Biography is probably the easiest section to search in any library’s nonfiction collection. After all, while the rest of the NF books require a basic knowledge of the Dewey Decimal system, to search Biography, all you need to know is the person’s name. Books on George Washington are shelved under BIO WASHINGTON and books on Princess Diana are shelved under BIO DIANA. It doesn’t get much simpler than that! So, let’s explore this genre of books and learn a little bit more about all the interesting people we can learn about!
What are Biographies and Why Do We Like Them?
Biographies are books about people. Most notably, these nonfiction titles focus on the entire life (at least as far as the time of writing) of a specific person. So, for example, a biography of Teddy Roosevelt would talk about his whole life, while a book about Teddy Roosevelt’s involvement in the creation of the National Parks system wouldn’t really be considered Biography and would be shelved elsewhere. Likewise, a book about a still living figure, such as former President Barack Obama would still be considered Biography if it focused not just on his presidency, but on his childhood, schooldays, and early political career as well.
Readers like biographies because they are interesting opportunities to learn all about a person’s life. If, for example, you enjoy the films of John Wayne or the books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you might enjoy learning more about their personal lives, their careers, and even their childhoods. Biographies allow us an in-depth look behind the curtain, and a chance to learn more about someone interesting and famous.
Biography vs. Memoir vs. Autobiography
What’s the different between Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir? Let’s take a look. Biography if the life of a famous person written by someone else. So, if I wrote a book about Louisa May Alcott, that would be a biography. Memoirs and autobiographies are written by the subject. If a person wrote a book about their entire life (up to a point), that would be an autobiography. And if that same person decided to focus on a specific aspect of their life (such as their career as a musician, the years they spent in homelessness, or the summer they spent hanging out with Ernest Hemingway) those would be memoirs.
Related Genres
If you’re the kind of reader who enjoys biography, here are a few other genres you might enjoy reading:
- True Crime: These are stories of real people and real, horrible events. If you enjoy learning about true stories, you might enjoy these
- Family Sagas: Family sagas are fictional stories that cover the lives of a large group of people through the years
- Bildungsroman: Coming of age stories that tell the tale of a person’s childhood and young adulthood
- History: Instead of learning about the life of one person, you can learn about the life of an entire culture!
Recommended Reading:
Choosing just a few biographies is so hard to do, as there are so many interesting people to learn about! Here’s just a small sampling that is by no means a complete or exhaustive list:
Alexander Hamilton (Ron Chernow) Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow’s biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. Chernow here recounts Hamilton’s turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States.
The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers (Maxwell King) Every weekday for decades, a kind man named Mister Rogers stepped through a door in his TV house, spoke directly into the camera while he changed from street clothes into a cardigan and sneakers, and sang, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.” Offering unconditional love, this soft-spoken icon was a household name for tens of millions of children, as well as their parents who grew up with this friendly neighbor themselves. Fred Rogers (1928-2003) was an enormously influential pioneer in the history of television for almost forty years. As the creator and star of public television’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he was a champion of compassion, equality, and kindness. Rogers was fiercely devoted to children and to taking their fears, concerns, and questions about the world seriously. The Good Neighbor, the first full-length biography of Fred Rogers, tells the story of this unique and enduring American figure.
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (Robert Massie) Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.
Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail (Ben Montgomery) Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin. Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person–man or woman–to walk it twice and three times. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. The story of Grandma Gatewood will inspire readers of all ages by illustrating the full power of human spirit and determination.
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman (Lucy Worsley) Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was “just” an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, “She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern.” She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why-despite all the evidence to the contrary-did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? She was born in 1890 into a world that had its own rules about what women could and couldn’t do. Lucy Worsley’s biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It’s also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was-truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
