breathtaking in its honesty and lack of sentimentalism, so truthful and exact that it is as much a portrait of living as dying, son as father. “He could be a pitiless realist,” Roth writes of Herman, proudly. “But I wasn’t his offspring for nothing.” — Parul Sehgal

I had seen my father’s brain, and everything and nothing was revealed. A mystery scarcely short of divine, the brain, even in the case of a retired insurance man with an eighth-grade education from Newark’s Thirteenth Avenue School.

—Philip Roth, “Patrimony”

All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw

Theodore rosengarten, alfred a. knopf, 1974.

This indelible book, an oral history from an illiterate black Alabama sharecropper, won the National Book Award in 1975, beating a lineup of instant classics that included “The Power Broker,” Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses; Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s “All the President’s Men”; Studs Terkel’s “Working”; and Robert M. Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Unlike these other books, “All God’s Dangers” has largely been forgotten. It’s time for that to change.

This book’s author, Theodore Rosengarten, was a Harvard graduate student who went to Alabama in 1968 while researching a defunct labor organization. Someone suggested he speak with Shaw, whose real name was Ned Cobb. What emerged from Cobb’s mouth was dense and tangled social history, a narrative that essentially takes us from slavery to Selma from the point of view of an unprosperous but eloquent and unbroken black man.

Reading it, you will learn more about wheat, guano, farm implements, bugs, cattle killing and mule handling than you would think possible. This is also a dense catalog of the ways that whites tricked and mistreated blacks in the first half of the 20th century. “Years ago I heard that Abraham Lincoln freed the colored people,” Cobb says, “but it didn’t amount to a hill of beans.” About his white neighbors, he declares, “Any way they could deprive a Negro was a celebration to ’em.” This book is not always easy reading, but it is the real deal, an essential American document. — Dwight Garner

Lives Other Than My Own

Emmanuel carrère. translated from the french by linda coverdale., metropolitan books/henry holt & company, 2011.

You begin this memoir thinking it will be about one thing, and it turns into something else altogether — a book at once more ordinary and more extraordinary than any first impressions might allow.

Emmanuel Carrère starts with the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka — he was there, vacationing with his girlfriend. But that’s just the first 50 pages. Then he turns to the story of his girlfriend’s sister, a small-town judge who’s dying of cancer, and her friendship with another judge, who also has cancer. Carrère’s girlfriend chides him for thinking that such unpromising material offers him some sort of golden storytelling opportunity: “They don’t even sleep together — and at the end, she dies,” she says to him. “Have I got that straight? That’s your story?”

She does have it straight, but there’s so much more to it. Carrère weaves in his own experiences, coming up against his own limitations, his own prejudices, his own understanding of what defines a meaningful life. His sentences are clean, never showy; he writes about himself through others in a way that feels both necessarily generous and candidly — which is to say appropriately — narcissistic.

Whenever I try to describe this memoir — and I do that often, since it’s a book I don’t just recommend but implore people to read — I feel like I’m trying to parse a magic trick. — Jennifer Szalai

A Tale of Love and Darkness

Amos oz. translated from the hebrew by nicholas de lange., harcourt, 2004.

This memoir was born from a long silence, written 50 years after Amos Oz’s mother killed herself with sleeping pills, when he was 12, three months before his bar mitzvah. The resulting book is both brutal and generous, filled with meandering reflections on a life’s journey in politics and literature.

The only child of European Jews who settled in the Promised Land, Oz grew up alongside the new state of Israel, initially enamored of a fierce nationalism before becoming furiously (and in one memorable scene, rather hilariously) disillusioned. As a lonely boy, Oz felt unseen by his awkward father and confounded by his brilliant and deeply unhappy mother. She taught him that people were a constant source of betrayal and disappointment. Books, though, would never let him down. Hearing about what happened to those Jews who stayed in Europe, the young Oz wanted to become a book, because no matter how many books were destroyed there was a decent chance that one copy could survive.

Oz says he essentially killed his father by moving to a kibbutz at 15 and changing his name. But his father lives on in this memoir, along with Oz’s mother — not just in his recollections of her, but in the very existence of this book. She was the one who captivated him with stories that “amazed you, sent shivers up your spine, then disappeared back into the darkness before you had time to see what was in front of your eyes.” — Jennifer Szalai

This Boy’s Life

Tobias wolff, the atlantic monthly press, 1989.

“Our car boiled over again just after my mother and I crossed the Continental Divide.” So begins Tobias Wolff’s powerful and impeccably written memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, a classic of the genre that has lost none of its power.

Divorced mother and son had hit the road together, fleeing a bad man, trying to change their luck and maybe get rich as uranium prospectors. The author’s wealthy and estranged father was absent. Soon his mother linked up with a man named Dwight (never trust a man named Dwight) who beat young Wolff, stole his paper route money and forced him to shuck horse chestnuts after school for hours, until his hands were “crazed with cuts and scratches” from their sharply spined husks. Wolff became wild in high school, a delinquent and a petty thief, before escaping to a prep school in Pennsylvania. His prose lights up the experience of growing up in America during this era. He describes going to confession and trying to articulate an individual sin this way: “It was like fishing a swamp, where you feel the tug of something that at first seems promising and then resistant and finally hopeless as you realize that you’ve snagged the bottom, that you have the whole planet on the other end of your line.” — Dwight Garner

A Life’s Work

Rachel cusk, picador, 2002.

Rachel Cusk writes about new motherhood with an honesty and clarity that makes this memoir feel almost illicit. Sleepless nights, yes; colic, yes; but also a raw, frantic love for her firstborn daughter that she depicts and dissects with both rigor and amazement.

As many readers as there are who love “A Life’s Work” as much as I do, I know others who have been put off by its steely register, finding it too denuded, shorn of warmth and giddiness — those very things that help make motherhood such an enormous experience, and not just a grueling one. But whenever I read Cusk’s book, I am irrevocably pulled along in its thrall, constantly startled by her observations — milk running “in untasted rivulets” down her baby’s “affronted cheek”; pregnancy literature that “bristles with threats and the promise of reprisal” — and her willingness to see her experience cold.

Or, at least, to try to, because what becomes clear is that it’s impossible for Cusk to hold on to her old self. The childless writer who could compartmentalize with ease and take boundaries for granted has to learn an entirely new way of being. Embedded in Cusk’s chiseled sentences are her attempts to engage with a roiling vulnerability. None of the chipper, treacly stuff here; motherhood deserves more respect than that. — Jennifer Szalai

J.M. Coetzee

Viking, 1997.

The Nobel Prize-winning J.M. Coetzee is one of those novelists who rarely give interviews, and when he does, he’s like the Robert Mueller of the literary world — reticent, discreet and quietly insistent that his books should speak for themselves.

Coetzee, in other words, is taciturn in the extreme. Yet he has also written three revealing volumes about his life — “Boyhood,” “Youth” and “Summertime.” The first, “Boyhood,” is most explicitly and conventionally a memoir, covering his years growing up in a provincial village outside of Cape Town. The child of Afrikaner parents who had pretensions to English gentility, he was buttoned-up and sensitive, desperate to fit into the “normal” world around him but also confounded and repulsed by it. He noticed how his indolent relatives clung to their privileged position in South Africa’s brutal racial hierarchy through cruelty and a raw assertion of power. Out in the world, he lived in constant fear of violence and humiliation; at home he was cosseted by his mother and presided like a king.

The memoir is told in the third-person present tense, which lends it a peculiar immediacy. Coetzee is free to observe the boy he once was without the interpretive intrusions that come with age; he can remain true to what he felt then, rather than what he knows now. His recollections are stark and painfully intimate: “He feels like a crab pulled out of its shell, pink and wounded and obscene.” — Jennifer Szalai

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974

“The book is already a period piece,” the legendary travel writer Jan Morris opens her memoir. “It was written in the 1970s, and is decidedly of the 1970s.” It might be of its time but it is also ardent, musical, poetic and full of warm humor — a chronicle of ecstasies. Best remembered as one of the first accounts of gender transition, “Conundrum” is a study of home in all its forms — of finding home in one’s body, of Morris’s native Wales, of all the cities she possesses by dint of loving them so fiercely.

We are carried from her childhood, in the lap of a family militantly opposed to conformity, to her long career as a reporter in England and Egypt. She went everywhere, met everyone: Che Guevara (“sharp as a cat in Cuba”), Guy Burgess (“swollen with drink and self-reproach in Moscow”). It’s an enviably full life, with a long marriage, four children and Morris’s determinedly sunny disposition and ability to regard every second of her life, however difficult — especially if difficult — as a species of grand adventure.

