Biography & Memoir
Lives told in the first person. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with Alex Haley, follows its author from street hustler to one of the most influential voices of his time. Katharine Graham's Personal History tells how she took over The Washington Post and led it through the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Annie Ernaux's The Years takes a different route: a collective autobiography of a woman and a generation in post-war France, told without the word "I". Three very different ways of writing a life, each worth reading for how it is told as much as for what happened.
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Biography & Memoir
Memoirs about growing up, working, travelling and surviving. Tara Westover's Educated and Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle tell of unusual childhoods and the cost of leaving them; Edmund de Waal traces his family through a collection of tiny carvings in The Hare with Amber Eyes. James Herriot and Paul Kalanithi write about their work as a country vet and a neurosurgeon, Andrew Solomon about depression in The Noonday Demon, and Patrick Leigh Fermor, Wilfred Thesiger and Paul Theroux about journeys across Europe, Arabia and Asia. Personal stories that read like novels, for anyone who likes honest writing about real lives.
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Biography & Memoir
Lives from the past, rediscovered by modern writers. Tom Reiss's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Black Count tells the life of General Alexandre Dumas, born to an enslaved woman in Saint-Domingue, who rose to command armies in revolutionary France and inspired his son's novel The Count of Monte Cristo. David Grann's The Lost City of Z follows Percy Fawcett, the British explorer who vanished in the Amazon in 1925 while searching for a lost city, and Grann's own journey on his trail. Biographies that read like adventure stories, for history lovers and armchair explorers.
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Biography & Memoir
Biographies of the people who held public power, and how they used it. Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells how Robert Moses, who never won an election, reshaped New York with parks, bridges and highways, and at what human cost. Sebastian Mallaby's The Man Who Knew is the life of Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve for almost two decades, and of the economic choices made on his watch. Two monumental biographies for readers interested in politics, cities and economics. See Biography & Memoir for more true lives.
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Biography & Memoir
Lives of the people who changed what we know about the world and the body. Andrea Wulf's The Invention of Nature tells the story of Alexander von Humboldt, the explorer and scientist who first described nature as one interconnected web and inspired Darwin and the early environmental movement. Lindsey Fitzharris's The Facemaker follows Harold Gillies, the surgeon who rebuilt the faces of soldiers wounded in the First World War and helped found modern plastic surgery. Vivid science biographies for readers who like history with a human face.
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Biography & Memoir
Biographies of the people who build companies, and of the companies they build. Brad Stone's The Everything Store tells the story of Jeff Bezos and Amazon, from an online bookshop in a Seattle garage to one of the most powerful companies in the world. Stone shows the ambition, the long-term strategy and the demanding culture behind Amazon's rise, along with its costs. A gripping read for entrepreneurs, managers and anyone curious about how modern business giants are made. More business biographies will join this shelf; see Business & Economics for related books.
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Biography & Memoir
Lives of the founders, prophets and teachers of the world's religions. Reza Aslan's Zealot looks at Jesus of Nazareth as a historical figure: a Jewish preacher in first-century Palestine, a land occupied by Rome and full of revolutionaries and would-be messiahs. Aslan uses history and the Gospels to separate the man from the later image, and his book became a bestseller and a subject of debate. For readers interested in religious history and the historical background of faith. More lives will join this shelf; see Religion & Spirituality for related books.
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Biography & Memoir
Lives of people who set out to change their societies. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with Alex Haley, follows Malcolm X from a troubled childhood and prison to the Nation of Islam, his break with it and his pilgrimage to Mecca, ending shortly before his assassination in 1965. It is one of the most influential American books of the twentieth century, as much about transformation and self-education as about politics. Essential for readers interested in civil rights, race and the people who fight for change. See Biography & Memoir for more true lives.
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Biography & Memoir
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Biography & Memoir
Biographies of groups rather than single people: families, teams and generations whose stories only make sense together. Walter Isaacson's The Innovators follows the many inventors, from Ada Lovelace to the founders of the internet, who built the digital world through collaboration. Robert Kolker's Hidden Valley Road tells the story of the Galvin family, six of whose twelve children were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and how they helped science understand the illness. Two books that show history is rarely made by one person alone. For more true lives, see Biography & Memoir.
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