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
262 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
304 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
357 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
361 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
398 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
402 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
426 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
430 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
514 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
528 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
549 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
647 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
681 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
691 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
747 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
767 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
773 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
783 Facundo Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 Argentinian Spanish
820 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
901 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 1791 American English
910 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
923 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
1054 The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs 1961 American English
1086 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
1089 Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey 1918 British English
1103 Essays, First And Second Series Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
1124 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1145 Frederick Douglass David W. Blight 2018 American English
1172 Dora Bruder Patrick Modiano 1997 French French
1182 The Passage Of Power Robert Caro 2012 American English
1188 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
1278 The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1922 British English
1360 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi 1986 Italian Italian
1382 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
1537 The Soul of a New Machine Tracy Kidder 1981 American English
1573 The Last Lion William Manchester 1983 American English
1575 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1580 When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi 2016 American English
1582 Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher 1973 British English
1599 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
1627 Master of the Senate Robert Caro 2002 American English
1635 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
1660 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
1672 The Gate of Heavenly Peace Jonathan Spence 1981 American English
1673 Disraeli Robert Blake 1966 British English
1721 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
1821 The Good War Studs Terkel 1984 American English
1841 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
1859 How To End A Story Helen Garner 2021 Australian English
1863 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
1869 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
1901 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
1934 A Bright Shining Lie Neil Sheehan 1988 American English
1937 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
1951 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
1977 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan 1958 Irish English
2132 The Face of Battle John Keegan 1976 British English
2186 Poetry And Truth From My Own Life Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 2004 German English
2192 A Distant Mirror Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1978 American English
2198 Rousseau and Revolution Will Durant, Ariel Durant 1967 American English
2203 Limonov Emmanuel Carrère 2011 French French
2270 King Jonathan Eig 2023 American English
2279 Borges Adolfo Bioy Casares 2006 Argentine Spanish
2282 Prairie Fires Caroline Fraser 2017 American English
2293 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
2318 Lives Other Than My Own Emmanuel Carrère 2009 French French
2349 What It Takes Richard Ben Cramer 1992 American English
2413 Truman David McCullough 1992 American English
2419 Coleridge Richard Holmes 1989 British English
2462 Brief Lives John Aubrey 1898 British English
2463 To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson 1940 American English
2469 Patrimony Philip Roth 1991 American English
2496 Grant Ron Chernow 2017 American English
2574 Gulag Anne Applebaum 2003 American English
2602 The Immense Journey Loren Eiseley 1957 American English
2643 Enlightenment Now Steven Pinker 2018 American English
2648 Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt 1932 American English
2649 Manhood For Amateurs Michael Chabon 2009 American English
2658 Seabiscuit Laura Hillenbrand 2001 American English
2660 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
2680 Caste Isabel Wilkerson 2020 American English
2682 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs 1861 American English
2688 The Lost City of Z David Grann 2009 American English
2688 Hunger Roxane Gay 2017 American English
2729 Gedanken Und Erinnerungen Otto von Bismarck 1898 German German
2729 The Theory And Practice Of Hell Eugen Kogon 1950 German German
2765 Invisible Child Andrea Elliott 2021 American English
2839 Rising Tide John Barry 1997 American English
2858 How The Word Is Passed Clint Smith 2021 American English
2868 Hidden Valley Road Robert Kolker 2020 American English
2879 Entangled Life Merlin Sheldrake 2020 British English
2896 Growing Up Russell Baker 1982 American English
2922 Lincoln at Gettysburg Garry Wills 1992 American English
2945 The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal 2010 British English
3014 A Life of Picasso John Richardson 1991 British English
3055 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
3065 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Edmund Morris 1979 American English
3099 The Invention Of Nature Andrea Wulf 2015 German English
3104 The Life of Andrew Jackson Marquis James 1937 American English
3140 Running Jean Echenoz 2008 French French
3142 The Age of Jackson Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1945 American English
3164 The Black Count Tom Reiss 2012 French English
3177 Galileo Bertolt Brecht 1938 German German
3180 The Great Bridge David McCullough 1972 American English
3182 Profiles in Courage John F. Kennedy 1956 American English
3186 Master Slave Husband Wife Ilyon Woo 2023 Unknown English
3188 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer 1960 American English
3202 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
3208 Artemisia Anna Banti 1947 Italian Italian
3285 The South Pole Roald Amundsen 1912 Norwegian Norwegian
3290 Mountains Beyond Mountains Tracy Kidder 2003 American English
3293 Mendeleyev's Dream Paul Strathern 2000 British English
3297 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
3300 Gandhi's Truth Erik H. Erikson 1969 American English
3337 Albert Murray Albert Murray 2016 American Unknown
3408 Mortality Christopher Hitchens 2012 British English
3449 The Social Transformation of American Medicine Paul Starr 1982 American English
3460 Private Renaissance Maria Bellonci 1985 Italian Italian
3472 Question 7 Richard Flanagan 2023 Unknown English
3473 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English