She chafes at the notion of “identity” (“a trendy word I have long distrusted, masking as it often does befuddled ideas and lazy thinking”). It is thrilling to watch her arrive at an understanding of a sense of self and language that is her own, bespoke. “To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial,” she writes. “It was a melody that I heard within myself.” — Parul Sehgal

I did not query my condition, or seek reasons for it. I knew very well that it was an irrational conviction — I was in no way psychotic, and perhaps not much more neurotic than most of us; but there it was, I knew it to be true, and if it was impossible then the definition of possibility was inadequate.

—Jan Morris, “Conundrum”

Sonali Deraniyagala

Alfred a. knopf, 2013.

Sonali Deraniyagala was searching the internet for ways to kill herself when one click led to another and she was staring at a news article featuring pictures of her two young sons. The boys had died not long before — victims of the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, which also killed Deraniyagala’s husband and her parents. She herself survived by clinging to a branch.

“Wave” is a meticulous account of derangement — of being so undone by grief that life becomes not just impossible but terrifying. She recalls stabbing herself with a butter knife. She couldn’t look at a flower or a blade of grass without feeling a sickening sense of panic. Reading this book is like staring into the abyss, only instead of staring back it might just swallow you whole.

This, believe it or not, is why you should read it — for Deraniyagala’s unflinching account of the horror that took away her family, and for her willingness to lay bare how it made her not only more vulnerable but also, at times, more cruel. Her return to life was gradual, tentative and difficult; she learned the only way out of her unbearable anguish was to remember what had happened and to keep it close. — Jennifer Szalai

Always Unreliable: Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week Was in June

Clive james, picador, 2004.

The Australian-born critic, poet, memoirist, novelist, travel writer and translator Clive James isn’t as well known in America as he is in England, where he’s lived most of his adult life. Over there, cabdrivers know who James is: the ebullient man who hosted many comic and erudite television programs over the years. We have no one quite like him over here: Think Johnny Carson combined with Edmund Wilson.

James is the author of five memoirs, to which many readers have a cultlike devotion. The first three — “Unreliable Memoirs,” “Falling Towards England” and “May Week Was in June” — have been collected into one volume, “Always Unreliable,” and they are especially incisive and comic. In a preface to the first book, James dealt a truth few memoirists will admit: “Most first novels are disguised autobiographies. This autobiography is a disguised novel.” He’s an admitted exaggerator, but nonetheless he’s led a big life.

He was born in 1939 and grew up with an absent father, a Japanese prisoner of war. Released, his father died in a plane crash on his way home when James was 5. The author fully relives his adolescent agonies (“you can die of envy for cratered faces weeping with yellow pus”) and his rowdy troublemaking years. Later volumes take him to London and then to Cambridge University, where he edits Granta, the literary magazine, dabbles in theater (“It was my first, cruel exposure to the awkward fact that the arts attract the insane”) and gets married. He is never less than good company. — Dwight Garner

Travels With Lizbeth

Lars eighner, st. martin’s press, 1993.

Lars Eighner’s memoir contains the finest first-person writing we have about the experience of being homeless in America. Yet it’s not a dirge or a Bukowski-like scratching of the groin but an offbeat and plaintive hymn to life. It’s the sort of book that releases the emergency brake on your soul. Eighner spent three years on the streets (mostly in Austin, Tex.) and on the road in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after suffering from migraines and losing a series of jobs. The book he wrote is a literate and exceedingly humane document.

On the streets, he clung to a kind of dignity. He refused to beg or steal. He didn’t care for drugs; he barely drank. “Being suddenly intoxicated in a public place in the early afternoon,” he writes, “is not my idea of a good time.” He foraged for books and magazines as much as food, but an especially fine portion of this book is his writing about dumpster-diving. There’s the jarring impression that every grain of rice is a maggot. About botulism, he writes: “Often the first symptom is death.” There is something strangely Emersonian, capable and self-reliant, in his scavenging. “I live from the refuse of others,” he declares. “I think it a sound and honorable niche.” — Dwight Garner

Day after day I could aspire, within reason, to nothing more than survival. Although the planets wandered among the stars and the moon waxed and waned, the identical naked barrenness of existence was exposed to me, day in and day out.

—Lars Eighner, “Travels With Lizbeth”

Little, Brown & Company, 2015

The photographer Sally Mann’s memoir is weird, intense and uncommonly beautiful. She has real literary gifts, and she’s led a big Southern-bohemian life, rich with incident. Or maybe it only seems rich with incident because of an old maxim that still holds: Stories happen only to people who can tell them.

Like Mary Karr, Mann as a child was a scrappy, troublemaking tomboy, one who grew into a scrappy, troublemaking, impossible-to-ignore young woman and artist. She was raised in Virginia by sophisticated, lettered parents. When she grew too wild, they sent her away to a prep school in Vermont where, she writes, “I smoked, I drank, I skipped classes, I snuck out, I took drugs, I stole quarts of ice cream for my dorm by breaking into the kitchen storerooms, I made out with my boyfriends in the library basement, I hitchhiked into town and down I-91, and when caught, I weaseled out of all of it.”

This memoir recounts some of the Southern gothic elements of her parents’ lives. This book is heavily illustrated, and traces her growth as an artist. It recounts friendships with Southern artists and writers such as Cy Twombly and Reynolds Price. Her anecdotes have snap. About his advanced old age, in a line that is hard to forget, Twombly tells the author that he is “closing down the bodega for real.” But this story is entirely her own. — Dwight Garner

Country Girl

Edna o’brien, little, brown and company, 2013.

The enormously gifted Irish writer Edna O’Brien was near the red-hot center of the Swinging ’60s in London. She dropped acid with her psychiatrist, R.D. Laing. Among those who came to her parties were Marianne Faithfull, Sean Connery, Princess Margaret and Jane Fonda. Richard Burton and Marlon Brando tried to get her into bed. Robert Mitchum succeeded after wooing her with this pickup line: “I bet you wish I was Robert Taylor, and I bet you never tasted white peaches.”

O’Brien was born in a village in County Clare, in the west of Ireland, in 1930. This earthy and evocative book also traces her youth and her development as a writer. Her small family was religious. Her father was a farmer who drank and gambled; her mother was a former maid. She has described her village, Tuamgraney, as “enclosed, fervid and bigoted.” O’Brien didn’t attend college. She moved to Dublin, where she worked in a drugstore while studying at the Pharmaceutical College at night. She began to read literature, and she wondered: “Why could life not be lived at that same pitch? Why was it only in books that I could find the utter outlet for my emotions?” This memoir has perfect pitch. — Dwight Garner

Marjane Satrapi. Translated from the French by Mattias Ripa and Blake Ferris.

Pantheon, 2003.

At the age of 6, Marjane Satrapi privately declared herself the last prophet of Islam. At 14, she left Iran for a boarding school in Austria, sent away by parents terrified of their outspoken daughter’s penchant for challenging her teachers (and hypocrisy wherever she sniffed it out). At 31, she published “Persepolis,” in French (it was later translated into English by Mattias Ripa and Blake Ferris), a stunning graphic memoir hailed as a wholly original achievement in the form.

There’s still a startling freshness to the book. It won’t age. In inky shadows and simple, expressive lines — reminiscent of Ludwig Bemelmans’s “Madeline” — Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a world of protests and disappearances (and scoring punk rock cassettes on the black market).

The revolution, the rise of fundamentalism, a brutal family history of torture, imprisonment and exile are conveyed from a child’s perspective and achieve a stark, shocking impact. — Parul Sehgal

Margo Jefferson

Pantheon, 2015.

The motto was simple in Margo Jefferson’s childhood home: “Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment.” Her family was part of Chicago’s black elite. Her father was the head pediatrician at Provident, America’s oldest black hospital; her mother was a socialite. They saw themselves as a “Third Race, poised between the masses of Negroes and all classes of Caucasians.” Life was navigated according to strict standards of behavior and femininity. Jefferson writes of the punishing psychic burden of growing up feeling that she was a representative for her race and, later, of nagging, terrifying suicidal impulses.

Jefferson won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her book reviews in The New York Times. “Negroland” is an extended form of criticism that dances between a history of social class to a close reading of her mother’s expressions; the information calibrated in a brow arched “three to four millimeters.”

The prose is blunt and evasive, sensuous and ascetic, doubting and resolute — and above all beautifully skeptical of the genre, of the memoir’s conventions, clichés and limits. “How do you adapt your singular, willful self to so much history and myth? So much glory, banality, honor and betrayal?” she asks. This shape-shifting, form-shattering book carves one path forward. — Parul Sehgal

25 More Great Memoirs

Presented in Alphabetical Order by Author

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

Viv albertine, thomas dunne books/st. martin’s press, 2014.

