Biography by Genre

There are a lot more genres of biographies than we have listed here, but they aren't included because we simply don't have titles to put in them. Again, these categories are in place to help you narrow the focus of your search, and to find the book you need with as little frustration as possible.

Autobiographies & Memoirs are books written by the person about whom they're about. Autobiographies are explicitly biographical, written in order to impart information about the author's life and context; memoirs, on the other hand, are often more creative, and are usually about something bigger than the details of the subject's life.

While we don't encourage getting all your history from fiction (or even most of it), a good Biographical Novel will combine the best elements of fiction and biography into a personal portrait that imparts both the essence of the subject's life, and the cultural context in which he or she lived. Plus, they're just more fun to read.

You won't find any of these for people who lived more than a couple hundred years ago, but Photobiographies can be especially useful for helping readers understand the person and era they're learning about. Often times these don't have as much outright information as a more traditional biography, but enough quality photographs are a good compensation.

For younger kids (though there are some great ones for older readers, too), Picture Book Biographies help us visualize who it is we're reading about....or simply keep us interested. The best ones do both, and the very best ones do both while still highlighting the artist's vision and interpretation of people and events.

Different genres will fill different needs; if you're working on a big project or unit study, it's a good idea to select titles from all of them. The goal of listing them here is to help narrow your search; as our collection expands, we'll likely be adding genres to the list, and shaping your search results in increasingly precise and illuminating ways.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

 

