The Power Broker - the story of how an idealist turned into Darth Vader
The Years of Lyndon Johnson - the story of how LBJ rigged the 1948 election for Senate and rose to power
Here's an excerpt from an interview with the author of both books:
> During all these years I did come to understand stuff about power that I wanted people to know. You read in every textbook that cliché: Power corrupts. In my opinion, I’ve learned that power does not always corrupt. Power can cleanse. When you’re climbing to get power, you have to use whatever methods are necessary, and you have to conceal your aims. Because if people knew your aims, it might make them not want to give you power. Prime example: the southern senators who raised Lyndon Johnson up in the Senate. They did that because he had made them believe that he felt the same way they did about black people and segregation. But then when you get power, you can do what you want. So power reveals. Do I want people to know that? Yes.
I can't recommend The Power Broker more highly. It is one of my favorite books, and one of the books that I believe actually gave me new insights into how the world works.
I actually haven't read his LBJ series yet, and I'm really looking forward to it.
I just read about 70% of The Power Broker before having to return it to the library - what a book. I was surprised at how easy it was to read something so long, with often pretty banal subject matter. Reading it reminded me of that piece of advice often given to college freshmen about finding the best professor on campus and taking their classes: even if you're totally uninterested in the subject at the start, you'll get drawn in by the professor's enthusiasm and ability.
I really love the Robert Caro LBJ series. I'm on the second one now and they're hard to put down.
(I also think it's one of the best descriptions of why the romanticized simple life of a subsistence farmer misses how incredibly hard their lives are. There'a a ~4 page section describing what life was like for farmers in Hill country in E. Texas before electrification, and it's so incredibly similar to how our farmers live now. )
He also has a new book out, "Working." It's a pretty short read compared to his other stuff, and he shares a few new stories about what he had to do to get some of his material. All around great stuff.
As a meta-recommendation, I suggest checking out Five Books [1]. It's a website dedicated to bringing in experts and having them suggest five books that best represent their given fields. The archive of interviews on Five Books covers all the topics listed above and more.
The Fish Who Ate The Whale. If you think Bezos and Zuckerberg are cunning & determined entrepreneurs Sam the Banana Man will blow your mind.
To give you a taste: His opponents (a large, well-funded and established competitor) stymied his attempt to get permission to build a bridge across a river. Undeterred, Sam built two piers. One from each side of the river. They told him he couldn’t build a bridge. No one ever told him he couldn’t build piers.
He was probably too good at what he set out to do but he built an empire that still exists today out of bananas that were destined for garbage.
My Experiments with Truth - Mahatma Ghandhi
Autobiography of a Yogi -
Beyond the last blue mountain - RM Lala (on JRD Tata)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
O Manas ke Hans (Hindi biography of Ramkrishna Paramhans who was the guru of Shri Vivekanand)
Narendra Modi - nilanjan mukhopadhyay
Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel - kaushal goyal
Steve Jobs - Issacson
(While writing i realized that since last one year my outlook towards reading has shifted to politics like anything)
I unfortunately haven't read either or those. Jobs biography became too famous that I didn't feel like reading it (^_^).
I will pick Einstein at some point in the future. This was my first read from Issacson.
I have a guilty pleasure of reading biographies of people who are moderately famous/wealthy/successful and are talking themselves up, as I think they reveal interesting things about the human condition and ambition. On that note I enjoyed “Time to Make the Donuts” and “Money Monster”, both on entrepreneurship.
I go back to some greats like Benjamin Franklin as well, but the books on the margin lacking polish can be more interesting.
http://meganmarshallauthor.com/books_peabodysisters.shtml - since I live in Boston area, especially interesting to hearabout both how the area has changed culturally and physically, and to learn about people whose homes I have visited on tours of historic homes.
Jungle Soldier - story of Freddie Spencer Chapman (like Lawrence of Arabia, but even better story)
Left to Tell - Immaculée Ilibagiza's life, story of survival of the Rwandan Genocide and a tale of how to live on after such tragedy and how to forgive the unforgiveable.
Longitude - essentially a biography of John Harrison, the man who solved the longitude problem (and probably thereby made the success of the British Empire)
X, Y & Z - a brilliant biography of all the French, English and Polish codebreakers of WW2
Agent Zigzag - the story of the man who betrayed everyone and could possibly have killed Hitler if he was allowed
William Pitt the Younger (Robin Reilly) - possibly one of the most difficult periods in British History saw one of the best British Prime Ministers to date
Kukuczka - the story of how he became one of the world's most impressive climbers despite communist oppression
The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History - a highly interesting book that brings the necessary documents to the table to help understand a topic that is often treated in a very facile way
Ivan III and the Unification of Russia - a great book for understanding the basis on which Russia was built
Xenophon's Anabasis - what a load of fun. How to lead a failed army back home and gorge on mad honey
Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson
A mathematician's apology by G.H Hardy
My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts
Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror by Victor Sebestyen
Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Bonanza King: John McKay by Gregory Crouch
Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
My Life as a Goddess by Guy Branum
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The last two are especially good as audiobook autobiographies read by the author.
All of the Walter Isaacson biographies are fantastic.
To understand how modern digital ecosystem came to be I cannot think of a better combination than Isaacson's "Innovators" and "The Dream Machine" by Waldrop.
His Leonardo biography is mediocre at best. It may read smoothly but he lacks a good grasp of the subject matter. Instead, Leonardo is like an earlier Steve Jobs of some kind.
I don't think there is anything wrong in 'pop' when the work is intended to be popular. I expect the biographer to verify her sources but as a reader I'm not going to go out (generally) to verify them.
Things that happened, happened. Most of all when reading popular biographies I want to be introduced to real things that happened, and if some of that draws my interest, I can then dig in to more academic sources.
The popular biographies offer the '100 feet' view over their subject and the society in which they lived in, and should not be disparaged if they succeed in doing that in a readable and entertaining manner.
I enjoyed all of historical Isaacson biographies (Einstein, Leonardo, Jobs, Franklin and Innovators).
I suppose the the biographies would need a more detailed critique of what people did not like in them to say anything particular about one of them.
Jobs biography alone does not give a sufficient image of the man, for example. But when combined with "Becoming Steve Jobs" the picture is more well rounded. That does not mean I did not enjoy the book.
May sound like a cliche but Mahatma Gandhi's "My experiment with Truth." is a good read to get an idea of the philosophy of a major percentage of world population throughout the history.
I enjoyed iWoz, the autobiography of Steve Wozniak about how Apple Inc. got started. A little known fact is that Woz still works for Apple doing promotional stuff for the company.
The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan by Robert Kanigel ; it's impossible to understand how he figured out the amazing things he did. His story is a tragedy.
Locke: A biography by Roger Woolhouse ; the father of classical liberalism in a time of upheaval in England, interactions with the king, banishment to Holland, promoted religious toleration
The Double Helix: James Watson; scientific discovery in 1950s Cambridge, the thrill of the race to be first, controversy with Rosalind Franklin
The Caro books on Lyndon Johnson; insight into the ugly guts of politics, what it takes to win & the course of mid-20th century American history
The Mark Levison book on the Beatles is amazing - the only volume he has finished takes ~700 pages to get to the release of their first single. Arguably the most important cultural phenomenon of the 20th century.
The Years of Lyndon Johnson - the story of how LBJ rigged the 1948 election for Senate and rose to power
Here's an excerpt from an interview with the author of both books:
> During all these years I did come to understand stuff about power that I wanted people to know. You read in every textbook that cliché: Power corrupts. In my opinion, I’ve learned that power does not always corrupt. Power can cleanse. When you’re climbing to get power, you have to use whatever methods are necessary, and you have to conceal your aims. Because if people knew your aims, it might make them not want to give you power. Prime example: the southern senators who raised Lyndon Johnson up in the Senate. They did that because he had made them believe that he felt the same way they did about black people and segregation. But then when you get power, you can do what you want. So power reveals. Do I want people to know that? Yes.