Viv Albertine participated in the birth of punk in the mid-1970s. She was in a band with Sid Vicious before he joined the Sex Pistols. She dated Mick Jones while he was putting together his new band, the Clash. She could barely play guitar, yet she became the lead guitarist for the Slits. Her memoir is wiry and fearless. It contains story after story about men who told her she couldn’t do things that she did anyway. Her life up to the breakup of the Slits occupies only half of the book. There’s a lot of pain in the second section: loneliness, doubt, a bad marriage, cancer, depression. Throughout, this account has an honest, lo-fi grace.

Martin Amis

Talk miramax books/hyperion, 2000.

In this memoir, the acclaimed author of “London Fields,” “Money” and other novels decided, he writes, “to speak, for once, without artifice.” The entertaining, loosely structured result is movingly earnest and wickedly funny. It includes a portrait, both cleareyed and affectionate, of the author’s father, the comic novelist and poet Kingsley Amis. In addition, “Experience” offers more vivid and harrowing writing about dental problems than you might have thought one person capable of producing.

Slow Days, Fast Company

Alfred a. knopf, 1977.

The Los Angeles-born glamour girl, bohemian, artist, muse, sensualist, wit and pioneering foodie Eve Babitz writes prose that reads like Nora Ephron by way of Joan Didion, albeit with more lust and drugs and tequila. “Slow Days, Fast Company” and “Eve’s Hollywood,” the book that preceded it, are officially billed as fiction, but they are mostly undisguised dispatches from her own experiences in 1970s California. Reading her is like being out on the warm open road at sundown, with what she called “4/60 air-conditioning” — that is, going 60 miles per hour with all four windows down. You can feel the wind in your hair.

Russell Baker

Congdon & weed, 1982.

Russell Baker’s warm and disarmingly funny account of his life growing up in Depression-era America has garnered comparisons to the work of Mark Twain. The book quickly became a beloved best seller when it was published, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Baker was born into poverty in Virginia in 1925. He was 5 years old when his father, then 33, fell into a diabetic coma and died. The author’s strong, affectionate mother is a major presence in the book. Baker, a longtime humorist and columnist for The New York Times, died in January at 93.

Kafka Was the Rage

Anatole broyard, carol southern books/crown publishers, 1993.

Anatole Broyard, a longtime book critic and essayist for The New York Times, died in 1990 of prostate cancer. What he had finished of this memoir before his death mostly concerned his time living in the West Village after World War II. “A war is like an illness,” he writes, “and when it’s over you think you’ve never felt so well.” He writes about the vogue for psychoanalysis, his experience opening a used-book store and, primarily, his formative relationship with the artist Sheri Martinelli (her pseudonym in the book is Sheri Donatti). The book was truncated, but the writing in it is brilliant and often epigrammatic: “I just want love to live up to its publicity.”

Between the World and Me

Ta-nehisi coates, spiegel & grau, 2015.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, in the form of a letter to his son, is a scalding examination of his own experience as a black man in America, and of how much of American history has been systemically built on exploiting and committing violence against black bodies. Inspired by a section of James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” that was addressed to the author’s nephew, Coates’s book is a powerful testimony that will continue to have a profound impact on discussions about race in America.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan didion, alfred a. knopf, 2005.

Joan Didion, so long an exemplar of cool, of brilliant aloofness, showed us her unraveling in this memoir about the sudden death of her husband of 40 years, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and the frightening illness of her daughter, Quintana. It’s a troubled, meditative book, in which Didion writes of what it feels like to have “cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad.”

Barbarian Days

William finnegan, penguin press, 2015.

This account of a lifelong surfing obsession won the Pulitzer Prize in biography. William Finnegan, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, recalls his childhood in California and Hawaii, his many surfing buddies through the years and his taste for a kind of danger that approaches the sublime. In his 20s, he traveled through Asia and Africa and the South Pacific in search of waves, living in tents and cars and cheap apartments. One takes away from “Barbarian Days” a sense of a big, wind-chapped, well-lived life.

Personal History

Katharine graham, alfred a. knopf, 1997.

Katharine Graham’s brilliant but remote father, Eugene Meyer, capped his successful career as a financier and public servant by buying the struggling Washington Post in 1933 and nursing it to health. Graham took command of the paper in 1963, and steered it through the Watergate scandal and the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency, among other dramas. Her autobiography covers her life from childhood to her command of a towering journalistic institution in a deeply male-dominated industry. Her tone throughout is frank, self-critical, modest and justifiably proud.

Thinking in Pictures

Temple grandin, doubleday, 1995.

Memoirs are valued, in part, for their ability to open windows onto experiences other than our own, and few do that as dramatically as Temple Grandin’s “Thinking in Pictures.” Grandin, a professor of animal science who is autistic, describes the “library” of visual images in her memory, which she is constantly updating. (“It’s like getting a new version of software for the computer.”) As Oliver Sacks wrote in an introduction to the book, “Grandin’s voice came from a place which had never had a voice, never been granted real existence, before.”

Autobiography of a Face

Lucy grealy, houghton mifflin, 1994.

When she was 9 years old, Lucy Grealy was stricken with a rare, virulent form of bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma. She had radical surgery to remove half of her jaw, and years of radiation and chemotherapy, and recovered. She then endured a sense of disfigurement and isolation from other children. She became an accomplished poet and essayist before dying at 39 in 2002. Although entitled to self-pity, Grealy was not given to it. This memoir is a moving meditation on ugliness and beauty. Grealy’s life is the subject of another powerful memoir, Ann Patchett’s “Truth & Beauty,” which recounts the friendship between the two writers.

Dancing With Cuba

Alma guillermoprieto. translated from the spanish by esther allen., pantheon, 2004.

Alma Guillermoprieto was a 20-year-old dance student in 1969, when Merce Cunningham offered to recommend her for a teaching job at the National Schools of the Arts in Havana. This memoir is her account of the six months she spent there, a frustrating and fascinating time that opened her eyes to the world beyond dance. Eventually, political turmoil, piled on top of loneliness, youthful angst and assorted romantic troubles, led the author to the edge of a nervous breakdown. This remembrance is a pleasure to read, full of humanity, sly humor, curiosity and knowledge.

Minor Characters

Joyce johnson, houghton mifflin, 1983.

Joyce Johnson was 21 and not long out of Barnard College when, in the winter of 1957, Allen Ginsberg set her up on a blind date with Jack Kerouac, who was 34 and still largely unknown. Thus began an off-and-on relationship that lasted nearly two years, during which time “On the Road” was published, leading to life-altering fame — not only for Kerouac but many of his closest friends. Johnson’s book about this time is a riveting portrait of an era, and a glowing introduction to the Beats. It’s a book about a so-called minor character who, in the process of writing her life, became a major one.

The Memory Chalet

Penguin press, 2010.

The historian Tony Judt, who was known for his incisive analysis of current events and his synthesizing of European history in books like “Postwar,” wrote this book of autobiographical fragments after he was stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and had become “effectively quadriplegic.” He would think back over his life in the middle of the night, shape those memories into stories and dictate them to an assistant the next day. “The Memory Chalet,” the resulting unlikely artifact, ranges over Judt’s boyhood in England; the lives of his lower-middle-class Jewish parents; life as a student and fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, in the 1960s and early ’70s; and his life in New York City, where he eventually settled and taught.

Kiese Laymon

Scribner, 2018.

The most recently published entry on this list of 50 books, Kiese Laymon’s “Heavy” details the author’s childhood in Mississippi in the 1980s and his relationship with his alternately loving and abusive mother, who raised him on her own. It’s full of sharp, heart-rending thoughts about growing up black in the United States, and his fraught relationship with his body — Laymon’s weight has severely fluctuated over the years, a subject he plumbs with great sensitivity. This is a gorgeous, gutting book that’s fueled by candor yet freighted with ambivalence. It’s full of devotion and betrayal, euphoria and anguish.

Priestdaddy

Patricia lockwood, riverhead books, 2017.

Patricia Lockwood, an acclaimed poet, weaves in this memoir the story of her family — including her Roman Catholic priest father, who received a special dispensation from the Vatican — with the crisis that led her and her husband to live temporarily under her parents’ rectory roof. The book, consistently alive with feeling, is written with elastic style. And in Lockwood’s father, Greg, it has one of the great characters in nonfiction: He listens to Rush Limbaugh while watching Bill O’Reilly, consumes Arby’s Beef ’n Cheddar sandwiches the way other humans consume cashews and strides around in his underwear. Hilarious descriptions — of, to take one example, Greg’s guitar playing — alternate with profound examinations of family, art and faith.

H Is for Hawk

Helen macdonald, grove press, 2015.

