What are the best biographies ever written?

World According to Garp

Sneed Feed and Seed

These are both solid contenders.

I would add Diongenes Laertius. He's not the most reliable, but he's a super fun read.

Miles Davis autobio is fucking amazing. All the Ron Chernow bios (House of Morgan, Rockefeller, Washington) are great but can be a bit dry in places. The Black Count is also pretty sweet.

Good che guevara biographies? I wanna now if he actually gave a fuck or was just fighting for the sake of it.

Underrated

Unironically Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. I didn't realise how maniacal Jobs was in regards to fasting, only having quality products in his home to the point of being ascetic, rarely showering, ignoring cancer, trying to treat cancer with homeopathy, and so on. Genuinely interesting if you have a passing interest in how technology developed.

I've visited the Samuel Johnson museum. What makes him so interesting?

>Miles Davis autobio is fucking amazing
What is it about, user?

The Power Broker

Boswell's Biography of Johnson is interesting simply by virtue of being the best biography in the English language. Johnson himself was a major force in the literary field of the day, although his output was quite small. His most influential works were probably his Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious English dictionary (which he compiled himself over nine years), his critical edition of Shakespeare, and his Live of the Eminent Poets. Think of him as a more influential and more combative version of Harold Bloom who writes better.

P much everything Robert Caro has written desu

Agreed on the Miles Davis. Robin Kelley's Monk biography is also pretty good in that vein.
...It's about the life of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis

Caro certainly does his homework, but I don't like his style. It seems unnecessarily dramatic; I was reading the first volume of his LBJ biography and he ends every chapter on a cliffhanger.

Never at rest and kershaw's hitler

Came in here expecting to see this. Wasn't disappointed.

REBEL YELL: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson, by S.C. Gwynne. Scribner, 672 pp.

Amazing story telling. One of the best Civil War biographies out there. S.C. Gwynne does a great job.

>>Miles Davis autobio is fucking amazing
>What is it about, user?
About Miles Davis

Ray Monk’s Witty bio.

How has it not been mentioned?

>kershaw's hitler
ur a total faggot, that book sucks, it says jewish bolshevism is a conspiracy theory and it says that the holocaust is true

You don't know what autobiography means

Good autobiographies:

The Education of Henry Adams
The diaries of Ernst Junger

...

Napoleon a life
Johm adams mcollough
Hamilton chernow

Clearly this.

Ellman's Joyce bio is a masterpiece of research and writing.

Nixonland

Depends on interests bruh.

I think that Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, many biographies on the American presidents / founding fathers are all big contenders.

But imo the most interesting biographies are about artists that allow you to understand the background context/psychology and emotion that goes into all their work. I would highly recommend reading about composers like Mahler, Beethoven, etc so that you have an idea of their thought process. struggles, and the meaning behind each piece or its inspiration. That's a great window into what creativity is like.

Pic unrelated.

this turned me from frog-hater to saying vive l’empereur before bed every night

Malcolm X's autobiography

>I will never become a notable person

>I will never write an autobiography entitled, "The Unauthorized and Unofficial Autobiography of [So-And-So]"

Renaissance artist Cellini is supposed to have written a very entertaining autobiography of himself and his various feuds and loves in Renaissance Italy.

Jon Lee Anderson's was a good read.

I've read that autobiography, it's free on ebooks@adelaide or gutenberg.

It's very entertaining, lots of way over-the-top drama, fights, and murders. There's a story where he escaped prison by jumping out the window, breaking his legs, and dragging himself to freedom. He describes a few of his murders and stabbings.

how typically Italian.

The more I learn of the Italian people, the more assured I am that they are naturally evil. Complex evil, the beautiful and interesting kind that seduces and still kills your soul.

Che guevara was a narcissist, rapist, sociopathic pseud. He rarely washed. His mother was the textbook devouring mother that freud described. His family was rich bourgeois scum that abused the working class. The women he raped were always young servents or poor girls. He fought because he was a violent, neurotic man. He fought to fuel his visions of grandeur for himself and to make up for the pig he really was.

Mein Kampf

thanks user I wanted to know which was a good stonewall biography

Does Hagakure count as a biography?

This. It looks amazing too.
Reading a copy I borrowed from my public library but I'm tempted to buy it new just so I can have this thing on my shelf.

Forgot pic

Which book on Beethoven lad?

I'd say it's typically Renaissance. Travelling city to city by foot or on a mule along the unpoliced paths and by-ways at that time was not at all the teeny risk this poses today, with the a\c pumping, and the beats.
The Italians I know are lovely people. Perhaps (among the educated) the most polite, even kind, in Europe.

Good one for people interested in the American Civil War

All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt

Pimp by Iceberg Slim.

>henry adams
very much this, his autobiography is stunning

>SIMPLY DYNAMITE
why do they do this

First post, best post.

The Bible

I don't know that OP wanted fictional biographies

Rousseau's autobiography and Augustusine's Confessions

Casanova

edjy

Speak Memory is texturally the best (auto)biography I've ever read