/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4506824]

Have you read any good biographies of great men or women /lit/?

[Anonymous No.4506830]

>great women

[Anonymous No.4506846]

>>4506824
>women

[Anonymous No.4506848]

>desperately googling great women to contradict first post
>give up

[Anonymous No.4506850]

Montefore's Stalin books are pretty good

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4506925]

The definitive biography in the English style—lengthy, thoroughly documented, heavily annotated, and generously splashed with quotations—is among the most admirable genres of historiography, and it was a stroke of genius on the part of J. P. Nettl to choose the life of Rosa Luxemburg, the most unlikely candidate, as a proper subject. For this is the classical genre for the lives of great statesmen and other persons of the world, and Rosa Luxemburg was nothing of the kind. Even in her own world of the European socialist movement she was a rather marginal figure, with relatively brief moments of splendor and great brilliance, whose influence in deed and written word can hardly be compared to that of her contemporaries—to Plekhanov, Trotsky and Lenin, to Bebel and Kautsky, to Jaurès and Millerand.

How could Mr. Nettl succeed with this woman who when very young had been swept into the German Social Democratic Party from her native Poland; who continued to play a key role in the little-known and neglected history of Polish socialism; and who then for about two decades, although never officially recognized, became the most controversial and least understood figure in the German Left movement? For the success and failure of English biography depend not merely on the chosen person’s fame or the interest of his life story. In this genre, history is not treated as the inevitable background of a given life-span; rather it is as if the colorless light of historical time were forced through and refracted by the prism of a great character so that in the resulting spectrum a complete unity of life and world is achieved. In other words, success in the world seems almost a prerequisite for success in the genre. And it was precisely success—success even in her own world of revolutionaries—which was withheld from Rosa Luxemburg in life, death, and after death. Can it be that the failure of all her efforts as far as official recognition is concerned is somehow connected with the dismal failure of revolution in our century? Will history look different if seen through the prism of her life and work?

[Anonymous No.4506927]

>great women
>drive recklessly to the university
>kick in the door of women's studies prof.'s office
>grab her by the shoulderpads and demand a list of great women
>she cackles and transforms into a crow
>flies out the window
>dicky her desk drawer open
>notebook filled with obscure ideograms and occult drawings
>blood oozing through the walls
>a terrible visage materializes

pic related

[Anonymous No.4506992]

>Found in less than 1min on Google.
>Am I smarter than all of these children claiming the non-existence of great women?

http://www.esquire.com/women/women-issue/greatest-women-in-history#slide-1

[Anonymous No.4506996]

muh man

[Anonymous No.4507008]

>>4506992
each and every one of them a complete fabrication; this should be common knowledge by now

[Anonymous No.4507013]

Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography

By

Margaret Thatcher

[Anonymous No.4507021]

>>4507008
>Yes because even Flannery O'connor did not write her own work.
>She is on the list.

You are a very obvious troll and samefag.

[Anonymous No.4507030]

Hitler, by Ian Kershaw. Though I've only finished part one (900 pages, 1889-1936) part two (1100 pages 1936-1945) is still shelved for now.

[Anonymous No.4507031]

A famous empress from china.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dragon-Empress-TzU-Hsi-1835-1908/dp/0689707142/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1390726281&sr=8-7&keywords=Tzu-hsi

[Anonymous No.4507032]

>>4507021
>implying Flannery O'connor wasn't one of Faulkner's pen names

hopeless naïveté or trolling?

[Anonymous No.4507039]

>>4507030
I prefer Jack Gladney's

[Anonymous No.4507041]

>>4506824
Nikola Tesla wrote an autobiography, which i quite enjoyed.

[Anonymous No.4507056]

>>4507032
>>4507008
>>4506927
>>4506848
>>4506846
>>4506830

All of this anti-Woman shit posting.
>It's like I am really on /pol/

I will try to be helpful OP, look up some of these women.

http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/rulers.html

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2029774,00.html

[Anonymous No.4507066]

>>4507032
>yes because all of us would happily write great literature then give all of the credit and money to some random woman.

Who is trolling or naive here?

[Anonymous No.4507068]

>>4507056
>/pol/
>anti-women

[Anonymous No.4507072]

>>4507008
>Look a list
>see some well known female politicians like Thatcher
>Implying all of England conspired to make her up

We /x/ now?

