12 Biographies You MUST Read Before You Die

Mccullough's Truman is an excellent book. Glad it received a shout-out

Radical son by David Horowitz. An amazing story!!

American Caesar- General Douglas MacArthur.

What kind of house did Brahms grow up in? Missed that.

2 of my favourites are:
Am I Being too Subtle - Sam Zell
Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger

Mein Kampf is also good 😂😂

Of course, I'm very supportive of any book which has excited or inspired another person's thoughts, whether or not these thoughts encourage positive action. My dilemma with this list, however, is that it includes people of evil intent with an ordinary inability to respect power and use it as a compassionate, empathetic and kind social contribution. There are many great authors, MANY, but sometimes their "human" subjects are evil, shallow, uneducated and sub-human pieces of trash who have done nothing but intentionally subject other humans to pain, humiliation, degradation and a meaningless kernel of existence. I understand that such a list is subjective however the variable standards need to be re-examined for integrity and other honest justification for them as a choice.

All of Robert K. Massie's books especially his magnum opus Peter the Great, His Life and World. His exceptional ability to tell historical narratives with the compelling drama, vivid detail, and narrative flow puts novelists to shame.

Leonard Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson is excellent.

My reading plan for 2026 is to read big books, over 500 pages. I’m reading The Last Lion by Manchester right now. It is so, so good! Plus, I am a great admirer of Winston Churchill. John Adams is on my TBR for this year and I’ve already read Hamilton.

I certainly agree on David McCullough. Most of the rest i havent read but I will get started. McCulloughs book on Teddy Roosevelt was great also.

I found the Hamilton biography to be very dense. You were right about that. I enjoyed Grant more. Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe about the Sackler Family and the OxyContin scandal is fascinating and frightening. Thanks for your list.

If you're interested in Stalin check out Stephen Kotkin's first two volumes of his biography.

Can't wait to read

Auto Biography of Mark Twain, Vol.1! He left instructions that it should not be made public until 100 yrs after his death. Copyright 2010 by Mark Twain Foundation. Funny, glib, does not begin in order of his years, but gives examples of his life events, with the people he knew, the politics of his day and insight to his thought process in dealing with personal life tragedies. Great read

Bonhoeffer !

Where is biography of abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin

Ben franklin, Albert Facey "A good life"his autobiography is a testament to the goodness of the human soul inspite of his deeply impoverished brutal childhood this Australian man is an inspiration.

That Truman biography was awesome

Churchil was a mass murderer responsible for bengal famine, and was absolutely non-challant about it. He was no hero.

Would anyone know whether there has been authored any excelllent biography of one Mr. Ben Shapiro?

Too late I've been dead for a long time. Either that, or I haven't lived yet.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

The biography of Harry Truman "Plain Speaking" was good.

Love biographies. I've read lots of your choices. Still awaiting that second Kissinger book. Ron Chernow' s Rockefeller bio and also The House of Morgan. Oak and the Calf...Solzhenitsyn's autobiography. Wig Swans by Jung Chang... Excellent.

Michael Collins by
Tim pat coogan

how is washington not here

bro... these are almost all american biographies. You need to expand your horizons a little further past your country thats existed 250 years lol

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Andrew Roberts Winston Churchill

Lincoln by Sandburg is one of the all time best. Lincoln had so many funny stories.

No One Here Gets Out Alive. The biography of Jim Morrison is also very good.

Titan also by Ron Chernow.

No women’s biographies worth noting?

Love this little episode!
On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Ronald C. White
This is a good book.
Chamberlain also wrote several books. He is a very interesting man - Civil War.

Ben is bad at math

Churchill by Andrew Roberts
Stalin by Stephen Kotkin

"With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln" by Stephen B. Oates

You forgot the Epstein biography.

I read Keith Richards a couple years ago, I’ll have to say if you love music it’s great

Volkert Ulrichs two volume biography of Hitler is superb.

This isn't what we meant when we said we wanted the list.

Chernow wrote one on Washington that was really good!

Ben-Thanks so much for your superb “bucket list” of biographies. A. Scott Berg’s biography of Lindbergh is wonderful, save for the fact that he didn’t know about Lindbergh’s “second family.” Martin Duberman’s “Robeson” is a towering work on a man of almost unimaginable talents, and Blake Bailey’s excellent biography “Roth,” which wound up being unfairly “canceled” is also worth your attention. Lastly, Alan Weinstein’s “The Hiss/Chambers Case” is sort of a double biography about an amazing period in American history when it was hard to tell who was lying and who was telling the truth. That it turned out to be waspy Alger Hiss shook a lot of people to their political cores. Best,
John

Boswell's life of Johnson deserves a mention. It is often been touted as the greatest biography ever written

Don’t forget the biography of Jesus Christ within the 4 Biblical Gospels! The most important biography! ❤