When we meet Helen Macdonald in this beautiful and nearly feral book, she’s in her 30s, with “no partner, no children, no home.” When her father dies suddenly on a London street, it steals the floor from beneath her. Obsessed with birds of prey since she was a girl, Macdonald was already an experienced falconer. In her grief, seeking escape into something, she began to train one of nature’s most vicious predators, a goshawk. She unplugged her telephone. She told her friends to leave her alone. Nearly every paragraph she writes about the experience is strange in the best way, and injected with unexpected meaning.

The Color of Water

James mcbride, riverhead books, 1996.

This complex and moving story, which enjoyed a long run on best-seller lists, is about James McBride’s relationship with his mother, Ruth, the daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox Jewish rabbi. She fervently adopted Christianity and founded a black Baptist church in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn with McBride’s father. The book is suffused with issues of race, religion and identity, and simultaneously transcends those issues to be a story of family love and the sheer force of a mother’s will.

Angela’s Ashes

Frank mccourt, scribner, 1996.

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all,” Frank McCourt writes near the beginning of his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir. His parents had immigrated to New York, where McCourt was born, but soon moved back to Ireland, where they hoped relatives could help them with their four children. Having returned, they experienced crushing poverty. The book did perhaps more than any other to cement the 1990s boom in memoir writing — and reading. It features a Dickensian gallery of schoolmasters, shopkeepers and priests, in addition to McCourt’s unforgettable family.

Cockroaches

Scholastique mukasonga. translated from the french by jordan stump., archipelago books, 2016.

Thirty-seven of Scholastique Mukasonga’s family members were massacred in the Rwandan genocide in the spring of 1994, when the Hutu majority turned on their Tutsi neighbors, killing more than 800,000 people in 100 days. “Cockroaches” is Mukasonga’s devastating account of her childhood and what she was able to learn about the slaughter of her family. (“Cockroach” was the Hutu epithet of choice for the Tutsis.) It is a compendium of unspeakable crimes and horrifically inventive sadism, delivered in an even, unwavering tone.

Keith Richards

Little, brown & company, 2010.

In “Life,” the Rolling Stones guitarist writes with uncommon candor and immediacy — with the help of the veteran journalist James Fox — about drugs and his run-ins with the police; about the difficulties of getting and staying clean; and about the era when rock ’n’ roll came of age. He spares none of his thoughts, good and bad, about Mick Jagger. He also describes the spongelike love of music that he inherited from his grandfather, and his own sense of musical history — his reverence for the blues and R&B masters he has studied his entire life.

A Life in the Twentieth Century

Arthur schlesinger jr., houghton mifflin company, 2000.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a prizewinning historian who served in John F. Kennedy’s White House, here writes about the first 33 years of his life, from his birth in 1917 — the year the United States entered World War I — to 1950 and the beginnings of the Cold War. The son of an acclaimed historian, Schlesinger was born into great privilege. He went on a yearlong trip around the world between graduating from prep school and attending Harvard. This book has incisive things to say about the large themes of world history, including isolationism and interventionism, and about many other subjects besides, including the films of the 1930s.

Edmund White

Ecco/harpercollins publishers, 2006.

“My Lives” is broken into chapters whose headings follow a clever formula: “My Shrinks,” “My Mother,” “My Father,” “My Hustlers” ... But these seemingly narrow-focus, time-hopping slices add up to a robust autobiography. Edmund White’s portraits of his parents and their lives before him are novelistic; his writing about his own sexual experiences is exceedingly candid. Reviewing the book for The Guardian, the novelist Alan Hollinghurst said that “no other writer of White’s eminence has described his sexual life with such purposeful clarity.”

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Jeanette winterson, grove press, 2012.

This memoir’s title is the question Jeanette Winterson’s adoptive mother asked after discovering her daughter was a lesbian. Winterson’s mother loomed over her life, as she looms over this book. In a quiet way she is one of the great horror mothers of English-language literature. When she was angry with her daughter, she would say, “The Devil led us to the wrong crib.” This memoir’s narrative includes Winterson’s search for her birth mother and the author’s self-invention, her intellectual development. The device of the trapped young person saved by books is a hoary one, but Winterson makes it seem new, and sulfurous.

Close to the Knives

David wojnarowicz, vintage, 1991.

David Wojnarowicz, who died at 37 in 1992, was a vital part of the East Village art scene of the 1980s that also produced Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others. He was a painter, photographer, performance artist, AIDS activist and more — including writer. This work of hard-living autobiography is written in a flood of run-on sentences, and in a tone of almost hallucinatory incandescence. A typical sentence begins: “I remember when I was 8 years old I would crawl out the window of my apartment seven stories above the ground and hold on to the ledge with 10 scrawny fingers and lower myself out above the sea of cars burning up Eighth Avenue ...”

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Homeschool Help and Curriculum

Inspiring Biographies for Literature Class and Personal Growth

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Reading material for homeschool high school does not need to be boring. Here are some inspiring biographies for literature class and personal growth.

I know that many teens find biographies to be dull and dread the times when they are required reading. However, a good biography can be inspiring and can even spark personal growth!

That’s why 7Sisters has created literature study guides for a few, fascinating or compelling biographies. These are stories that teens have told us have made them think, grow and want to be better people. Some teens have told us they have read a favorite several times over.

The purposes of the study guides are to:

• Highlight key factor that molded that person’s life and choices
• Give food for thought and personal growth based on the story
• Teach literature analysis skills in a way that is no-busywork and doesn’t kill the book!

Here are 7Sisters’ choices for inspiring biographies for literature class and personal growth:

Apollo 13 Cinema Study Guide

The Cinema Studies for Literature Learning Guide for Apollo 13 helps teens learn literature analysis skills while being inspired by this compelling story with multiple heroes!

Born Again Literature Study Guide

Teens learn a lesson in learning lessons in life while reading about God’s redemption at work in Chuck Colson’s life. If your teen is studying 20th Century History, they will read about Watergate in their textbooks. They should also read Born Again along with this literature guide and get the story about his place in the Nixon Whitehouse, prison and then, God’s place in his life.

God’s Smuggler Literature Study Guide

My youngest son says that one of his favorite books from high school was God’s Smuggler , the story of Brother Andrew who smuggled Bibles into Russia during the Cold War. You can read his review of the book in this post .

Hoosiers Cinema Study Guide

Hoosiers is an inspirational movie (loosely) based on the 1954 Milan High School basketball team. When teens use the Hoosiers Cinema Studies for Literature Learning , they learn literature analysis skills as well as perseverance skills from the Hoosiers team.

Joni Literature Study Guide

This autobiography of Joni Eareckson Tada is a must read for high schoolers! When teens use the literature study guide for Joni , they increase their literature analysis skills but are also awed and inspired by the redemptive work of God in and through this Christian role model.

Remember the Titans Cinema Study Guide

Remember the Titans is a wonderful movie based on the story of the football team from T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. While the story took place during the integration days of 1971, the theme of acceptance and working together is timeless. With the Cinema Study Guide for Remember the Titans , teens learn literature analysis skills while reflecting on Christlike choices they must make in their own lives.

Rudy Cinema Study Guide

Who doesn’t love an underdog story? This movie, along with the Cinema Study Guide for Rudy , teaches homeschool high schoolers literature analysis skills. Just as important are the skills they are inspired to learn about perseverance and holding onto dreams as they watch this story about Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger.

Something Beautiful for God Literature Study Guide

This biography of Mother Teresa is another must-read book for teens. The literature study guide for Something Beautiful for God helps build homeschool high schoolers’ literature analysis skill as well as helping them understand a life of selfless following of God’s call.

The Great Debaters Cinema Study Guide

This biographical movie inspires teens to courageously stand up for a better life for everyone. Based on the story of Wiley College’s first debate team, homeschool high schoolers watch as this courageous group of young people become the first Black debate team to compete in the 1930s. The Cinema Study Guide for Literature Learning for The Great Debaters teaches teens literature analysis skills as well as inspires them to courageous thinking and living.

The Hiding Place Literature Study Guide

Another must read! Homeschool high schoolers learn about faith in God through the trials of a Nazi concentration camp in this autobiography by Corrie ten Boom. This literature study guide for The Hiding Place , gives teens solid literature analysis skills as well as helping them understand the work of God in Corrie’s life.

The Miracle Worker Cinema Study Guide

You don’t want to miss this one! Teens are inspired by the story of Anne Sullivan’s work with the child, Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf. The cinema study guide for literature learning for The Miracle Worker , gives teens solid literature analysis skills plus a big dose of respect for the selflessness and determination of Anne Sullivan.

Download several of these inspiring biographies for literature class and personal growth.