[Anonymous No.4507075]

>>4507066
>I will not deviate from the conventional narrative
>I will be like a newly-hatched bird, completely dependent on the regurgitations of my mother

[Anonymous No.4507076]

>>4507072
They didn't have to make her up, she wasn't a great woman

[Anonymous No.4507078]

>>4507068
Have you been on /pol/ every other thread is a panic over white women sleeping with niggers. They see them as nothing but brood mares for pumping out more white babies. They constantly talk about how inferior women are for having social lives. It is pathetic.

[Anonymous No.4507087]

>>4507075
And this is disproving my point how? No one would write books publish them, then give all of the credit and money to another person. Eventually it would eat away at you and that little voice that we all have would whisper in your ear, calling for vindication.

[Anonymous No.4507093]

>>4507087
I'm afraid they would, maybe you wouldn't, but you're not committed to one of the most immense and ancient conspiracies in human memory

[Anonymous No.4507099]

I have this one OP. It was really good, as long as you do not mind war narratives.

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Witches-Amazing-Russias-Pilots/dp/0897332881/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390727658&sr=8-1&keywords=night+witches

[Anonymous No.4507100]

>>4507078
Just sounds like good ol' boys discussing the decay of Christian values in our degenerate society

[Anonymous No.4507105]

>>4507093
>>4507032

Man what are you smoking. This is why I can't chill with white dudes. Every time any subject about women or a articular woman comes up they start grasping at straws, crying about how women are less then. I swear these same people are saying nigger this and nigger that when I turn my back.

[Anonymous No.4507108]

>>4507039
A quick google search shows me that Jack Gladney wrote a novel where Hitler played a part?
Kershaw is a non fiction historical work, rather than a novel. So they can't really be compared I guess.

[Anonymous No.4507112]

>>4507093
>most immense and ancient conspiracies in human memory

Now I am sure you are either insane or trolling, I'm out. There is no point in arguing with a troll or a crazy person.

[Anonymous No.4507119]

>>4507105
>can't chill with white dudes
racist

>>4507112
Yes, they always scoff at first, but then the pieces start coming into place

you're both incredibly gullible and sensitive

[Anonymous No.4507126]

>>4507108
It was a joke

He's a character in a novel

[Anonymous No.4507128]

>>4507119
Can you blame them? You just outright admitted to trolling. They were getting annoyed by you trolling. But in my experience our melanin enriched friend is right. A lot of my sexist coworkers do do that. Cry about how terrible women are, once the black guy leaves the room it is downhill from there. Also in black culture women are often head of the family, so they are defensive about this.

[Anonymous No.4507132]

>>4507128
>sexist
What do you mean by this?

[Anonymous No.4507137]

>>4507128
I started out pretty blatantly joking—an attempt at humor, on 4chan, ho hum—but then they started with the indignant replies and I sort of just lost control.

It would do posters like this a lot of good to consider what they get out of /lit/ and the internet in general. Is it healthy (psychologically, spiritually) to argue with people who are plainly wrong or stupid, frantically refreshing, etc. etc.?

[Anonymous No.4507140]

So there's like 3 recommendations in this thread.

[Anonymous No.4507141]

>>4507140
That Hitler book will prove a lifelong companion to OP, so this thread is far from a waste

[Anonymous No.4507143]

Right now I have the biggest urge to chance upon a black person and call them a nigger. Not to hurt them - I'm not racist at all, it's just that you people are making it such a taboo and that revs me on.

[Anonymous No.4507145]

>>4507143
You'll probably start a fight with them. I hope you beat them up and then say "lol jk im not really racist :DDDD"

[Anonymous No.4507146]

>>4507126
Ah, okay. Haven't read it, so that went right over my head.

[Anonymous No.4507158]

>>4507143
If anything we actively diminish the taboo: we don't say "the n-word" or "[slur]" and believe you me there are communities (virtual and otherwise, obviously) that do.

[Anonymous No.4507160]

>>4507143
Allow Viper to explain.

He is already rich for life, too late to hate.

[Anonymous No.4507162]

>>4507013
Thatcher would've been nothing without sir Keith Joseph.

[Anonymous No.4507165]

>>4507143
My advice would be to do it to little black girls, you may spur on a new generation of Maya Angelous and Toni Morrisons, and most of them won't hit you

[Anonymous No.4507178]

>>4507143
It's like calling a gay person a faggot. It's demeaning.

