Best Biographies

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Biographies, History, Physics, Science lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Biographies, History, American, Revolutions lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, selfsufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mothers side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her ageand has to live with the consequen...

"He was history's most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weav...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's comingofage, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followedNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, New York Times USA Today San Francisco Chronicle NPR Esquire Newsday BooklistT...

The #1 New York Times bestseller. New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2017Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant.Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an ...

John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever the man who, in simulated airtoair combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft the F15 and F16. Sti...

Pulitzer Prizewinning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.In the first fulllength biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scanda...

A Booklist Notable Book of 2012The extraordinary New York Times bestselling account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from bestselling author of The River of Doubt, Candice Millard. James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected pres...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Autobiographies, Food, Biographies, FoodHobbies lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY RICHMOND TIMESDISPATCH ? ?What was it really like to be Richard Nixon Evan Thomas tackles this fascinating question by peeling back the layers of a man driven by a poignant mix of optimism and fear.??Walter Isaacson,...

Plutarch's Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victo...

Librarian's Note: An alternate cover edition can be found hereIn April, 1992, a young man from a welltodo 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 cas...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Biographies, History lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

A masterful work by Pulitzer Prize?winning author David Herbert Donald, Lincoln is a stunning portrait of Abraham Lincoln?s life and presidency.Donald brilliantly depicts Lincoln?s gradual ascent from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to the everexpanding political circles in Illinois, and finally to the presidency of a country divided by civil ...

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Christian Science Monitor ? St. Louis PostDispatch?Magisterial.??The New York Times In this extraordinary volume, Jean Edward Smith presents a portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America?s thirtyfourth president. Here is Eisenhower the ...

The enthralling, often surprising story of John Adams, one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous lifejourney of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot "the colossus of independence," as Thom...

From the moment that he first shook up the world in the mid 1950s, Elvis Presley has been one of the most vivid and enduring myths of American culture.Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley is the first biography to go past that myth and present an Elvis beyond the legend. Based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, i...

Celebrated by feminists, historians, politicians & reviewers everywhere, Blanche Wiesen Cook's Eleanor Roosevelt presents an unprecedented portrait of the towering female figure of the 20th century. This volume begins with her harrowing childhood, describes the difficulties of her marriage & explains how she persuaded Franklin to make the reforms t...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, American, History, Children'sFiction, Fiction lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for imaginative storytelling, atmosphere, or character-driven reflection. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

Heralded as a landmark achievement upon publication, 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.At the center of the national drama is Ida B. Wells (186...

Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth and eighteenthcentury Europe and Russia, unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great, crowned at the age of 10. A barbarous, volatile feudal tsar with a taste for torture; a progressive and enlightened reformer of government and science; a statesman of vision and colossal significance: Peter the G...

Outstanding in his methods, Edison was also a significant transitional figure, a man halfway between the tihkerer and the theorethical scientist......

Radioactive is the visual journey into the life of Marie Curie, as told through the dazzling collage style of acclaimed author and artist Lauren Redniss. A brilliant visual storyteller, Redniss has handdesigned more than 100 color collages to tell Curie?s story, fascinating in its scientific significance and its sometimes whimsical, sometimes haun...

A biography of the only president to be elected to nonconsecutive terms reveals a tough, honest, courageous leader who took responsibility for his actions and wasn't afraid to take on corruption where he saw it....

Drawing on previously unavailable material and neverbeforeopened archives, An Unfinished Life is packed with revelations large and small about JFK's health, his love affairs, RFK's appointment as Attorney General, what Joseph Kennedy did to help his son win the White House, and the path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement had he s...

A true story from awardwinning journalist Sonia Nazario recounting the odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.In this astonishing true story, awardwinning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his m...

The first ?accidental president,? whose secret maneuverings brought Texas into the Union and set secession in motion When William Henry Harrison died in April 1841, just one month after his inauguration, Vice President John Tyler assumed the presidency. It was a controversial move by this Southern gentleman, who had been placed on the fractious Whi...

