# What's the best biography/memoir you've ever read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2017, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678 "2017-06-23T14:19:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/61 "2017-06-24T15:04:38Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > My favorite book of all-time is an autobiography. It’s called _Testament of Youth_, by Vera Brittain. It’s her memoir of being in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) during WWI. It goes in and out of print. The BBC did a serial mini-series that was about six or eight episodes in the late 70s, or early 80s, so it was in print then, and it was recently a movie. I haven’t seen the movie, because I can’t imagine not being disappointed by a 2-hr. version of a 667 page book. The mini-series was pretty good (albeit, I haven’t seen it since I was in my 20s). > > I first read _Testament of Youth_ when I was 14, and I was so damn impressed by it, I don’t k now where to begin. I was going to name all my children Vera, including the boys, and be the world’s greatest peace activist, and get a degree from Oxford. And be a writer. I’ve read it a couple more times since, the last was in my late 30s, and I still love it. > > Coming a very close second is an unusual book usually published under the title The Memoirs of _Gluckel of Hameln_. It’s a memoir written between 1646 and 1724 by a woman living in a shtetl. She wrote it, she claimed, so her children would know the story of their family. Somehow, it survived, and has been translated into a number of languages. I read it in English. I don’t read Yiddish, and I’m not sure I could understand 17th century Yiddish anyway. This book is so fascinating, I read it almost straight through. If I hadn’t started it in the evening, I probably would have read it straight through. There are very few first-hand accounts of the lives of ordinary people from this period, let alone shtetl Jews, let alone women of any religious persuasion. Both of those sound enormously intriguing. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/62 "2017-06-24T16:22:53Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > _The Moon’s a Balloon_ by David Niven is very good. Niven was a bit of a spinner of tales, but it’s a hugely entertaining read. Oh yes, I think he wrote two books. Wonderful stories about the golden age of Hollywood, John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone - the lifestyles and the making of classic movies. Also the author of two bios, Shelley Winters wrote extensively on her life, training as a method actor, her early days as a party girl with Marilyn Monroe and Yvonne de Carlo, her marriages, her films…Also a hugely entertaining read! (She was working on a third volume. She was on a talk show when she said this, but you could tell she was really very ill at the time, and she did die before the third.) ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/63 "2017-06-24T17:17:03Z")
My three cents: John Cleese- **So Anyway…** is the funniest book I’ve read in years. Highly recommended. Michael Palin- all three volumes of his Diaries are well worth the time it takes to read them. > [@koeeoaddi](#): > > [The Eden Express, by Mark Vonnegut](https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Eden_Express) (Kurt Vonnegut’s son). Not only is this a fascinating account of his complete mental breakdown, it’s also a dead on portrait of the late 60s/early 70s. Yes. It’s _very_ good, made even more so by knowing how complete and successful his recovery was. > [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > _The Moon’s a Balloon_ by David Niven is very good. Niven was a bit of a spinner of tales, but it’s a hugely entertaining read. > [@salinqmind](#): > > Oh yes, I think he wrote two books. Wonderful stories about the golden age of Hollywood, John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone - the lifestyles and the making of classic movies. **Bring On The Empty Horses** is the companion book. Both are hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/64 "2017-06-24T17:17:50Z")
I’m a big fan of William Least Heat-Moon. I suppose his books might be considered “travel writing” but taken altogether they provide a in-depth account of the man and his times. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/65 "2017-06-24T17:35:45Z")
I recently read Ron Chernow’s bio of Alexander Hamilton, and that one is great. David McCullough’s biographies of Harry Truman and John Adams are great. It’s been a long time, but I remember enjoying _No One Here Gets Out Alive_, Jerry Hopkins’ bio of Jim Morrison (and I think the basis for the movie _The Doors_?). ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/66 "2017-06-24T22:11:50Z")
I really enjoyed the Sacks autobiography, and found it much easier to read than his neurology books. Tom Brokaw’s book about his battle with multiple myeloma is also fascinating, and he admits that he’s much more fortunate than most victims of this horrific and incurable disease, on many levels. > **[A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope: Brokaw, Tom: 9780812982084:...](https://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Life-Interrupted-Memoir-Hope/dp/0812982088)** > > A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope \[Brokaw, Tom\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope On a less optimistic note, both of the books by the Cleveland kidnapping survivors are excellent. Michelle Knight’s book was much harder to read, because she had been failed by her family and society from the day she was born until the day she escaped. > **[Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed: