Gottlieb Explores Editing and Writing Biography

April 17th, 2014

This May, BIO will give its first Editorial Excellence Award to Robert Gottlieb. The award honors an editor who has made outstanding contributions to the field of biography. A former editor in chief at both Simon & Schuster and Knopf, Gottlieb has edited countless best-selling novels as well as modern classics of the biographer’s craft. He is also a biographer himself. A paperback edition of his most recent book, Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens, was released last November. To mark his winning the inaugural Editorial Excellence Award, Gottlieb spoke with BIO member Kate Buford. Here are excerpts of the interview; you can find the complete version at the BIO website. 

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Compleat Biographer Conference Preview III: Conversations with Two Panelists

April 17th, 2014

Jim Elledge

Jim Elledge is the author of Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy: The Tragic Life of An Outsider Artist, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for gay memoir/biography and for the Publishing Triangle nonfiction award. A published poet, Elledge is a professor of English at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. At the BIO conference, he will join Cassandra Langer, Barry Werth, and Brian Halley on the panel “Twice Marginalized: The Challenges of Writing About Little-Known Gay and Lesbian Subjects.”

TBC: The bizarre works of self-taught artist and unpublished novelist Henry Darger (1892-1973) have inspired both fascination and horror. What made you decide to write his biography?

Jim Elledge: Another poet had told me about Darger’s work. Doing the initial research on the Internet, I was appalled by what I was reading. It was all very negative about Darger himself. So I was very interested to see what my reaction would be to the paintings. The first time I saw them, at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, I was overwhelmed by the beautiful color and what he was able to do without having any real background in art, but I also did not feel the images I was seeing indicated anything close to his being a pedophile or serial killer, as some had thought.

When I saw the little figures in Darger’s paintings—the little girls with penises, chased by adult men and captured and crucified and strangled—it struck me that it was perhaps some kind of representation of gay boys. I had done some research into gay life in the 1800s for two other books that I published, and I realized from that research that gay men had historically used hermaphroditic figures to represent themselves. They saw the figures as a physical representation of the idea they had come up with to explain their orientation—a female soul in a man’s body, attracted to men as heterosexual women are.

Initially, I thought I’d write an essay and then some kind of critical book, and then I realized I knew nothing about art. So what was left was a biography.

TBC: How did you cope with what must have been a dearth of documentation of the life of a man who was institutionalized as a youth and spent his adult life working at menial jobs and living in a single room?

JE: There really isn’t a huge amount of material, simply because he was from a very poverty-stricken background. He was just a kid who had been, like many kids of that time, tossed out and ignored or abused. So what I had to do was look at what there was.

He wrote an autobiography that has never been published. There are many details in it that helped a lot, though he was very coy and hinted a lot about stuff. I read it so many times that I started seeing where he was hedging and seeing patterns in his writing that for me opened up a lot of possibilities.

I also had to look at what other boys of his approximate age in Chicago at the same time were up to. There’s a lot of sociological material that talks about what boys typically did in those days and the kind of trouble they got into. What he was hinting about was what other boys were going through at the same time, in that particular neighborhood, in similar types of institutions. I found so much that really connected with Darger, and given what he said in the autobiography, it seemed correct to put the two together.

When you have someone like Darger and you have this huge mystery—what do those figures mean?—there’s no way to discover it through the paintings themselves. The paintings certainly don’t tell us he was also a novelist. There are lots of clues in the novels about his sexuality.

I found the key to the torture of the children in the first novel. That was an important way of validating what I was doing. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing initially, and then I found this and I said, yes, this is the way it’s got to be.

Evan Thomas

Biographers know that dealing with a subject’s family requires the negotiation skills of a trained diplomat, but that it can also be extraordinarily rewarding. The “Getting the Family on Board” panel at this year’s BIO conference will benefit from the experience of veteran biographer and historian Evan Thomas, whose most recent book is Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World. Evan was kind enough to answer some questions from Beverly Gray, moderator of the panel.

Beverly Gray: As a biographer and historian, you’ve covered a wide range of subjects: naval heroes, presidents, spies, politicians. How do you choose your topics? Can you identify a common thread that ties together your eight major book projects?

Evan Thomas: I am very interested in the rise (and fall) of American power after World War II and the role of political and social establishments. I am also interested in war—as the ultimate test of men (and sometimes women) and as the source of so much heroism and folly.

BG: In researching Robert F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower, you’ve have to deal with two important presidential families. Were there special challenges in seeking information from the famously self-protective Kennedys?

ET: The Kennedys do present a challenge, but not an insuperable one. The key is patience and appealing to their self-interest.

