Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to “frustrate as utterly as possible the postmortem exploiter” by ...

In the beautiful and moving biography Janis: Her Life and Music, Holly George-Warren paints a complex portrait of singer Janis Joplin. Drawing on archival materials as well as interviews with Joplin’s ...

A life story can be read for escapist pleasure. But at other times, reading a memoir or biography can be an expansive exercise, opening us up to broader truths about our world. Often, it’s an edifying ...

It started innocently: I saw a TV show, then read the book it was based on. The book, David McCullough’s “John Adams,” wasn’t exactly a page turner. But to understand John Adams, it seemed I would ...

Robert Fulford: When a kind of intimacy happens, biography becomes a literary art We independently select everything we recommend. Buying through us may earn us a commission, which supports our work.

ALTHOUGH I WRITE biographies, as well as mini-biographies week by week in the form of The Economist’s obituaries, I’m not a great reader of them. Too often they leave me dissatisfied, feeling that ...