A Memoir of the Cleveland...](https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Me-Reclaimed-Cleveland-Kidnappings/dp/1602862796)** > > Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed: A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings \[Knight, Michelle, Burford, Michelle\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed: A Memoir of the... Here’s the book by the other two escapees. > **[Amazon.com: Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland: 9780143108207: Berry,...](https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Survival-Cleveland-Amanda-Berry/dp/0143108204)** > > Amazon.com: Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland: 9780143108207: Berry, Amanda, DeJesus, Gina, Jordan, Mary, Sullivan, Kevin: Books ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/67 "2017-06-24T22:20:34Z")
For political bios, I’ll second _Team of Rivals_ and _Washington, A Life_, both interesting and well done looks at two of our greatest presidents (and their cabinets and confidantes in the case of Team of Rivals). For all around fun, I’ll second _Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman_, and third Keith Richards’ _Life_, both of which are compelling and varied looks at very interesting men. I’ll also throw in _The Secret Life of Salvador Dali_, Reiss’ \*The Black Count \*about Alexandre Dumas’ grandfather, a nigh-superhuman black man who became a military general and achieved the highest honors and position in a still-racist time and society, and Richard Branson’s _Losing My Virginity_ as original contributions not yet mentioned on the “fun” front. If you’re interested in titans of industry, I’d recommend Chernow’s _Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller_. _First Family, Terror, Revenge, Murder, and the birth of the American Mafia_ is semi-biographical of Guiseppe Morello and the Morello crime family and pretty good too, although it isn’t strictly a biography all the way through. Along similar lines, I also recommend _Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World_ by Jack Weatherford - a fascinating and scholarly-grounded work that’s interesting to anyone interested in the Khan, the Mongols, and that period of history. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/68 "2017-06-24T22:34:24Z")
Like David Niven’s, Tony Curtis’s autobiography is a good read. So is Nick Tosches’ biography of Dean Martin. Aviators, scientists, and inventors have always been big heroes of mine. My favorite biographies are those of the Wright Brothers, Galileo, and Thomas Edison. The autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Malcolm X should be required reading in all American schools. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/69 "2017-06-25T00:50:43Z")
[When Breath Becomes Air](https://www.amazon.com/Kalanithi-Breath-Becomes-Paperback-2017/dp/B06WV8L6CT/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498351484&sr=8-2&keywords=when+breath+becomes+air) by Paul Kalanithi. I just finished this memoir by a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It is not only a gripping story, but very beautifully written. Do yourself a favor and seek it out. From the Amazon website: > [@](#): > > ‘Finishing this book and then forgetting about it is simply not an option…Unmissable’ (New York Times). At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity - the brain - and finally into a patient and a new father. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when when life is catastrophically interrupted? What does it mean to have a child as your own life fades away? mmm ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/70 "2017-06-25T02:16:21Z")
When I was in junior high, we had two sets of books in the house: one (my older brother’s) was biographies of great historical figures and the other (mine, presents from my dad) was biographies of great artists. The only two I recall reading all the way through were the ones on Peter the Great and Leonardo da Vinci. I actually read the one on Peter the Great so much that the spine of the book was visibly different from the others’ when it was put back on the shelf. This annoyed my brother no end when he got back from his four years in the Air Force! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/71 "2017-06-25T02:30:54Z")
I’m not a huge biography reader, I think I’ve only read two or three…best one has to be Mick Foley’s books (I count them all as one), the first one being called “Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks”, ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/72 "2017-06-25T04:12:32Z")
I’m surprised it took 28 posts before the first mention of _Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman_. The man actually led the life that Heinlein’s protagonists only dream of living. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/73 "2017-06-25T14:56:18Z")