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Vicki Tillman

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Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies

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Best Biographies

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Last updated: August 14, 2024

Whether you're looking for new biographies , or outstanding works written decades or even centuries ago, we have some recommendations. To help find a book about a specific person or group of people, we've set up the following lists:

The best historical biographies Some of our favourite philosophical biographies Lives of the classical composers The best literary biographies (Separately, we also have a section with interviews dedicated to specific literary figures , including, for example, an interview on Shakespeare’s life , recommended by James Shapiro of Columbia University). The lives of scientists Artists' lives

The Best Memoirs: The 2024 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist , recommended by May-lee Chai

I would meet you anywhere: a memoir by susan kiyo ito, secret harvests: a hidden story of separation and the resilience of a family farm by david mas masumoto, rotten evidence: reading and writing in an egyptian prison by ahmed naji, translated by katharine halls, how to say babylon: a memoir by safiya sinclair, story of a poem: a memoir by matthew zapruder.

It's been a "phenomenal" year for autobiographical writing, says May-lee Chai —the award-winning author and chair of the judges for this year's National Book Critics Circle prize for autobiography. Here she offers us a tour of the five memoirs that made their 2024 shortlist.

It’s been a “phenomenal” year for autobiographical writing, says May-lee Chai—the award-winning author and chair of the judges for this year’s National Book Critics Circle prize for autobiography. Here she offers us a tour of the five memoirs that made their 2024 shortlist.

The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

G-man: j. edgar hoover and the making of the american century by beverly gage, the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Notable Memoirs of 2023 , recommended by Cal Flyn

Stay true by hua hsu, still pictures: on photography and memory by janet malcolm, pageboy: a memoir by elliot page, the light room: on art and care by kate zambreno, o brother by john niven.

Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn selects the best recent autobiographical writing in this round-up of notable memoirs of 2023—taking in new work from such literary giants as Janet Malcolm and Annie Ernaux, the writer other writers are raving about, and a humorous debut depicting life in a haunted antiquarian bookshop.

The Best Literary Biographies , recommended by Lyndall Gordon

Selected essays by t s eliot, the ballad of dorothy wordsworth by frances wilson, reading chekhov by janet malcolm, lost in translation by eva hoffman, jane's fame by claire harman.

The inner life is a mystery but the best biographies expose the hidden kernel of a person, says literary biographer and academic, Lyndall Gordon . She picks five books that push the boundaries of the genre.

The inner life is a mystery but the best biographies expose the hidden kernel of a person, says literary biographer and academic, Lyndall Gordon. She picks five books that push the boundaries of the genre.

Award Winning Biographies of 2022 , recommended by Sophie Roell

All the frequent troubles of our days: the true story of the woman at the heart of the german resistance to hitler by rebecca donner, the last king of america: the misunderstood reign of george iii by andrew roberts, burning boy: the life and work of stephen crane by paul auster, the escape artist: the man who broke out of auschwitz to warn the world by jonathan freedland, super-infinite: the transformations of john donne by katherine rundell, chasing me to my grave: an artist's memoir of the jim crow south by winfred rembert.

In telling stories of lives that are often very different from our own and yet connected to us by our common humanity, biographies are some of the most compelling nonfiction books around. Five Books editor Sophie Roell rounds up some of the biographies that have won or been shortlisted for prizes in 2022.

The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist , recommended by Marion Winik

A little devil in america: notes in praise of black performance by hanif abdurraqib, gay bar: why we went out by jeremy atherton lin, a farewell to gabo and mercedes: a son's memoir of gabriel garcía márquez and mercedes barcha by rodrigo garcia, a ghost in the throat by doireann ní ghríofa, concepcion: an immigrant family’s fortunes by albert samaha.

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik , the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik, the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.

The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Stranger in the shogun's city: a japanese woman and her world by amy stanley, the price of peace: money, democracy, and the life of john maynard keynes by zachary d. carter, the dead are arising: the life of malcolm x by les payne & tamara payne, red comet: the short life and blazing art of sylvia plath by heather clark, the equivalents: a story of art, female friendship, and liberation in the 1960s by maggie doherty.

Elizabeth Taylor , the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan's shogun era.

Elizabeth Taylor, the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics’ Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan’s shogun era.

The Best of Biography: the 2020 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Gods of the upper air: how a circle of renegade anthropologists reinvented race, sex, and gender in the twentieth century by charles king, the queen: the forgotten life behind an american myth by josh levin, l.e.l.: the lost life and scandalous death of letitia elizabeth landon, the celebrated "female byron" by lucasta miller, our man: richard holbrooke and the end of the american century by george packer, a woman of no importance: the untold story of the american spy who helped win world war ii by sonia purcell.

How do you find the perfect subject for a biography? “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they're dead,” a famous biographer once told Elizabeth Taylor . The author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee talks us through the books that made their 2020 shortlist.

How do you find the perfect subject for a biography? “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they're dead,” a famous biographer once told Elizabeth Taylor. The author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee talks us through the books that made their 2020 shortlist.

The Best Fashion Biographies , recommended by Justine Picardie

The allure of chanel by paul morand, dior by dior by christian dior, shocking life by elsa schiaparelli, the unexpurgated beaton by cecil beaton (author), hugo vickers (editor), diana vreeland by eleanor dwight.

Justine Picardie , editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar UK and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life , chooses her favourite fashion biographies, and considers whether fashion and art are inextricably linked.

Justine Picardie, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar UK and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life , chooses her favourite fashion biographies, and considers whether fashion and art are inextricably linked.

The Best Biographies: the 2019 NBCC Shortlist , recommended by Elizabeth Taylor

Flash: the making of weegee the famous by christopher bonanos, ninety-nine glimpses of princess margaret by craig brown, inseparable: the original siamese twins and their rendezvous with american history by yunte huang, the man in the glass house: philip johnson, architect of the modern century by mark lamster, the big fella: babe ruth and the world he created by jane leavy.

Biography is booming, says the longtime book critic and biographer Elizabeth Taylor . Here she highlights the five fantastic books shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle 2019 biography award, and how historical lives provide insight into contemporary culture.

Biography is booming, says the longtime book critic and biographer Elizabeth Taylor. Here she highlights the five fantastic books shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle 2019 biography award, and how historical lives provide insight into contemporary culture.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

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25 Essential High School Reads From the Last Decade

We asked members of our community to share recently published novels they would love to have read in high school. Here are your top picks.

Way back in 2016, we asked our community to share what they would consider essential reads for high school students. The final list of 20 recommended books was dominated by what many would consider the classics: John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men , J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye , F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby , Shakespeare’s Macbeth .

For decades, these works have been required reading in classrooms across the country, but more recently educators like Lorena Germán and advocates for the #DisruptTexts movement —not to mention the millions of students who’ve come and gone during the era—have challenged the notion of a traditional canon, advocating for a more “inclusive, representative, and equitable language arts curriculum.”

“There are problems with teaching only classics—the stories are overwhelmingly told from a white and/or male perspective, and more needs to be done to diversify that,” writes eighth-grade English teacher Christina Torres . “In addition, there’s merit in introducing our students to more recent literature.”

This year, we circled back and asked our community a version of the same question—What novels do you wish you could’ve read in high school?—but this time we specified that titles must have been published within the last decade. Hundreds of responses flooded in, and the contrast to six years ago was stark. Nominations were diverse, representing a broad range of topics, themes, genres, and author identities, as well as a wide variety of characters and experiences—queer protagonists and protagonists of color, characters with differing abilities, and fictional roles representing a refreshing spectrum of body sizes and shapes.

The Hate U Give , by Angie Thomas, was a clear standout, earning the most votes and thus the number one spot on our list. Some authors were multiple winners: Jason Reynolds’s Long Way Down and All American Boys made the cut, and Nic Stone’s Dear Martin and its sequel Dear Justyce were both favorites, but we selected only one for inclusion in the top 25. While fiction titles represent the lion’s share of the final list, a number of memoirs and autobiographies made the grade, including Malala Yousafzai’s I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban and the comedian and late-night host Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.

The Top 25 Indispensable High School Reads

1. The Hate U Give Angie Thomas’s emotionally wrenching debut novel finds Starr, an African American teen, torn between the affluent, predominantly white school she attends and the impoverished neighborhood where she lives. The fatal shooting of her childhood best friend by a police officer shatters her equilibrium, forcing her to choose where she stands. Primary themes of interest to high school students: identity, race and racial injustice, grief and loss, activism.

2. Educated: A Memoir Tara Westover’s story of growing up alongside—and eventually growing beyond—her decidedly iconoclastic family of Mormon survivalists in rural Idaho is an autobiographical paean to the transformative power of education. Primary themes of interest to high school students: autonomy, family dynamics, learning and education, loneliness and isolation.

3. Dear Martin Author Nic Stone drops readers deep into the life of her 17-year-old main character, Justyce, who suddenly finds himself on the wrong side of an unprovoked, racially charged encounter with a police officer. Primary themes of interest to high school students: privilege, friendship, race and racial injustice, discrimination, the criminal justice system.