BG: In the Acknowledgments of your Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World, you especially praise Ike’s granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, calling her an “able historian.” In your opinion, what makes an able historian? And how did Susan’s insights contribute to your book?

ET: Susan Eisenhower has the unusual ability to step back from her family and see her grandfather with some detachment. That is not to say that she doesn’t care about his place in history—she has led the opposition to the Frank Gehry-designed Eisenhower Memorial. But she is not kneejerk and she has written enough history to appreciate the difficulties and duties of historians. She was immensely helpful in getting her late father, John, to talk to me.

BG: When researching a biography, how (and when) do you approach your subject’s family? Have you devised any personal rules for working successfully with family members?

ET: The best rule is to not hide the ball, to tell them early on what you are up to and—in most cases—to show them the manuscript so there are no surprises at the end. This does not mean ceding control over the product, but rather trying to build trust by full disclosure.

BG: Have you ever been in situations where you’ve had to coax a family member into speaking honestly and for the record? Have you ever had to offer specific concessions to someone who’s fearful about dishonoring a relative’s reputation?

ET: I have always tried to be mindful of their feelings and to not gratuitously inflict pain. With patience and understanding, you can usually find ways to print virtually everything.

BG: You will be sharing this panel with presidential historian Will Swift, whose new book explores the marriage of Pat and Dick Nixon, as well as Brian Jay Jones, author of Jim Henson: The Biography. What do you look forward to learning from these two biographers?

ET: I hope to learn a lot from them about how to deal with the families!

Plutarch 2014

April 15th, 2014

Nominees for Plutarch Award for Best Biography of the Year as Selected by Biographers Revealed

BOSTON, MA—Biographers will once again determine the best biography of the year when they bestow the Plutarch Award at a gala ceremony in Boston on May 17. Named after the famous Ancient Greek biographer, the prize aims to be the genre’s equivalent of the Oscar, in that the winner is determined by secret ballot from a list of nominees selected by a committee of distinguished members of the craft.

The 2013 books nominated for this year’s Plutarch are:

• Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson (Doubleday)
• Bolivar: American Liberator by Marie Arana (Simon & Schuster)
• Wilson by A. Scott Berg (Putnam)
• The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee, Jr. (Little,Brown)
• Jonathan Swift: His Life And His World by Leo Damrosch (Yale)
• Gabriele D’Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes-Hallet (Knopf)
• Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (Ballantine)
• Holding On Upside Down: The Life And Work of Marianne Moore by Linda Leavell (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore (Knopf)
• Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center by Ray Monk (Doubleday)

“This is the only prize to be awarded to a biographer by biographers,” said BIO President James McGrath Morris. “Just as each year science fiction readers await the announcement of the Nebula, horror readers await the Stoker, and mystery fans await the Edgar, biography readers have now come to see the Plutarch as a similarly prestigious and much-sought-after award.”

The Plutarch Award winner will be revealed at BIO’s annual Compleat Biographer Conference at the University of Massachusetts Boston on May 17, which attracts hundreds of biographers from around the globe.

2014 Election

March 24th, 2014

The following are the election statements and biographies submitted by the candidates.

RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

BRIAN JAY JONES
Brian Jay Jones has been a BIO Board Member since 2009, served for two years as BIO’s secretary, and presently serves as its elected Vice President.  “Five successful years after establishing BIO, we’ve reached a critical juncture. More than ever, it’s vital that we increase our numbers, actively promote the organization (including our members, our conference, and our awards), and strive to meet the expectations our members may have of a professional association. We’re an organization with a membership based not just on profession, but passion; therefore, our ranks can and should include not just writers, filmmakers and graphic novelists, but also readers, students, and fans of biography. I want to work with our board—including our advisory board—on empowering our standing committees to work more aggressively and independently on recruiting new members, managing our various scholarships and awards, organizing our conference, increasing our visibility across media, and soliciting the involvement and input of members. Ultimately, it’s our members, as busy as they all are, that make us such a unique organization—and I’d like to take better advantage of the contacts, expertise, and enthusiasm of our members to help make BIO a larger, more useful, and influential organization.”

RUNNING FOR VICE PRESIDENT

CATHY CURTIS
I joined BIO in 2011, as a former Los Angeles Times staff writer immersed in research for my first book. Now I’m a board member and chair of the Program Committee, which selects topics and speakers for the conference. My biography of Abstract Expressionist painter Grace Hartigan will be published by Oxford University Press in 2015.  At the five-year mark, BIO is at a crossroads. James McGrath Morris, our farsighted and much loved founder, is stepping down as president. This means that we must all step up. We need to:

• Involve every board member in the intensive behind-the-scenes work that makes possible our awards, our conferences, our financial health, and our plans for the future.
• Grow our membership.
• Institute internal transparency and coordination among committees, with the help of more sophisticated technology.
• Convince more BIO members to feel responsible for contributing their contacts, knowledge, and experience to our website and our newsletter, The Biographer’s Craft.