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71 Items found Print
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84, Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff
from Penguin Random House
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00
Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives
by Mary Rowlandson
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
$6.95
Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt
by Theodore Roosevelt
from National Geographic
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.00
Autobiography of Charles G. Finney
by Charles G. Finney
from Bethany House
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$19.00
Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton
by G. K. Chesterton
from Ignatius Press
Autobiography for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.16
Autobiography of George Muller
by George Muller
from Whitaker House
Biography for 11th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$9.99
Black Like Me
by John Howard Griffin & Robert Bonazzi
35th anniversary from Signet Classics
for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.99 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Born Again
by Charles Colson
from Chosen Books
for 9th grade-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$19.99 $14.00 (1 in stock)
Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
by Bryan Mealer, William Kamkwamba
from Harper Perennial
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Brendan Voyage
Modern Library Exploration
by Tim Severin
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$19.00
Bridge to the Sun
by Gwen Terasaki
from Rock Creek Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Bruchko and the Motilone Miracle
by Bruce Olson
from Charisma House
Biography for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$14.99 $10.00 (1 in stock)
C. S. Lewis: The Man Behind Narnia
by Beatrice Gormley
from Eerdmans
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.00
Carved in Ebony
by Jasmine L. Holmes
from Bethany House
for 10th-Adult
in Biography Anthologies (Location: BIO-ANTH)
$17.99
Co. Aytch
by Sam Watkins
from Touchstone
Historical Non-fiction for 8th-Adult
in American Civil War (1860-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$17.00
Confessions
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$13.00
Confessions of St. Augustine
by Saint Augustine (translation by Henry Chadwick)
from Oxford University
for 10th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$7.95
Down and Out in Paris and London
by George Orwell
from Mariner Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Egg and I
by Betty MacDonald
from HarperCollins
Biography for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Everlasting is the Past
by Walter Wangerin
from Rabbit Room Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$14.95
First Voyage to America
by Christopher Columbus
from Dover Publications
Historical Primary Sources for 10th-Adult
in Age of Exploration (1450-1700) (Location: HISA-16EXP)
$9.95
Four Voyages
by Christopher Columbus
from Penguin Classics
Historical Primary Sources for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$17.00
God of the Garden
by Andrew Peterson
from B&H Books
for 10th-Adult
in Creating Culture (Location: XCU-CRE)
$17.99
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
by John Bunyan
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
$15.00
Grief Observed
by C. S. Lewis, with a foreword by Madeleine L'Engle
from HarperCollins
Death/Grief for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.99
Heavenly Man
by Brother Yun, Paul Hattaway
from Monarch Books
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.99 $8.50 (1 in stock)
Homage to Catalonia
by George Orwell
from Mariner Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$19.99
In the Land of the Blue Burqas
by Kate McCord
from Moody Press
for 11th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$15.99
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00 $3.00 (1 in stock)
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
by Olaudah Equiano
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$15.00
Journey and Ordeal of Cabeza de Vaca
Dover editions
by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
from Dover Publications
for 5th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$10.95
Kisses from Katie
by Katie J. Davis
from Howard Books
for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$18.99 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Letters and Papers from Prison
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
from Simon and Schuster
Biography for Adult
in Practical Christian Living (Location: XCL-PRAC)
$13.60
Life and Diary of David Brainerd
by David Brainerd
from Baker Books
Biography for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$17.00 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Lord God Made Them All
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$17.99
Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius
from Modern Library
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$11.00
Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler, translated by Michael Ford
from Elite Minds, Inc.
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$29.95
Memoirs of the Second World War
by Winston S. Churchill, abridged by Denis Kelly
from HarperCollins
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$25.99
My Family and Other Animals
by Gerald Durrell
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.00
Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee
by David Crockett
Reprint from Bison Books
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.95 $8.50 (1 in stock)
Never Sniff A Gift Fish
by Patrick F. McManus
from Henry Holt and Company
for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.99
Night
by Elie Wiesel
Revised from Hill & Wang
Autobiographies & Memoirs for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 $4.00 (11 in stock)
Omoo
by Herman Melville
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$10.95
Oregon Trail
by Rinker Buck
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$19.99
Orthodoxy
by C. K. Chesterton
from Moody Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.99
Prince and Heretic
Prince of Orange Nassau Volume 1
by Marjorie Bowen
from Inheritance Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$17.95
Road to Wigan Pier
by George Orwell
from Mariner Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Same Kind of Different as Me
by Ron Hall & Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Secret Believers
by Brother Andrew
from Revell Publishing
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$18.00
Sergeant York and the Great War
by Alvin C. York
from My Father's World
Autobiography for 7th-Adult
in World War I (1914-1919) (Location: HISA-20WW1)
$22.00
Seven Men
by Eric Metaxas
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 8th-Adult
in Biography Anthologies (Location: BIO-ANTH)
$16.99
Severe Mercy
by Sheldon Vanauken
from HarperOne
Biography for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Shadow of His Wings
by Gereon Karl Goldmann
Revised from Ignatius Press
for 11th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$18.95
Solzhenitsyn Reader
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
2nd Edition from Intercollegiate Studies Institute
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$22.00
Souls of Black Folk
by W. E. B. Du Bois
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$14.00
Souls of Black Folk
by W. E. B. Du Bois
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$5.00
Surprised by Joy
by C. S. Lewis
Reissue from HarperOne
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.99
Survival in Auschwitz
by Primo Levi
1st edition from Touchstone
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$14.00 $5.50 (2 in stock)
The Thunder
by Douglas Bond
from P&R Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$14.99
Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien
from Mariner Books
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.95
Three Cups of Tea
by David Oliver Relin & Greg Mortenson
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00
Travels of Marco Polo
by Marco Polo
from Penguin Classics
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$17.00 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Travels with Charley in Search of America
by John Steinbeck
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$13.00
Twelve Years a Slave
by Solomon Northup
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$9.95
Typee
from Modern Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.95
Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand
Reprint from Random House
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00 $5.00 (2 in stock)
Up From Slavery
Copper Lodge Library
by Booker T. Washington, annotated by Stephanie B. Meter
from Classical Conversations
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$11.95
Voyages and Discoveries
by Richard Hakluyt
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
$17.00
Welcome Shore
by Suzanne Underwood Rhodes
from Canon Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.50
William, by the Grace of God
Prince of Orange Nassau Volume 2
by Marjorie Bowen
from Inheritance Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$17.95
You Don't Cry Out Loud
by Lily Isaacs
from New Leaf Press
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$12.00