4. The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo’s National Book Award–winning novel-in-verse tells the story of Xiomara Batista, a 15-year-old Dominican-American girl living in Harlem who discovers that slam poetry unlocks answers to questions about her religion, her mother, and her identity and greater purpose in life. Primary themes of interest to high school students: sexuality, self-acceptance, family dynamics.

5. Long Way Down Jason Reynolds, author of Ghost and Ain’t Burned All the Bright , thrusts readers inside an elevator alongside 15-year-old protagonist Will Hollomon, who has about 60 seconds to make one of the hardest decisions of his life. Primary themes of interest to high school students: justice, grief and loss, family dynamics.

6. Refugee Three refugee children—each living in separate parts of the world during different time periods, from Nazi Germany to Syria in 2015—fight to escape the violence of their home countries in Alan Gratz’s timely and moving work of historical fiction. Primary themes of interest to high school students: warfare, family dynamics, trauma, the experiences of refugees.

7. Homegoing The Ghanaian American novelist Yaa Gyasi traces the impact of the Gold Coast’s slave trade on the lives of two African stepsisters and several generations of their descendants. Primary themes of interest to high school students: slavery and human rights, identity, race and racial injustice, family dynamics, oppression, trauma.

8. Firekeeper’s Daughter Witnessing a murder launches Angeline Boulley’s protagonist Daunis—a Native teen torn between her white and Ojibwe culture—into an FBI investigation where she must go undercover in search of the truth. Primary themes of interest to high school students: family dynamics, addiction, risk-taking, authority.

9. All The Light We Cannot See Set during World War II, this is Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize–winning tale of two teenagers—a blind French girl on the run and a German boy forced to join the Nazi army—whose separate lives ultimately converge. Primary themes of interest to high school students: warfare, grief and loss, disability, power and conformity.

10. Beartown Author Fredrik Backman investigates the ripple effects of a sexual assault, committed by the star athlete, on a small hockey town in rural Sweden. Primary themes of interest to high school students: justice, trauma, power and conformity.

11. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter A tragic accident causes Erika Sánchez’s main character, Julia, to reflect on the perceived image of her “perfect” sister, Olga—as well as the secrets she may have been hiding. Primary themes of interest to high school students: grief and loss, perfectionism, mental health, sexuality, identity.

12. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption Bryan Stevenson’s memoir details his work at the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization providing legal counsel to the wrongfully convicted, as well as those without the funds for effective representation. Primary themes of interest to high school students: the criminal justice system, race and racial injustice, poverty, trauma.

13. Patron Saints of Nothing In Randy Ribay’s National Book Award finalist, 17-year-old Jay Reguero leaves the University of Michigan and returns to his extended family in the Philippines when he learns that his cousin was recently murdered there—all the while secretly planning to investigate the crime. Primary themes of interest to high school students: grief and loss, culture and identity, the criminal justice system, truth and justice.

14. The Invention of Wings Set in the antebellum South, Sue Monk Kidd’s novel explores the meaning of freedom to two girls from vastly different backgrounds—Sarah, a white girl of means, and Handful, a slave gifted to Sarah on her birthday. Primary themes of interest to high school students: friendship, slavery and human rights, race, privilege.

15. The Midnight Library What if you could read your way into another story of your life? In Matt Haig’s charming fantasy novel, 35-year-old Nora Seed peruses the books in an infinite library and discovers that each magical volume gives her a glimpse into a life she might have led. Primary themes of interest to high school students: identity and purpose, mental health, fantasy.

16. The Nickel Boys In this Pulitzer Prize winner, Colson Whitehead’s main character, Elwood Curtis, experiences firsthand the horrors of a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy—based on the real-life Dozier School for Boys, a now-closed reform school in Florida with a 111-year history of abusing students. Primary themes of interest to high school students: activism, trauma, abuse, race and racial injustice.

17. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row Convicted of a crime he did not commit, Anthony Ray Hinton relates the story of his 30 years on death row. Cowritten with Lara Love Hardin, the memoir reveals not only how he managed to survive but also how he ultimately found his way to joy. Primary themes of interest to high school students: race and racial injustice, redemption, innocence and guilt, the criminal justice system.

18. The Tattooist of Auschwitz Inspired by true events, this is Heather Morris’s heart-wrenching World War II tale about Lale Sokolov, a Jewish man who—forced to work at Auschwitz as a serial number tattooist—falls in love with an imprisoned woman as she waits to be branded. Primary themes of interest to high school students: warfare, race and racial injustice, the power of love.

19. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood Comedian and political commentator Trevor Noah’s memoir mines his experiences as a mixed-race child in apartheid South Africa—a period during which the Immorality Act of 1927 outlawed interracial relationships, ostensibly making Noah’s very existence a crime. Primary themes of interest to high school students: identity and purpose, race and racial injustice, oppression.

20. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban Written by the world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai’s memoir tells the story of her fight for the rights of young girls and women in Pakistan—despite an assassination attempt that gravely wounded her in 2012, when she was only 15 years old. Primary themes of interest to high school students: activism, women’s rights, learning and education.

21. The Marrow Thieves Cherie Dimaline’s book is a dystopian vision of a bleak, postapocalyptic world in which humans have lost the ability to dream—except for North America’s Indigenous population, who are hunted for their bone marrow, which holds the key to a cure. Primary themes of interest to high school students: trauma, the climate crisis, family dynamics, oppression.

22. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe In this novel set in 1987, author Benjamin Alire Sáenz traces the story of two Mexican American boys, Aristotle and Dante, who could not be more different but form a bond that makes them confidants—and gives them the courage to share life-changing secrets. Primary themes of interest to high school students: identity and purpose, sexuality, self-acceptance, trauma.

23. Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel Jesmyn Ward’s dark but lyrical tale follows a Mississippi family on a road trip haunted by ghosts of the past and present. Primary themes of interest to high school students: race and racial injustice, identity and belonging, mortality.

24. The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives In this journalistic piece of nonfiction, author Dashka Slater reveals the complexities of what transpired between two teenagers on a bus in Oakland, California—Sasha and Richard—and the aftermath that ultimately transformed two families. Primary themes of interest to high school students: gender and sexuality, race, discrimination, the criminal justice system.

25. The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet Adapted from his podcast of the same name, John Green’s humorous collection of 44 essays covers topics ranging from the computer-generated velociraptors in the movie Jurassic Park and sunsets to air conditioners and penguins—rating them all on a five-star scale. Primary themes of interest to high school students: the human condition, mental health, humor and absurdity, the climate crisis.

Best Sellers in Teen & Young Adult Biographies

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High school football: City Section preseason top 10 rankings

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With 42 consecutive victories against City Section opponents and four consecutive City Section Open Division championships, Birmingham has been the dominant team in City football.

Its reign will be threatened this season.

Several key players transferred and the team will start a freshman at quarterback to begin the year, but the Patriots still hope to be contenders by season end.

Here’s the preseason top 10:

1. BIRMINGHAM. Linebacker Eddie Plaza, running back Dredon Fowles lead a team that will need improvement from Game 1 to Game 10.

2. SAN PEDRO. Returning linemen and big-play weapon Dylan Rubino are key for a team playing in the best league in the City Section.

High School Sports

High school football: This week’s season-opening schedule

Prep football: Schedule for Southland teams, Aug. 15-17.

Aug. 13, 2024

3. CARSON. Chris Fields is a dynamic sophomore quarterback who will combine with the speedy Kamryn Hurst.

4. BANNING. The versatile Steven Perez leads a tough, driven Pilots.

5. NARBONNE. Quarterback Jaden O’Neal gives Gauchos a chance to build around as program continues to regain its footing.

6. PALISADES. Linebacker Jake Treibatch is outstanding and Loyola transfer Jack Thomas could be impact player at quarterback.

7. GARFIELD. The Bulldogs have sophomore running back Cesar Reyes, who starred on the JVs and can take advantage of a good offensive line.

8. KING/DREW. Depth is still a concern but this is a team with lots of talent and potential.

9. GARDENA. Running back Xavier Grant is the player to watch.

10. VENICE. Sophomore quarterback Jaiden Noel has lots of talented receivers.

Others to watch: Kennedy, Franklin, Eagle Rock, Dorsey, Maya Angelou.

More to Read

Freshman quarterback Daniel KaKooza takes over at Birmingham

July 30, 2024

Freshman Julius Truitt comes through to help send Birmingham to Dodger Stadium

May 21, 2024

Sondheimer: Look for a changing of the guard in City Section football

May 8, 2024

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Eric Sondheimer is the prep sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He has been honored seven times by the California Prep Sportswriters Assn. for best prep sports column.

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California high school football: Best 2024 LA City Section games week by week

Tarek fattal, sblive sports | 5 hours ago.

