Chaucer: A European Life by Marion Turner
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Turner reminds her readers that the father of English literature was a traveling man.
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Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History by Richard J. Evans
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An 800-page biography of a bestselling historian written by another bestselling historian.
Read MoreRevolutionary by Robert L. O'Connell
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Readers will need to assess the balance between an insightful overview of the birth of the United States alongside the usual starry-eyed heroic poem about Washington himself.
Read MoreHenrik Ibsen: The Man & the Mask By Ivo De Figueiredo
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Written with a surprisingly light tempo and an unerring instinct for, oddly enough, zingers.
Read MoreNicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist by Elizabeth Goldring
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A comprehensive and almost certainly definitive life of Hilliard and a richly involving portrait of his time.
Read MoreThe Back Channel by William J. Burns
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The clear animating force of the book is the author’s worry that all the behind-the-scenes labors of his friends and colleagues over the years have been summarily invalidated.
Read MoreThe Sakura Obsession by Naoko Abe
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One of the most charming, offbeat biographies to appear in years.
Read MoreThe Real Wallis Simpson by Anna Pasternak
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This untold story narrative attempts to explore the ‘misunderstood’ Wallis Simpson.
Read MoreThe Life of Leonardo da Vinci by Giorgio Vasari
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Enjoy this unexpected treat: a new stand-alone translation of the 40-page biography of Leonardo by Florentine artist and architect Giorgio Vasari.
Read MoreL.E.L. by Lucasta Miller
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A terrifically detailed and invigorating account of a very complicated woman.
Read MoreDiderot and the Art of Thinking Freely by Andrew S. Curran
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Curran’s book is a brilliant, sparkling affair that courses over every major and minor incident in Diderot’s remarkable life.
Read MoreRonald Reagan: An Intellectual Biography By David T. Byrne
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Byrne frames his study in terms of Reagan’s ideas, political philosophy, and his religious faith.
Read MoreThomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life By Diarmaid MacCulloch
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A wonderfully eloquent and challenging massive new interpretation of Cromwell’s life and times.
Read MoreNapoleon: A Life by Adam Zamoyski
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Eloquent and accomplished historian Adam Zamoyski does little to debunk the Bonaparte myth.
Read MoreHarvey Milk: His Lives and Death by Lillian Faderman
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This biography provides both a novel and substantive introduction to an extraordinary figure.
Read MoreMy Darling Winston: The Letters Between Winston Churchill and His Mother
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A surprisingly dark addition to the nearly endless library of Winston Churchill biographies.
Read MoreFrederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
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A thoroughly human portrait that serves to clarify the greatness of the leading orator and writer of the era.
Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha
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This is the Gandhi with a sweeping, multifaceted intelligence hidden behind a faux-folksy facade.
Read MoreReagan: An American Journey by Bob Spitz
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An extensively researched biography of Reagan with solid scholarly underpinnings and very little mythologizing.
Read MoreSchumann: The Faces and the Masks by Judith Chernaik
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The story of the music and the man, from his criminally underrated symphonies to his long struggle for personal happiness.
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