I’m generally lukewarm about memoirs, but I also liked the Michael Palin diaries. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/74 "2017-06-25T19:50:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > _My Family and Other Animals_ - Gerald Durrell - while it might be a \*slightly \*fictionalized account of his boyhood on Corfu, it’s still one of my favourite books, ever. Concerning the same guy: I’d nominate Douglas Botting’s _Gerald Durrell – The Authorised Biography_ – published 1999, a few years after Durrell’s death. I found it compulsive reading (Durrell was a childhood hero of mine). As well as my being greatly in sympathy with Durrell’s outlook and aims; in the biography, he comes across as a highly likeable and benign individual. And as one who was not at all, a hater of his own species – he liked people, and relished and appreciated the multiple aspects of “the human comedy”. He was just concerned about the huge and ever-increasing numbers of people on the planet, and their impact on it in an assortment of ways, often detrimental to other life-forms. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/75 "2017-06-25T21:43:08Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I recently read Ron Chernow’s bio of Alexander Hamilton, and that one is great. David McCullough’s biographies of Harry Truman and John Adams are great. It’s been a long time, but I remember enjoying _No One Here Gets Out Alive_, Jerry Hopkins’ bio of Jim Morrison (and I think the basis for the movie _The Doors_?). Count me as another backer too of the David Niven autobiography. Hugely entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/76 "2017-06-25T23:14:30Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > [When Breath Becomes Air](https://www.amazon.com/Kalanithi-Breath-Becomes-Paperback-2017/dp/B06WV8L6CT/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498351484&sr=8-2&keywords=when+breath+becomes+air) by Paul Kalanithi. > > I just finished this memoir by a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It is not only a gripping story, but very beautifully written. > > Do yourself a favor and seek it out. I just read this myself. Have a box of Kleenex handy, because you will need it. Here are two others that come to mind for me, and it’s pretty obvious that they are drastically different. Motley Crue’s group autobiography, “The Dirt”, was one of the saddest books I have ever read. ETA And not just because Vince Neil’s 4-year-old daughter died from a particular vicious form of cancer, or rather, the futile attempt to treat it. It was really obvious to me almost from the first page that Vince and Nikki were horribly abused as children. > **[The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band: Lee, Tommy, Neil,...](https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Confessions-Worlds-Most-Notorious/dp/0060989157)** > > The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band \[Lee, Tommy, Neil, Vince, Mars, Mick, Sixx, Nikki, Strauss, Neil\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band I started reading this book one year to the day after the picture on the back cover was taken (of Dr. Brantly climbing out of the ambulance, after which he walked into the hospital). I still can’t believe he did that! The book is both of their stories, and while they do talk about God and Jesus a lot, it has no preaching in it. > **[Called for Life: How Loving Our Neighbor Led Us into the Heart of the Ebola...](https://www.amazon.com/Called-Life-Loving-Neighbor-Epidemic/dp/1601428251)** > > Called for Life: How Loving Our Neighbor Led Us into the Heart of the Ebola Epidemic \[Brantly, Kent, Brantly, Amber, Thomas, David\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Called for Life: How Loving Our Neighbor Led Us into the Heart of... ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/77 "2017-06-25T23:34:14Z")
[The autobiography of Lincoln Steffens](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1598771.The_Autobiography_of_Lincoln_Steffens). This book had more effect on the way I think as any other single book I’ve read (even [Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5544.Surely_You_re_Joking_Mr_Feynman_), the runner-up) I first read an excerpt in my Dad’s college reader: it was once a significant enough book that it had that status. The first part of volume one (the part quoted, before he became a contentious political figure), is just beautiful. A just beautiful piece of writing about a fabulous childhood. It still influences what I want to be as a father. Later on, his university and work education inform my ideas of education. Finally, his reporting of politics grounds everything I’ve ever read since. I’m just sorry he didn’t live to report on the Spanish Civil war and the denunciation of Stalin by Nikita Khrushchev: he’d already came to the same conclusion as George Orwell did in “Animal Farm” (1945), but from the other side, and not as a condemnation. The Feynman book is a book I bought with my own money, when I was a student and didn’t have very much. Like him, I didn’t know a lot about society: unlike him, I’m not smart, good looking, and well-off: the stuff he learned as a scientist (by experimentaion, study, and reporting), I read about in that book. ---
**Author:** ![BuckChongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@BuckChongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuckChongo)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/78 "2017-06-26T00:14:39Z")
The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Goodbye To All That, and Eden Express are great memoirs. I’d add John Graves’ Goodbye To A River, T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Hemingway’s Letters, and Col. David Hackworth’s About Face. I’m headed to Amazon to get the U.S. Grant book, what a quietly fascinating man… ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/79 "2017-06-26T01:03:12Z")
The Grant autobio is free on Guttenburg ---
**Author:** ![jonesj2205](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecc23a/32.png) [@jonesj2205](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonesj2205)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678/80 "2017-06-26T11:44:30Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > “Carrying the Fire” by Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins. My favorite. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-best-biography-memoir-youve-ever-read/789678.md?page=5)