Best Biographies and Memoirs of 2012

2012 was another banner year for biographies and memoirs. As in past years, many review journals, newspapers, and book sellers have posted their best books lists, and within those lists their have been many biographical and autobiographical books. This is my fifth extraction from those lists to highlight best biographies and memoirs.

I have drawn from nine lists this year. What I like is that a comparison of any two lists will show little agreement on the top titles (try the New York Times and the Washington Post to see the greatest differences), but if you look at all nine, you find some titles repeated, including Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham, Mortality by Christopher Hitchens, and Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed.

Each list has titles not mentioned in any other. As a result, there should be ideas here for both book discussion groups and very particular readers.

As you may see from reading the list, I define biography rather broadly. If there is a strong biographical component to a book some others might describe as a history, I figure a reader inclined to biography will be interested.


Amazon Best Books of the Year: Top 100 Picks for 2012

Biography

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 4 by Robert A. Caro

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson by Randall Sullivan

Memoirs

Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathom Greatness by Steve Friedman

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie

The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows by Brian Castner

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

My Heart Is an Idiot: Essays by Davy Rothbart

My Mother Was Nuts: A Memoir by Penny Marshall

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Mark Owen

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

Additional Amazon Editors’ Picks:
To the Last Breath: A Memoir of Going to Extremes by Francis Slakey and Winter Journal by Paul Auster


Booklist's Editor's Choice Adult Books 2012

Biography

American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama by Rachel L. Swarns

And Bid Him Sing: A Biography of Countée Cullen by Charles Molesworth

Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss

The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons

James Joyce: A New Biography by Gordon Bowker

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill; Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 by William Manchester and Paul Reid

Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King

Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya by Ethan Mordden

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

Thornton Wilder by Penelope Niven

Memoirs

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie

Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937–1948 by Madeleine Albright and Bill Woodward


Christian Science Monitor 15 best books of 2012 – nonfiction

Biographies

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith

Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden

The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Anne-Marie O’Connor

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 4 by Robert A. Caro

Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship by Richard Aldous

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan

Memoirs

The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed


Kirkus Reviews: Best Nonfiction of 2012

Biography

Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz

Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor of New Orleans by Ben Sandmel

Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace by D. T. Max

Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbara Streisand by William J. Mann

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill; Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 by William Manchester and Paul Reid

The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen by Stephen R. Bown

Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King

Mao: The Real Story by Alexander V. Pantsov

On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson by William Souder

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 4 by Robert A. Caro

The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw

Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece by Michael Gorra

Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year by David Von Drehle

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac by Joyce Johnson

Memoirs

Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation by Rachel Cusk

Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen

God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie

Kurt Vonnegut: Letters by Kurt Vonnegut

Life After Death by Damiem Echols

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir by Ellen Forney

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir by Claude Lanzmann

The Tender Hours of Twilight: Paris in the ‘50s, New York in the ‘60s: A Memoir of Publishing’s Golden Age by Richard Seaver

The Voyeurs by Gabrielle Bell

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

Winter Journal by Paul Auster


Library Journal Best Books 2012: Biography and History

Biographies

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards by Jan Reid

Mark Twain and the Colonel: Samuel L. Clemens, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Arrival of a New Century by Philip McFarland

Thomas Jefferson and American Nationhood by Brian D. Steele

Memoirs

Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 by Madeleine Albright with Bill Woodward


Library Journal Best Books 2012: Memoirs

Dust to Dust by Benjamin Busch

Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation by Rachel Cusk

La Petite by Michele Halberstadt

The Scientists: A Family Romance by Marco Roth

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson


Library Journal Best Books 2012: Top 10

Biography

The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Anne-Marie O’Connor

Memoirs

By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir of Disaster and Love by Joe Blair


Library Journal Best Books 2012: More of the Best

Memoirs

In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi wa Thiongo

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson


New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2012

Biography

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama by Rachel L. Swarms

American Triumvirate: Sam Sneed, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, and the Modern Age of Golf by James Dodson

Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss

Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate by Ivor Noel Hume

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss

A Disposition to Be Rich by Geoffrey C. Ward

The Obamas by Jodi Kantor

On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson by William Souder

The One: The Life and Music of James Brown by RJ Smith

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 4 by Robert A. Caro

The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw

Saul Steinberg: A Biography by Deirdre Bair

Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy by Paul Thomas Murphy

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

Memoirs

Are You My Mother: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer by Susan Gubar

Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality by John Schwartz

Red Brick, Black Mountain, White Clay: Reflections on Art, Family, and Survival by Christopher Benfey

Sometimes There Is a Void: Memoirs of an Outsider by Zakes Mda

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson


Publishers Weekly Best Books 2012: Nonfiction

Biography

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration by Alec Wilkinson

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan

Titian: A Life by Sheila Hale

The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac by Joyce Johnson

Memoirs

Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters by Joseph Roth

Louise: Amended by Louise Krug

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

My Cross to Bear by Gregg Allman

The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir by Claude Lanzmann

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed


Washington Post: Best of 2012: 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction

Biography

Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz

The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona MacCarthy

The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance by Thomas McNamee

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 4 by Robert A. Caro

Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup by Christopher de Bellaigue

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

Memoirs

The Boy Kings of Texas: A Memoir by Domingo Martinez

Elsewhere: A Memoir by Richard Russo

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid

Immortal Bird: A Family Memoir by Doron Weber

Interventions: A Life in War and Peace by Kofi Annan

The Little Red Guard: A Family Memoir by Wenguang Huang

Running for My Life: One Lost Boy’s Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games by Lopez Lomong

The Tender Hours of Twilight: Paris in the ‘50s, New York in the ‘60s: A Memoir of Publishing’s Golden Age by Richard Seaver

Winter Journal by Paul Auster