Sam Colt
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Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter that Changed America by Jim Rasenberger |
May 26 |
Wm Wordsworth
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William Wordsworth: A Life by Stephen Gill |
June 1 |
Eleanor of Aquitaine
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Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France and England, Mother of Empires by Sara Cockerill |
June 1 |
Henry Longfellow
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Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Nicholas Basbanes |
June 2
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Francis Poulenc
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Poulenc: A Biography by Roger Nichols |
June 9
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Joe McCarthy
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Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy by Larry Tye |
July 7 |
Henry III
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Henry III: The Rise to Power and Personal Rule by David Carpenter |
July 14
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| Coco Chanel |
Chanel: Her Life by Justine Picardie |
July 14
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Butch Cassidy
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Butch Cassidy: The True Story by Charles Leehrsen |
July 14
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Margaret Beaufort
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Uncrowned Queen: The Life of Margaret Beaufort, Mother of the Tudors by Nicola Tallis |
July 28
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Izzy Stone
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Izzy: A Biography of I.F. Stone by Robert Cottrell |
Aug 14 |
Henry Kissinger
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Henry Kissinger and American Power: A Political Biography by Thomas Schwartz |
Aug 18 |
Herman Melville
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Herman Melville: A Half-Known Life by John Bryant |
Aug 24 |
Beethoven
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Beethoven, A Life by John Caeyers (transl. by Brent Annable) |
Aug 25 |
| Louis XIV |
King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV by Philip Mansel |
Sept 1 |
| Adolf Hitler |
Hitler: Downfall: 1939-1945 (Vol 2) by Volker Ulrich |
Sept 1 |
| Zygmunt Bauman |
Bauman: A Biography by Izabela Wagner |
Sept 15 |
| Ernest Hemingway |
The Man Who Wasn’t There: A Life of Ernest Hemingway by Richard Bradford |
Sept 8 |
| Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. |
The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War by Luke Nichter |
Sept 22 |
| William Faulkner |
The Life of William Faulkner: This Alarming Paradox, 1935-1962 (Vol 2) by Carl Rollyson |
Sept 22 |
| Siegfried Kracauer |
Kracuer: A Biography by Jörg Später |
Sept 28 |
James Baker III
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The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III by Peter Baker |
Sept 29 |
Malcolm X
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The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les & Tamara Payne |
Sept 29 |
Stan Lee
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True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman |
Sept 29 |
Bob Gersony
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The Good American: The Epic Life of Bop Gersony by Robert Kaplan
|
Oct 6
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Eleanor Roosevelt
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Eleanor: A Life by David Michaelis
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Oct 6
|
| Stalin |
Staling: Passage to Revolution by Ronald Suny
|
Oct 6
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| Muhammad Ali |
My Brother, Muhammad Ali: The Definitive Biography by Rahaman Ali |
Oct 9 |
John McCain
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The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain by Mark Salter
|
Oct 13 |
John Steinbeck
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Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck by William Souder |
Oct 13 |
| John Milton |
Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton by Nicholas McDowell
|
Oct 20 |
| Madame de Maintenon |
Queen of Versailles: Madame de Maintenon, First Lady of Louis XIV’s France by Mark Bryant
|
Oct 22 |
Edward Kennedy
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Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour by Neal Gabler |
Oct 27 |
Henry Adams
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The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams by David S. Brown |
Nov 10 |
Lucian Freud
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The Lives of Lucian Freud: Fame, 1968-2011 by William Feaver |
Nov 10 |
| René Magritte |
Magritte: A Life by Alexander Danchev |
Nov 10 |
| Pope Benedict |
Benedict XVI: The Biography: Volume One by Peter Seewald |
Nov 17 |
| Francis Bacon |
Francis Bacon: Revelations by Mark Stevens |
Nov 17 |
Francis Bacon
|
Francis Bacon: The Measure of Excess by Yves Peyre |
Nov 30 |
| Lady Bird Johnson |
Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia Sweig |
Dec 1 |
| William & Oveta Hobby |
The Governor and the Colonel: A Dual Biography of William P. Hobby and Oveta Culp Hobby by Don Carleton |
Dec 2 |
| Sylvia Pankhurst |
Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel by Rachel Holmes |
Dec 15 |
| Eliza Pratt Greatorex |
Restless Enterprise: The Art and Life of Eliza Pratt Greatorex by Katherine Manthorne |
Dec 15 |
William Taubman who did a biography of Khruschev in 2003 is coming out with a biography of Gorbachev in September.
Thanks for the tip – I recently added Taubman’s bio of Khrushchev to my “Related Reading” page on my sister website about presidential biographies. From what I gathered, that biography is excellent, so I can’t wait to see how he does with Gorbachev!
David Levering Lewis is doing a biography of Wendell Willkie to be released on May 1, 2018.
Thanks – I wanted to add Wendell Willkie to my “www.bestpresidentialbios.com” related-reading list but I seem to remember coming up short on compelling bios of him. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Lewis’s biography is worth a read-
Due on September 18th with a very impressive blurb lineup (Meachem, Brinkley, Nasaw, Gellman, and Cook (Blanche Wiesen):
https://www.amazon.com/Improbable-Wendell-Willkie-Businessman-Republican/dp/0871404575
That looks great! Thanks for posting it.
H.W. Brands is publishing a new book later this year (Nov 13th): Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants. Although not necessarily a biography, the author and subject matter may have some appeal.
I missed this one as well – given the topic / subject matter and the author this book could be incredibly compelling. Fingers crossed!
Gave up reading this one after about 50 pages. Its hard to get into a book when almost half of it is direct quotations. Im guessing this is how Brands is able to pump out books so fast.
Andrew Roberts (author of Napoleon) will be releasing his massive Churchill biography in November.
Thank you for posting this as I completely missed it.
Yes, thanks – this has the potential to be incredible and it fell just outside the scope of my last search (coming post-summer). I’m really looking forward to this one!
Just curious, has anyone read anything by David Blight? If so, would you recommend him? I am thinking of getting his upcoming book on Frederick Douglass. (To give you a sense of the kind of biographical writing I like, I am a big fan of Robert Caro and Ron Chernow).
He’s no Chernow or Caro, but they are in an elite category. I read Race and Reunion many years ago and recall it being very good. It won the Bancroft Award. He is a well-respected scholar so I wouldn’t hesitate buying the Douglass bio. The other major bio of Douglass by Wm. McFeely was published in 1990.
For anyone interested, C-SPAN broadcast a recent interview by Brian Lamb of Robert Moses’s biographer Robert Caro. [Also available as a podcast.] According to Mr. Lamb, it was their 8th one-hour interview.
Very sad news concerning Edmund Morris:
Steve Inskeep’s new dual-biography of John and Jessie Fremont is getting good reviews. The NYT compares it to Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic. It’s next up on my reading pile.
If you want related reading to that, I recommend Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides