A friend the other day wanted to know what biographies I would recommend. I’ve a few, which I will mention here, but I’m particularly interested in what biographies you all might recommend as well.
When I was a boy, I devoured Landmark biographies from our local library. They were small, easy to read, and written about all kinds of really interesting people. I’m older now, and the biographies I read are correspondingly longer, and the time available proportionally shorter, so I don’t read them as much. And I find that I read biographies differently now than I used to.
When I was younger, biographies inspired me. They opened up horizons for what I might do and gave me encouragement as to how to live my life. As I grew older I found that biographies began to frustrate me as I realized that the men about whom I was reading were men of rare gifts and unusual accomplishments alongside of which my own abilities paled. Inspiration faded into regret.
That was, of course, my pride interfering. As I read them now, I read them for the insight they give to the human side of history. But, more significantly, I read them to see the hand of God’s remarkable providence in the lives of people who have impacted the world in which we live.
A couple weeks ago, I took up David McCullough’s massive bio of Harry Truman. Creatively titled Truman, it is over 900 pages long. I had settled in for the months it was going to take me to complete.
That time has now been extended.
For Christmas, my son gave me Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy’s ghost written memoir, with the admonition that I must read it. He read it last summer, as did my associate Geoff, and both were great fans of the book.I have always been impressed with Dungy, and so it did not take much to get me to put Truman on the shelf and take up Dungy.
The book itself is no masterpiece. But the man about whom it is written is a gem. I could gush for some time about this guy. And just a couple days ago, my sister recommended this book about Theodore Roosevelt, which led me to a David McCullough work on Roosevelt. This may end up being the year of the biography.
Back to the original question: What are my favorites? I’ll save that for the next post.