The positive side of all this work—which I have experienced as a committee chair—is the opportunity to work with fellow biographers, a group of highly intelligent, creative, opinionated people who approach their volunteer tasks with a welcome sense of humor and a keen awareness of our mission.

RUNNING FOR BOARD

CHIP BISHOP
Chip Bishop is an accomplished writer and speaker whose new book, Quentin & Flora – A Roosevelt and a Vanderbilt in Love during the Great War – is winning wide pre-release acclaim. His debut book, The Lion and the Journalist – The Unlikely Friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and Joseph Bucklin Bishop, hit #12 on the New York Times E-Book Best Seller List in March 2014. It’s been hailed by historians, reviewers, and readers alike. Chip grew up in Woonsocket, R.I. and was graduated from Boston University. His lifetime of achievements includes time as a campaign and administration aide to President Jimmy Carter, Capitol Hill lobbyist, business entrepreneur, local elected official, and disc-jockey during the 1960s British Invasion. Chip is a member of the board of directors of the Biographers International Organization, a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association and the executive committee of its New England chapter. He serves his community as an elected member of the board of trustees of the Mashpee Massachusetts Public Library. He loves doo-wop music, old German stamps and the 2013 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox. He is the great-grandnephew of Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt’s authorized biographer, who was profiled in his first book

KATE BUFORD
My best-selling Burt Lancaster: An American Life (Knopf/Da Capo/UK: Aurum) was named one of the best books of 2000 by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and others. Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe (Knopf 2010; U. of Nebraska Press paperback 2012) was an Editors’ Choice of The New York Times. I have written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Film Comment and other publications, have been a featured speaker at many events, and was a commentator from 1995-2003 on NPR’s Morning Edition and APM’s Marketplace. A member of BIO and PEN, I also serve on the board of Union Settlement Association in East Harlem, NYC.  I have been involved with BIO since its formative meeting in 2009 and have served on panels at each annual conference since then. With the help of fellow BIO member, Abby Santamaria, I created the annual Biblio Award in 2012, now given at each conference to a worthy archivist or research librarian. I currently serve on the Program Committee. BIO is poised to move beyond the start-up phase into consolidating itself as a mature professional resource for biographers around the world. I would be honored to contribute to the hard work yet to be done to expand member outreach and to raise BIO’s public profile.

BARBARA BURKHARDT
Involved in BIO since its founding meeting in 2009, I have served as board secretary for the past two years,  site co-chair for the 2011 Washington conference, and as a moderator and panelist at the LA and NYC conferences.   We are heading into a period of refining how we administer our programs and services, institutionalizing our record-keeping, and putting additional structures in place to help the organization grow and mature. I would like to help the board document these efforts, developing BIO archives beginning with what I have collected electronically over the past few years as secretary and site Co-Chair for the 2011 conference.  A second interest is developing an organized effort to increase membership by reaching out to biographers who are not yet a part of our fold.  Professionally, I have been Associate Professor of American Literature with the University of Illinois Springfield and this year will take emeritus status. After moving to Washington, D.C. in 2003, I taught on-line extensively for Illinois.  My first book, William Maxwell: A Literary Life, about the New Yorker editor and novelist, was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2005 (Paperback 2008) and in 2012 I edited Conversations with William Maxwell, which appeared as part of the Literary Conversations series of the University Press of Mississippi.  I am currently writing a biography of Garrison Keillor under contract with St. Martin’s Press.

DEIRDRE DAVID
My first biography, Fanny Kemble: A Performed Life (U.Penn Press 2007), stemmed from a career writing about Victorian literature; I followed this with Olivia Manning: A Woman at War (Oxford U.Press 2013) and am now working on Pamela Hansford Johnson: A Writer’s Life (contracted to Oxford). As department chair at two universities (Maryland and Temple), I have gained substantial administrative experience. Working with colleagues on the program committee for the BIO 2014 Conference showed me how much we share as biographers, and also how challenges vary for different subjects; i.e., politicians, painters, playwrights, scientists, actors, sports figures, novelists all demand their own modes of research and writing. If elected to the Board, I would welcome assignments focusing on inter-disciplinary biography and on collaboration between biographers (such as working again on the program committee). I am also interested in volunteering to work on the committee for developing new members. I would also like to explore the establishment of a BIOBLOG, an online forum for questions, discussion, announcements, that would supplement our excellent newsletter and the interesting blogs of individual members, and possibly attract potential membership. In sum, I am eager to contribute to the development of BIO’s exciting future.