Before the internet, a piece like this might be worth clipping from the newspaper and hanging on the fridge. It's possible some still do that, but nowadays, it might be easier to bookmark this page as we roll through the 2024 high school football season in the LA City Section.

If you missed it, SBLive has already revealed a plethora of preseason content, including top City players to watch on offense and defense. The City Section Top 10 preseason rankings will be released on Sunday, Aug. 18.

• Top players in the City: OFFENSE | DEFENSE

Here's a quick look at the best matchups in the LA City Section week to week.

(All games scheduled for 7 p.m. unless noted otherwise)

WEEK 0 (Aug. 22-24)

THURSDAY Franklin at Granada Hills Charter FRIDAY Garfield at Narbonne El Camino Real at Kennedy Crenshaw at Fairfax Dorsey at Banning Roosevelt at Venice

WEEK 1 (Aug. 29-31)

THURSDAY Granada Hills Charter at Banning San Pedro at Kennedy Chatworth at Arleta Crenshaw at Gardena Roosevelt at Palisades Bell at Maya Angelou FRIDAY St. Bonaventure at Birmingham Charter Narbonne at Los Alamitos San Fernando at Chavez

WEEK 2 (Sept. 5-7)

THURSDAY Crenshaw at Hamilton FRIDAY Birmingham at Oak Park Palisades at Granada Hills Charter Inglewood at Carson King/Drew at Garfield Los Angeles at Fairfax North Hollywood at El Camino Real Narbonne at Culver City

WEEK 3 (Sept. 12-14)

FRIDAY Kennedy at Granada Hills Charter Crenshaw at Maya Angelou Garfield at San Pedro Compton at Dorsey Franklin at El Camino Real Dymally at Gardena Venice at Narbonne

WEEK 4 (Sept. 19-21)

FRIDAY Granada Hills Charter at Dorsey El Camino Real at Dymally Santee at Venice Eagle Rock at San Pedro Canoga Park at San Fernando Cleveland at Westchester Palos Verdes at Banning

WEEK 5 (Sept. 26-28)

FRIDAY San Fernando at Kennedy Dymally at San Pedro Maya Angelou at Eagle Rock Narbonne at King/Drew Dominguez at Gardena

WEEK 6 (Oct. 3-5)

FRIDAY Chatsworth at Birmingham Cleveland at Granada Hills Charter Banning at Narbonne Palisades at Fairfax Banning at Narbonne San Pedro at Fairfax Dymally at Crenshaw

WEEK 7 (Oct. 10-12)

THURSDAY Chatsworth at Cleveland Taft at Granada Hills Charter FRIDAY Banning at Gardena, 4 p.m. Birmingham at El Camino Real Kennedy at Canoga Park Narbonne at San Pedro, 7:30 p.m. Westchester at Palisades, 7:30 p.m. Dorsey at Crenshaw, 7:30 p.m. King/Drew at Dymally, 7:30 p.m. Maya Angelou at Jefferson, 7:30 p.m.

WEEK 8 (Oct. 17-19)

FRIDAY Granada Hills Charter at El Camino Real Fairfax at Westchester Cleveland at Birmingham San Pedro at Banning Cleveland at Birmingham Venice at Palisades Gardena at Carson Dorsey at Dymally

WEEK 9 (Oct. 24-26)

FRIDAY El Camino Real at Cleveland Granada Hills Charter at Chatsworth Franklin at Eagle Rock Garfield at Roosevelt King/Drew at Dorsey Carson at Banning Venice at Fairfax

WEEK 10 (Oct. 31-Nov. 2)

FRIDAY Granada Hills Charter at Birmingham Garfield at Legacy Gardena at San Pedro Carson at Narbonne El Camino Real at Chatsworth Crenshaw at King/Drew Hamilton at Palisades Santee at Maya Angelou Westchester at Venice

TAREK FATTAL, SBLIVE SPORTS

Tarek Fattal has been covering high school sports since 2015 in Southern California and primarily in Los Angeles, covering notable athletes such as Bronny James, Kayvon Thibodeaux and Alyssa Thompson. He was with the LA Daily News for eight years, which included being the beat reporter for the UCLA men's basketball team. Tarek can be seen on TV regularly on CBS/KCAL as a sports analyst with Jim Hill.

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The best high schools for athletes according to one methodology, these are the top 20, share this article.

While the concept sounds like an education-based twist on the Needle in the Haystack, according to survey data and other sources from Niche, there is an answer to the question, “Which U.S. high schools are the best for athletes?”

Using a methodology that weighs factors such as parent and student survey responses, the total number of championships, enrollment, and sports offered, these 20 institutions stood out among the 20,000-plus high schools filled with millions and millions of students.

Publishing the findings isn’t an endorsement for successfully locating the proverbial needle, mind you, but it’s hard to overlook that many of these schools have appeared in various USA TODAY Sports Super 25s through the years.

We begin in Wichita, Kansas…

20. Bishop Carroll Catholic (Wichita, Kan.)

(USA TODAY)

19. Lincoln-Way East (Ill.)

(Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-USA TODAY Sports)

18. Delbarton School (Morristown, N.J.)

17. Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey, N.J.)

16. St. Xavier (Cincinnati, Ohio)

15. St. Thomas Aquinas (Overland Park, Kan.)

(Photo: St. Thomas Aquinas baseball).

14. Cardinal Gibbons High School (Raleigh, N.C.)

13. St. Xavier (Louisville, Ky.)

12. St. Edward (Lakewood, Ohio)

11. Bedford High School (N.H.)

10. St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.)

(Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)

9. La Salle Academy (Providence, R.I.)

8. Cathedral Catholic High School (San Diego, Calif.)

(Photo: Cathedral Catholic High School)

7. Gonzaga College High School (D.C.)

(Gregory J. Fisher-USA TODAY Sports)

6. Boston College High School (Mass.)

5. Xavier College Prep Roman Catholic High School (Phoenix, Ariz.)

4. St. John's Prep (Danvers, Mass.)

3. Bishop Hendricken High School (Warwick, R.I.)

2. Columbus High School (Miami, Fla.)

1. St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

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Indiana high school football preview: Class A predictions, top players in Indy-area

Lutheran is gone. The three-time defending Class A champions moved up to 2A . So did Adams Central, which lost to Lutheran the past three years in the state finals. So, at the least, we know there will be two different teams in the state championship for the first time since 2020.

Here are three games that will shape Class A this season and a look at the local teams in the class:

∎ Greenwood Christian at Milan, Sept. 20: It will be interesting to see how far Greenwood Christian has come in a short time going into its first year as a sectional-eligible program. In Week 5, the Cougars play a Milan team they lost to 49-6 last season. Good test.

∎ Eastern (Greentown) at Sheridan, Oct. 11: Eastern is a 2A program but this is a good challenge for Sheridan, which lost 19-14 last season to the Comets.

∎ Sheridan at Carroll (Flora), Oct. 18: Carroll was 12-0 last year before falling to Adams Central in a Class A regional.

Indiana high school football preview: Everything you need to know for 2024

(In order of projected finish; records from 2023)

Sectional 46

Sheridan (10-4): The state’s all-time winningest coach, Bud Wright , goes into his 59th season at Sheridan and 60th overall, with 457 career victories. Amazing. Considering the length of his career and success and the current landscape of coaching, I don’t know if that record will ever be touched. Wright might have a special group this season with senior lineman Charlie Merriman, senior lineman Owen Trietsch, junior guards Jon Barnes and Jaden Dunbar, junior lineman Brayden Whisman, senior quarterback Owen Bell (804 passing yards, nine TDs), senior receiver Dayne Voege and senior returner/quarterback Caleb Alexander all coming back. The defense will be led by junior linebacker Alex Cravens (89 tackles, two interceptions), Barnes on the line (78 tackles, seven for loss), junior Chance Spencer (73 tackles, two interceptions), Voege (36 tackles, two interceptions) and Trietsch as returning starters. The Blackhawks had a great season last year with an impressive regional title win over North Decatur, but ran into the Lutheran buzzsaw in the semistate.

Clinton Prairie (6-5): The Gophers rolled up 440 yards of offense and 42 points and still lost (50-42) to North Vermillion in last year’s sectional semifinal.

Tri-Central (5-7): Quarterback Owen Tolle ran for 633 yards and seven touchdowns as a sophomore.

Tindley (4-6): Tindley lost a lot of talent from last year’s team, including three-year starting quarterback Deon Richmond. Fifth-year coach Melvin Graham will look to senior lineman Justus Johnson, senior receiver Jai’Nelle Miller (22 catches, 239 yards, three TDs) and senior athlete Elijah Girton to lead the offense. Johnson (22 tackles, 3 ½ sacks) will also anchor the defensive line and senior Asaph Mozee (63 tackles, five for loss, two fumble recoveries) returns at linebacker.

