The Greatest Biography Books of All Time

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
190 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
191 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
245 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
389 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
391 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
401 Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey 1918 British English
470 Facundo Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 Argentinian Spanish
472 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
502 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
562 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
606 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
608 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
653 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
682 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
702 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
733 Venice Jan Morris 1960 British English
745 The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs 1961 American English
758 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
778 The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1922 British English
801 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
804 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
911 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
913 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
937 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer 1960 American English
939 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
1000 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
1012 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
1061 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs 1861 American English
1084 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
1116 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
1117 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
1158 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
1216 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1218 Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher 1973 British English
1282 Disraeli Robert Blake 1966 British English
1327 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
1342 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1345 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
1399 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 1791 American English
1502 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1563 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1623 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1630 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
1642 Napoleon Emil Ludwig 1926 German German
1656 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English
1692 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
1699 The Face of Battle John Keegan 1976 British English
1784 Facing Mount Kenya Jomo Kenyatta 1938 Kenyan English
1840 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan 1958 Irish English
1858 Brief Lives John Aubrey 1898 British English
1894 Essays, First And Second Series Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
1896 A Distant Mirror Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1978 American English
1916 The Campaign of the Marne Sewell Tyng 1927 American English
1932 To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson 1940 American English
1942 Balzac Stefan Zweig 1946 Austrian German
1944 Strange Defeat Marc Bloch 1946 French French
2002 The Travels of Ibn Battutah Ibn Battúta 1355 Moroccan Arabic
2019 Memoirs Of A Revolutionist Vera Figner 1920 Russian Russian
2019 The Memoirs Of Princess Dashkova Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova 1840 Russian Russian
2019 The History Of The Yorubas Reverend Samuel Johnson 1921 Nigerian English
2019 The Soul of the White Ant Eugène N. Marais 1925 South African Afrikaans
2019 The Lives Of The Poets Samuel Johnson 1779 British English
2060 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
2092 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
2100 Memoirs of Cardinal De Retz Cardinal de Retz 1717 French French
2118 All But My Life Gerda Weissmann Klein 1957 American English
2133 Antériorité Des Civilisations Nègres Cheikh Anta Diop 1954 Senegalese French
2196 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
2194 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
2210 The Battle with the Slum Jacob A. Riis 1902 Danish English
2293 Beethoven's Letters Ludwig van Beethoven 1866 German German
2234 The Memoirs Of General Makriyannis Makriyannis 1907 Greek Greek
2224 Memoirs Of The Author Of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman William Godwin 1798 British English
2224 Life Of John Sterling Thomas Carlyle 1851 British English
2332 Jefferson and His Time Dumas Malone 1948 American English
2342 Ghana Kwame Nkrumah 1957 Ghanaian English
2371 The American Political Tradition Richard Hofstadter 1948 American English
2480 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
2490 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
2493 Diane Arbus Marvin Israel, Doon Arbus 1972 American English
2512 The Last Lion William Manchester 1983 American English
2558 The Passage Of Power Robert Caro 2012 American English
2589 The Age of Jackson Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1945 American English
2605 Memories And Commentaries Igor Stravinsky 1960 Russian English
2670 Melbourne David Cecil 1939 British English
2674 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi 1986 Italian Italian
2705 Great Heart James West Davidson, John Rugge 1988 American English
2713 Florence Nightingale Cecil Woodham-Smith 1950 British English
2783 Vermeer Lawrence Gowing 1952 British English
2805 Parting the Waters Taylor Branch 1988 American English
2824 Patrimony Philip Roth 1991 American English
2829 The Adams Jefferson Letters Lester J. Cappon 1959 American English
2863 James Joyce Richard Ellmann 1959 American English
2905 Behemoth Franz Neumann 1942 German English
2910 The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal 2010 British English
2923 Coming Of Age In Mississippi Anne Moody 1968 American English
3016 Citizens Simon Schama 1989 British English
3023 The History of the Standard Oil Company Ida Tarbell 1904 American English
3032 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
3041 The Son of a Servant August Strindberg 1886 Swedish Swedish
3041 My Life Leon Trotsky 1930 Russian Russian
3082 Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands Mary Seacole 1857 Jamaican English
3128 The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling Angus Wilson 1977 British English
3157 Oliver Cromwell L. du Garde Peach 1963 British English
3179 Dora Bruder Patrick Modiano 1997 French French
3184 Gulag Anne Applebaum 2003 American English
3200 The Age Of Wonder Richard Holmes 2008 British English
3231 Staying Power Peter Fryer 1984 British English
3261 Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand 2010 American English
3306 Van Loon's Lives Hendrik Willem van Loon 1942 Dutch English
3378 Rising Tide John Barry 1997 American English
3392 John Keats Robert Gittings 1968 British English
3398 Mountains Beyond Mountains Tracy Kidder 2003 American English
3402 March John Lewis 2013 American English
3442 What It Takes Richard Ben Cramer 1992 American English
3462 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
3506 Truman David McCullough 1992 American English
3510 How We Die Sherwin B. Nuland 1994 American English
3517 Naples 44 Norman Lewis 1978 British English
3601 Thirty Years As A Slave And Four Years In The White House Elizabeth Keckley 1868 American English