Can you recommend some autobiographic titles for me?

May 11, 2009 5:25 PM

I am looking for autobiographies with charismatic male role models who carry some sort of leadership role. Think Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture" or Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope". Any suggestions?
posted by helios410 to media & arts (12 comments total)

By far the greatest autobiography in the English Language is U.S. Grant's Memoirs.

That's not just my opinion--its Gertrude Stein's.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:35 PM on May 11

Read the Winston Churchill bio - all 30 or so volumes. Took me 10 years but it was worth it.
posted by Senator at 5:38 PM on May 11

Memoirs of a British Agent, by R.H. Bruce Lockhart
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:40 PM on May 11

South: The Endurance Expedition by Ernest Shackleton
posted by ocherdraco at 5:52 PM on May 11

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and The Mint by T.E. Lawrence.

Incidentally, in The Mint, there's perhaps the best piece of writing about motorcycling ever put to paper. Whee
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:00 PM on May 11

Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth. Einstein said about Gandhi, "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." If you read the autobiography you will understand what Einstein meant.
posted by thebergfather at 6:15 PM on May 11

Personally, I could not get through U.S. Grant's memoirs, notwithstanding the accolades of G. Stein and many others, but I wish you luck with it.

How about The Autobiography of Malcolm X? Possibly also Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown.
posted by littlecatfeet at 6:37 PM on May 11

John Adams by David McCullough

McCullough is a great story teller, and Adams is one of the most remarkable people in our nation's history.
posted by tenaciousd at 6:57 PM on May 11

Surely, You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
posted by phrontist at 7:03 PM on May 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Frederick Douglass
posted by egret at 10:04 PM on May 11

I came out of the 18th Century.
posted by peter_meta_kbd at 11:11 PM on May 11

Benjamin Franklin comes to mind.
posted by IndigoJones at 9:43 AM on May 12