Clinton Central (1-8): Jeremy Fendley, going into his second season, is Clinton Central’s sixth coach since 2013.

Cloverdale (2-8): The Clovers have won just six games over the past six seasons.

Irvington Prep (0-9): This is the first time Irvington will play in a sectional. The Ravens, who will be led by first-year coach David Perkins, struggled on offense last year, scoring just 34 points in nine games. It will be a building process for a program getting into the tournament for the first time.

Sectional 47

Milan (8-4): The Indians battled North Decatur but came up a little short, 31-28, in the sectional championship last season. Austin Green ran for 1,216 yards and 14 TDs last season as a junior.

North Decatur (9-4): The Chargers have won the sectional four of the past five years. Quarterback Mason Morris threw for 1,304 yards and 17 TDs as a junior.

Greenwood Christian (5-4): Greenwood Christian is in its third year as a program and first as a sectional-eligible program. The Cougars experienced some success last year and should be able to build on it this year for coach Andre Dobson. Junior quarterback Trey Dobson (1,239 passing yards, 11 TDs; 641 rushing yards, eight TDs) returns with junior running back Danny Honeycutt, running back/receiver Evan McIntire (384 rushing yards, four TDs; 27 catches, 596 yards, six TDs), senior receiver Zack Haynes (15 catches, 179 yards, one TD) and senior offensive lineman Tad Speedy. Several of the same names will play defense with Dobson at free safety, Honeycutt (25 tackles, two sacks) and McIntire (57 tackles, seven for loss, three fumble recoveries) at linebacker, Haynes at cornerback and Speedy on the defensive line.

West Washington (5-5): The Senators went to the semistate in 2020 but have not won a sectional title since then.

Eastern Greene (5-5): Eastern Greene reached the state finals in 2017 but is just 16-44 since that season.

South Decatur (7-3): Corbin Johnson rushed for 1,277 yards and 19 TDs last year as a junior for the Cougars, who last won a sectional title in 2001.

Knightstown (3-7): Knightstown’s quarterback last season was a freshman (Bryor Carmichael) and leading rusher (Jameson Crawford) was a sophomore. Crawford ran for 1,076 yards and 13 TDs.

Edinburgh (1-9): Coach Tyler DeSpain is excited about his team’s prospects this season with a senior-heavy group with a lot of experience. On offense, senior quarterback Caleb Murphy (818 passing yards, six TDs) returns, along with senior running back Jackson Hartwell  (468 yards, four TDs), senior wingback Luke Fowler and senior receiver Jared Myers (19 catches, 247 yards, two TDs). The defense brings back Hartwell (82 tackles) at free safety, Myers (29 tackles) and Fowler (22 tackles) at cornerback, senior defensive end Milas Burkman (28 tackles), senior defensive tackle Landon Tetrick and senior linebacker Eli Bryant (38 tackles, four for loss, one sack, one caused fumble).

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

Tim Walz's Gay-Straight Alliance students remember him as accepting and goofy

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and now Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, was a high school teacher and football coach in rural Minnesota nearly two decades ago. He also devoted time and energy to help his students create the school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance in 1999, and several students who were part of it remember “Mr. Walz” as goofy and accepting of everyone.

Jacob Reitan, now an LGBTQ activist and lawyer, was a founding member of the GSA at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota, about 80 miles southwest of Minneapolis. He said Walz and his wife, also a teacher at the school, provided vital support during Reitan’s formative years. 

“Both Tim and Gwen were incredibly supportive of their gay students, and they modeled values of inclusivity and respect,” Reitan, 42, told MSNBC this week. “I was bullied in high school. [Their values] helped not just me, but it also, I think, helped the bully. It showed the bully a better path forward, and I can think of no one better than Tim Walz to show that better path forward for America.”

Fellow GSA member Seth Elliot Meyer attended Mankato West from 2000-2004 and had Walz for 11th grade history. Meyer, 38, said he initially expected to hate Walz, because he was a football coach and a hunter. 

“I was a leftist punk rock, anti-everything kind of kid,” Meyer said. “In the year that I had him, what I learned is that he really cared about everyone and wanted everyone to be seen.”

Meyer, who was out as bisexual in high school, started attending GSA meetings his freshman year. He said he and the four other members of the club were scared to be seen together because they feared bullying.

“I had a really hard time in high school, and I felt like a lot of teachers wanted me to be someone else,” Meyer said. Walz, however, “was in a minority of teachers who wanted me to be OK with who I was and speak my mind, and whether it was with GSA stuff or anything else, was happy to be questioned and challenged, because he wanted to question and challenge things.”

Meyer now teaches German and a senior philosophy class at Woodward Academy, a private K-12 school in Atlanta, and he is the adviser for that school’s GSA, where some meetings are attended by about 100 of the school’s 1,000 students.

Emily Scott, 41, said she attended GSA meetings at Mankato West from 2000-2001, during her junior year, because she had a crush on one of the founding members. But she knew Walz best through a biannual trip to China in the summer of 2001 that he organized for students. That trip, and something Walz said to her on it, changed her life, said Scott, who now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

“We were on a river boat cruise in Guilin, and I turned to Mr. Walz, and I said, ‘I love this. I love China. I want to do this for the rest of my life,’” Scott recalled. “And then he set up the next 10 years of my life. He said, ‘Emily, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go to University of Wisconsin at Madison and major in Chinese, and then you’re going to go to China and get a job,’ and that is exactly what I did for the next 10 years of my life.”

Scott lived in China for a decade, learned to speak Chinese fluently and worked in garment manufacturing.

Scott said that during the school trip they took two overnight trains, which “were not fancy.” The bathrooms were just a hole that opened onto the track. 

“That was his goal for us, to push us just a little bit further out of our comfort zone,” she said of Walz. “I think that’s what Mr. Walz wants for the United States. He wants to push the United States slightly out of its comfort zone and make it just slightly better.”

Larissa Beck, 38, attended the GSA meetings as an ally during her time at Mankato West until 2004, and she had Walz as a history teacher for 10th grade. 

Beck now works in disability services and advocacy, and she said that when she ran into Walz at the state Capitol in March, he remembered her. 

“We’re talking 20-something years ago, and to have your 10th-grade geography teacher remember you after all of that time, it means something,” she said. “I couldn’t call him Gov. Walz, because he will forever be Mr. Walz. He’s genuinely the teacher that was in the hallway greeting every kid every morning, giving high fives and fist bumps. He knew what was going on and what was happening within the school. He was ingrained in the fabric of it.”

A pivot to politics

Walz, who served in the National Guard from 1981-2005, told Minneapolis’ Star Tribune in 2018 that he believed it was important for him to be the adviser to the GSA because, “It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married.”

His support for LGBTQ Minnesotans didn’t end when he left Mankato West High School; his track record shows consistent support for the queer community as he turned from teaching to politics. 

Reitan said that before Walz announced his run for Congress in 2006, he spoke to Reitan’s mother, Randi , about running on a platform that included support for same-sex marriage.

“My mom actually said to him, ‘Tim, you don’t have to be for gay marriage for our family,’” Reitan recalled. “But he said, ‘Randi, I got to look my gay students in the eye and say I’m for gay marriage.’”

Walz defeated a Republican incumbent at a time when only one state, Massachusetts, had legalized same-sex marriage, and Vermont allowed civil unions. Minnesota didn’t pass a bill codifying same-sex marriage until 2013, and gay marriage wouldn’t be legal across the U.S. until 2015.

Walz also advocated against “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2009. The policy, which prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, was in effect from 1994 until 2011.

When Walz became governor in 2019, his support for LGBTQ rights continued. 

Last year he signed a “trans refuge” bill into law, making Minnesota one of 14 states that prohibits outside authorities to enforce other states’ laws banning gender-affirming care, by, for example, attempting to subpoena health information or issue warrants under such out-of-state laws.

Also last year, Walz signed an executive order that protects access to health care for trans people in the state and signed a bill that prohibits so-called conversion therapy, a discredited practice that attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Some Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have already tried to use Walz’s support for the LGBTQ community to their advantage.  

“There’s never been a ticket like this,” Trump said Wednesday morning on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” program. “This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner. We want no security. We want no anything. He’s very heavy into transgender. Anything transgender he thinks is great, and he’s not where the country is on anything.”

As for his former students, Walz’s ascent to vice presidential candidate has inspired them to reconnect with each other and share their memories of “Mr. Walz.”

“I’ve talked to hundreds of people from high school that I haven’t talked to in 20 years because of this,” Meyer said. “Even people who don’t agree with him, they think this is a good guy, and it’s time for American politics to have a good guy.”

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Jo Yurcaba is a reporter for NBC Out.