Can you recommend a well-written figure skaters bio?

January 2, 2006 9:19 AM

Can you recommend a well-written figure skater's autobiography or biography?

A lot of athlete bios are commerical drek, and are products rather than books, though there are some thoughtful and intelligent ones here and there. So, if anyone could steer me to one of the latter, I'd be profoundly grateful. I'm reading this as research for a writing project, not for pleasure, and am hoping to find something that is at least painless to read.

posted by orange swan to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Recent, or will any age do? Janet Lynn wrote a bio in the 70s called Peace + Love, which is quite good even if you are not a religious person. Dick Button also wrote one in the 50s that is pretty good, especially if you're trying to learn a little about skating in the old days. This page has some reviews of more modern stuff.
posted by JanetLand at 9:35 AM on January 2, 2006

Ekaterina Gordeeva wrote an account about her partnership with her late husband, Sergei Grinkov called My Sergei: A Love Story. Not sure how well it will serve for research purposes, but it's an easy read and gives some insight to the Soviet system as it relates to figure skating.
posted by phoenixc at 10:26 AM on January 2, 2006

Second for My Sergei. Rudy Galindo's book was readable, and was more emotionally candid than the typical PR fluff bios.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 12:24 PM on January 2, 2006

I still haven't gotten around to reading it, but by all accounts Toller Cranston's autobio is quite entertaining.
posted by litlnemo at 4:19 PM on January 2, 2006