[Anonymous No.4507183]

>>4507178
>It's demeaning.
Ummm.... that's the point ?_?

[Anonymous No.4507187]

>>4507178
'Nigger' is only demeaning because at a certain point in time certain people began infusing its utterance with hate.

If I now say it and it's obvious from the tone of my voice that I don't mean it hatefully:
- how does that count as me being racist?
- how would they back up their right to be mad?

[Anonymous No.4507196]

>>4507187
I'd say contempt more than hate. If a dicky lord strolls through town to laugh at the commoners and calls them peasants, it doesn't necessarily mean he hates them, but he's definitely being a dick.

[Anonymous No.4507205]

Helmut Kohl and Jens Lehmann

[Anonymous No.4507210]

>>4507143
Are you also a paedophile?

[Anonymous No.4507222]

>>4507143
Better call out on the hypocrisy of niggers that uses the word nigga.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/16/3502851/rachel-jeantel-on-cnn-talks-about.html

[Anonymous No.4507379]

What's with all the inane shitposting?

[Anonymous No.4508074]

Jobs

[Anonymous No.4508078]

>>4507222
>being this much of a cracker
kek

[Anonymous No.4508102]

Tesla: Man out of Time I enjoyed.

Richard Ellman's James Joyce is great as well.

[Anonymous No.4508139]

>>4507222
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[Anonymous No.4508177]

Reading Biographies is lame.

[Anonymous No.4508210]

>>4508177
look at this pleb

[Anonymous No.4508240]

>>4507379
>empress

[Anonymous No.4508402]

>>4508210
>anything more plebian than reading fictionalized nonfiction

[Anonymous No.4508441]

>>4507187
>'Beautiful' is only flattering because at a certain point in time certain people began infusing its utterance with flattery.
>Hur if I call someone an ugly bitch they should know I don't -meeeean- it :DDDD

Stop buying your own sophistry, cracker.

[Anonymous No.4509572]

Kissinger

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4509579]

>>4509572

[Anonymous No.4509606]

the robert moses one is good stuff

[Anonymous No.4509618]

>>4506996
>tfw you learn that the Nation of Islam has the weirdest "black people are best" origin story ever
>tfw you learn that the Nation of Islam is now aligned with Scientology and administers E-meter tests
>tfw white privileged male

[Anonymous No.4509644]

This guy was the real-life inspiration for Arsène Lupin.

Joined the French Navy as a teenager, got tired of the shit treatment and constant rape attempts, briefly joined up with some pirates (who treated him a lot better), quit the whole seafaring business and became the most notorious anarchist gentleman thief ever.

[Anonymous No.4512226]

bump

[Anonymous No.4512236]

I devoured it in a few days.

[Anonymous No.4512243]

>>4512236
lyl

[Anonymous No.4512245]

This is a pretty good biography.

It's by a conservative US commentator/writer.
The intention was to basically tell everyone what a dick Fidel Castro was yet he comes of as a gigantic badass in this book- most of the crazy stories are actually we researched and told by witnesses who had since defected to the US.

Basically he's not a good man, but he's got a gigantic pair of balls on him.

[Maxed !!uOxqFz9mo1i No.4512249]

>>4507030
Kershaw's books on Hitler are excellent.

>>4506996
Excellence.

I liked the biography Edmund Morris wrote about Beethoven.

[Anonymous No.4512251]

Anything by Plutarch.

[Anonymous No.4512255]

>>4512249
Kershaw's books on Hitler are THE ONLY books on Hitler worth reading

If you want to know about Nazi Germany or Hitler Kershaw is the definitive historian

[Anonymous No.4512282]

>>4512245
>It's by a conservative US commentator/writer.
Not even once

[Anonymous No.4512296]

>>4512251
>inaccurate, outdated moralizing

might as well watch christian tv

[Anonymous No.4512358]

>>4512282
Its actually quite well researched, but like i said in the post the book is trying to give you a negative view of the man- and yet he actually comes off quite well, in my opinion.
It doesn't expose any flaws that people don't already know about (he's narcissistic, womanizing and uncompromising) yet gives an insight into just how much the man utterly believes in himself.
Many of the anecdotes are just insanely ballsy;
>jilted lover sent by CIA to assassinate him
>when confronted he asks if shes there to kill him
>draws his gun, cocks it and hands it to her
>go ahead then

Balls of steel

[Anonymous No.4512370]

I haven't because I always get conflicting opinions on it from both sides which intimidates me and I have to go read a short story anthology or something.

