I identify the biographies and memoirs from seven well-known sources below. There should be something for almost any reader here, including family biographies, such as The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (in four of the lists) and The Bid Ladens: An Arabian Family in an American Century.
There are several group or collective biographies, as well, including Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen and Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation.
Memoirs The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life--His Own and The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order make three of the lists.
The final list, Kirkus Reviews Top Picks for Reading Groups 2008, includes only memoirs and no third-party biographies.
Amazon Editors' Picks: Top 100 Books of 2008
Biography
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America
Thurston Clarke
Sitting Bull
Bill Yenne
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Annette Gordon-Reed
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
Jennet Conant
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Rick Perlstein
The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts
Tom Farley
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Alice Schroeder
Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
H.W. Brands
Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency
Barton Gellman
Memoirs
Collections of Nothing
William Davies King
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
David Shields
The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life--His Own
David Carr
The Monster of Florence
Douglas Preston
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order
Joan Wickersham
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
David Sheff
New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2008
Biography
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
Jon Meacham.
Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency
Barton Gellman.
Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause
Tom Gjelten
Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen
Philip Dray
Champlain's Dream
David Hackett Fischer
Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
Samantha Power
Condoleezza Rice: An American Life: A Biography
Elisabeth Bumiller
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Annette Gordon-Reed
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Rick Perlstein
Nureyev: The Life
Julie Kavanagh
Shakespeare's Wife
Germaine Greer
White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Brenda Wineapple
The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul
Patrick French
Memoirs
Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene
Masha Gessen
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir
Elizabeth McCracken
Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life
John Adams.
The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood
Helene Cooper
Nothing to Be Frightened Of
Julian Barnes.
The Three of Us: A Family Story
Julia Blackburn
Thrumpton Hall: A Memoir of Life in My Father’s House
Miranda Seymour
Publisher's Weekly Best Books of the Year 2008
Biography
Abraham Lincoln: A Life
Michael Burlingame
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Annette Gordon-Reed
Champlain's Dream
David Hackett Fischer
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Alice Schroeder
The Open Road: The Global Journey of the 14th Dalai Lama
Pico Iyer
Memoirs
Nothing to Be Frightened Of
Julian Barnes
The Journal of Hélène Berr
Hélène Berr
The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
Steve Lopez
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: A Memoir
Elizabeth McCracken
The Soul of the Rhino: A Nepali Adventure with Kings and Elephant Drivers, Billionaires and Bureaucrats, Shamans and Scientists, and the Indian Rhinoceros
Hemanta Mishra with Jim Ottaway Jr.
Epilogue: A Memoir
Anne Roiphe
Audition: A Memoir
Barbara Walters
My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith
Benyamin Cohen
Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind
John Marks
Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
Kathleen Norris
Library Journal Best Books 2008
Biography
The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight To Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird
Bruce Barcott
Shakespeare's Wife
Germaine Greer
John Lennon: The Life
Philip Norman
Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural
Jim Steinmeyer
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation
Sheila Weller
Memoirs
The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own.
David Carr
Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Suzanne Finnamore
Hurry Down Sunshine: A Memoir
Michael Greenberg
Books: A Memoir
Larry McMurtry
Washington Post Book World Best Books 2008
Biography
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Annette Gordon-Reed
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
Fred Kaplan
Alfred Kazin
Richard M. Cook
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
Jon Meacham
Five Easy DecadesDennis McDougal
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Paul Mariani
Ida
Paula J. Giddings
Madame de Staël
Francine du Plessix Gray
The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes
Andrew Lycett
The Open Road
Pico Iyer
A Passion for Nature
Donald Worster
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Alice Schroeder
Stanley
Tim Jeal
Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
H.W. Brands
Tried by War
James M. McPherson
The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul
Patrick French
Memoirs
The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars
Andrew X. Pham
Audition: A Memoir
Barbara Walters
Counselor
Ted Sorensen
From Harvey River
Lorna Goodison
Grand Obsession
Perri Knize
Hope's Boy
Andrew Bridge
Kinky Gazpacho
Lori L. Tharps
Résistance
Agnès Humbert
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order
Joan Wickersham
Chicago Tribune "Favorites from '08" and "2008: An Impressionistic Array of This Year's Titles"
Biography
Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Annette Gordon-Reed
Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It
Julia Keller
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Rick Peristein
Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
H. W. Brands
Painter in a Savage Land: The Strange Saga of the First European Artist in North America
Miles Harvey
The Bid Ladens: An Arabian Family in an American Century
Steve Coll
Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
Pope Brock
Gerald Manley Hopkins: A Life
Paul Mariani
Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching
Paula J. Giddings
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
Fred Kaplan
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
Jon Meacham
Memoirs
The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball
Nicholas Dawidoff
The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood
Helene Cooper
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order
Joan Wickersham
Kirkus Reviews Top Picks for Reading Groups 2008
Memoirs
I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir
Jennifer Finney Boylan
Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity
Kerry Cohen
Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival
Margaret B. Jones
How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir
Theo Pauline Nestor
"Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China
Lijia Zhang
4 comments:
I believe there's an error in your "Best of Biography 2008" about The Washington Post's best books of the year. The Post separately lists its 10 best books of the year & then separately lists the rest of the best books of the year in a longer list. You've somehow missed the Post's 10best books, which includes in the five non-fiction entries my "Lincoln, the Biography of a Writer."
Capitol Men sounds very promising! I am looking for information on the Mystic Years WEB Debois talked about. Thanks for the title! :)
Dear Mr. Kaplan,
You are so right, I did miss the separate Washington Post list. I have corrected the entry, adding your title and two others that I had missed. Thank you for the notice.
Rick
Thanks for assembling these lists. Just wanted to not a small typo in one title in the Chicago Trib list. It's "Bin Laden" not "Bin Laden"
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