Book by Thomas C. Reeves...

Gandhi lived one of the great 20thcentury lives. He inspired and enraged, challenged and delighted many million men and women around the world. He lived almost entirely in the shadow of the British Raj, which for much of his life seemed a permanent fact, but which he did more than anyone else to destroy, using revolutionary and inspirational tacti...

Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Malala Yousafzai's first picture book, inspired by her own childhood.Malala's first picture book will inspire young readers everywhere to find the magic all around them.As a child in Pakistan, Malala made a wish for a magic pencil. She would use it to make everyone happy, to erase the s...

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Washington Post ? The Philadelphia Inquirer ? The Christian Science Monitor ? St. Louis PostDispatch. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER AWARDEveryone wants to define the man who signed his name ?A. Lincoln.? In his lifetime and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves ...

Jan Swafford?s biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world?s most iconic music. Swaffo...

Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryIn this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer's legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer's historical caricature, revealing a capable yet insecure man, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet selfdestru...

Here is the first volume of a magisterial biography of Mohandas Gandhi that gives us the most illuminating portrait we have had of the life, the work and the historical context of one of the most abidingly influential?and controversial?men in modern history. Ramachandra Guha?hailed by Time as ?Indian democracy?s preeminent chronicler??t...

John Ferling has nearly forty years of experience as a historian of early America. The author of acclaimed histories such as A Leap into the Dark and Almost a Miracle, he has appeared on many TV and film documentaries on this pivotal period of our history. In John Adams: A Life, Ferling offers a compelling portrait of one of the giants of the Revol...

Historians and the American public have long viewed President John Tyler as one of the nation?s least effective heads of state. In President without a Party the first fullscale biography in more than fifty years and the first new academic study of him in eight decades Christopher J. Leahy explores the life of the tenth chief executive of the Unite...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around Social Sciences, NonFiction, Biographies, Science, Biography lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for decision-making, behavior, or human motivation. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Biographies, History, American lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

In this fresh and illuminating biography, Fred Kaplan brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams?the littleknown and muchmisunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams?and reveals how Adams' inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America.Kaplan dra...

The definitive biography of the great soldierstatesman by the New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of War?winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography and the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoleon Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military...

Once there was a little boy named Neftalí who loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly. From the moment he could talk, he surrounded himself with words. Neftalí discovered the magic between the pages of books. When he was sixteen, he began publishing his poems as Pablo Neruda.Pablo wrote poems about the things he loved?things made by his f...

From New York Times bestselling biographer Bob Spitz, a rich biography of an epic American life, capturing what made Ronald Reagan so beloved and so transformational.More than five years in the making, based on hundreds of interviews and access to previously unavailable documents, and infused with irresistible storytelling charm, Bob Spitz's Reagan...

“Available recommendation signals cluster around NonFiction, Biographies, History, Biography lists, suggesting this book may fit readers looking for big-picture nonfiction and accessible learning. Treat this as discovery context, not a quality guarantee.”

It is impossible to understand the Second World War without understanding Winston Churchill, the bold British Prime Minister who showed himself to be one of the greatest statesmen any nation has ever known. This lengthy biography is a singlevolume abridgment of a massive, eightvolume work that took a quartercentury to write. It covers Churchill'...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this brilliant biography, Pulitzer Prizewinning author Jon Meacham chronicles the life of George Herbert Walker Bush.NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review Time NPR St. Louis PostDispatchDrawing on President ...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A model presidential biography... Now, at last, we have a biography that is right for the man" Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World One of today's premier biographers has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this superlative volume, Jean Edward S...

A major new biography of the fourth U.S. president, from New York Times?bestselling author Lynne CheneyJames Madison was a true genius of the early republic, the leader who did more than any other to create the nation we know today. This majestic new biography tells his story.Outwardly reserved, Madison was the intellectual driving force behind the...