[Claquesous No.4512377]

I enjoyed Philip Dwyer's biography of Napoleon.

[Anonymous No.4513445]

Is the Einstein biography an good?

[Anonymous No.4513452]

There are a surprisingly good amount of Bob Dylan biographies out there. My personal favorite is the Ballad of Bob Dylan. It's not the greatest in terms of writing, I'll admit, but it's one of the few which doesn't need to mention Dylan's greatness or lower others to make Ol' Bobby seem like the messiah every few pages.

[Anonymous No.4513465]

Trotsky on Stalin -- didn't finish but was good.

A Beautiful Mind-- movie did it great injustice.

Anything by Feynman. Really some of the best stuff I have read on science.

I read Ray Monk's biography on Oppenheimer, and it was 7/10. He can be annoyingly prolix at times.

[Anonymous No.4513483]

>>4506824
>want a good biography of lenin
>there's only hardline anti-commie stuff that tries to highlight all of his personal failings in an attempt to discredit his ideology
>want a good biography of mao
>there's only halliday and chang, somehow even worse

[Anonymous No.4513496]

>>4513483
>there's only halliday and chang
The'res more than that I know. Have you tried giving Johnathan Spence's biography a try? I haven't read his book solely on Mao, but I've read a decent amount of his other works and they've all been really good quality.

[Anonymous No.4513524]

>>4512249
>I liked the biography Edmund Morris wrote about Beethoven.

Maynard Solomon's is good too. For Liszt there's Alan Walker's 3 volume study and for Mahler there's the more than 4000 pages of the Henry-Louis de la Grange biography.

>>4513483
There's a recent Mao bio called Mao: the Real Story (shitty title) translated from Russian which uses newly available Soviet documents. Chang's book is so bad it inspired a collection of reviews by scholars of Chinese history: http://www.amazon.com/Was-Mao-Really-Monster-Hallidays/dp/0415493307

[Anonymous No.4513564]

>>4506925
I could kiss you for this post!

...I'm tempted to take it to [s4s] as copypasta. Has great potential to be le next ebin maymay. ;^)

[Anonymous No.4515316]

>>4507379
Good book.

[Anonymous No.4515392]

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4516026]

>>4513564
Oh but they're from Hannah's book review, btw.
You're welcome.

[Anonymous No.4516043]

>>4512358
>>jilted lover sent by CIA to assassinate him
>>when confronted he asks if shes there to kill him
>>draws his gun, cocks it and hands it to her
>>go ahead then
Is this real? Horree shit.

[Anonymous No.4516048]

>>4513483
Red Star Over China by Snow

[Anonymous No.4516049]

Francis Wheen's biography of Karl Marx is fantastic. I can't recommend it enough

[Anonymous No.4516089]

The Power Broker by Robert Caro.

Brilliant work about a fascinating man, Robert Moses, that also illuminates the history and corruption of building New York City in the first half of the 20th century. Also provides insight into certain aspects of American politics and political parties.

Moses is an amazing Jewish dick.

[Anonymous No.4516110]

>>4516026
she looks like a mix of bob dylan and tommy pinecone in this pic

also youre a faggot

captcha: suchpi pariah

[Anonymous No.4516237]

>>4516048
>1937

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4516343]

>>4516110

[Anonymous No.4516848]

>>4516343
This doesn't make seance.

[Anonymous No.4516865]

Feynman. No biographies are more awesome than Feynman's.

[Anonymous No.4516937]

>>4516848
it doesnt make seance because butterfly is a fucking piece of shift bereft of any basic cognitive functionality unable to comprehend even the most explicit 'hints' for her to end her and our - the collective anons - misery but like sisyphus before me i am willing to continue with this infinite task hurling insult and suicidal advocation into the gaping void of her unintelligebility not out of hope for deliverance but for the fact that she is a tripfaggot and it is right to do so

also I secretly love her

[Anonymous No.4516967]

Does I, Claudius count?

[Anonymous No.4516987]

>>4506824
I found Ernesto cli'CHE Guevara's biography a fascinating read. He lived a interesting life.

>inb4 politically fueled bile and accusations

[Anonymous No.4517000]

Churchill and Trotsky....fkn boring

[Anonymous No.4517031]

>>4516865
This one?