GAYLE FELDMAN
I’ve been associated with BIO from its first meeting at CUNY, and seen it grow to its present status as a grassroots organization that really matters to members and the field. Along with James McGrath Morris and a few others, I bring an institutional memory of how far we have come and sense of where we might go. My involvement has encompassed speaking on/organizing/moderating panels, some publicity outreach, and being the driving force behind the award in memory of the late Hazel Rowley, an early member, for the best proposal for a first biography, which we are awarding for the first time this year.  I’d like to remain on the board to see the Rowley award firmly established. I’d also like to explore developing closer links with the London Biographers’ Club, whose president is an old friend and my former editor. As to background, I was a book editor in London before moving to New York, where I was a senior editor at Publishers Weekly for many years. I am writing my third book but first biography, a life of Random House co-founder Bennett Cerf, to be published by Random House. I am also New York correspondent for The Bookseller.

BEVERLY GRAY
I’ve been a professor of English at USC, the longtime story editor for B-movie legend Roger Corman, a freelance journalist, and a screenwriting instructor for UCLA Extension’s celebrated Writers’ Program. My first book, Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, debuted on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. The updated paperback and ebook editions have been tastefully retitled Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. Also the author of Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond, I’m currently exploring new biographical projects relating to major figures in Hollywood.  As the hard-working local site chair of BIO’s 2012 Los Angeles conference, I was officially named a “goddess.” I’ve served for three years on BIO’s program committee, and will moderate my third BIO panel (“Getting the Family on Board”) in Boston this May. Given my movie interests, I’d like to see more attention paid to biopics and other non-traditional forms of biography. This year’s program committee passionately debated whether or not to endorse a panel on the biographical novel. Since this topic clearly touched a collective nerve, I propose a public discussion on the essential parameters of what we call biography.

HANS RENDERS
Hans Renders, a board member of BIO, lives in Amsterdam and holds a chair in History and Theory of Biography. He is the director of the Biography Institute, Groningen University. He is the editor of Le Temps des Médias; of Quaerendo. A Quarterly Journal from the Low Countries; of ZL. Literary-historical magazine. He is a book critic for the newspaper Het Parool and for the weekly Vrij Nederland; and is also a Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biography (Vienna). Biographers write better biographies when they’re aware of the theoretical implications of their work. In my experience there’s no necessary gap between academic justified biography and biography which is interesting for the general public. We all want a biography to be a good read. But poor writing is everywhere, in and outside the academic world. I hope to bring in the European perspective to keep bio a real international organization. I’m currenty working on the biography of Theo van Doesburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Doesburg), the painter, poet and art theorist who founded together with Piet Mondrian the Style Movement.

WILLIAM SOUDER
I am running for re-election to the Board seat I currently hold. If re-elected, I want to continue to work mainly on our annual conference. Specifically, I’d like to see more outside voices—editors, agents, publicists, and reviewers—added to our panels. I think this would broaden the appeal of the meeting and allow us to focus the panels in which we share our own expertise more tightly. I think the substance of the conference should be enlightened shop-talk that appeals to working biographers and novices alike.  About me: I am the author of three books, including two biographies. Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 and will be re-issued this summer. On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson was published in 2012 and was a New York Times Notable Book and one of Kirkus Reviews’ Top 25 Nonfiction Books of the year. I am currently at work on a biography of John Steinbeck. I live in Grant, Minnesota, an often inhospitable place conducive to inside pursuits such as writing.

WILL SWIFT
Will Swift is the author of The Roosevelts and the Royals (Wiley, 2004), the Kennedys Amidst the Gathering Storm (Harper Collins, 2008) and Pat and Dick: An Intimate Portrait of a Marriage (Threshold, 2014) which is a New York Times Editor’s Choice. He moderated the Creating Beautifully Written Biographies panel in 2012 and the Brilliant Beginnings and Engrossing Endings panel in 2013. He has founded and run the Distinguished Author program of the Columbia County Historical Society in New York and has co-founded The Gotham Biographers group in Manhattan. He is also a clinical psychologist with forty years experience. The therapist in him loves sneaking into his biographer’s role and restoring unfairly tarnished historical reputations. A founding board member of BIO, he is committed to bringing new biographers into the organization, creating fresh and exciting panels for the conventions, and helping other authors improve their manuscripts.

Record Attendance Expected at Compleat Biographer Conference; Reserve Your Spot Today!

March 14th, 2014

More than two-thirds of the spaces BIO has set aside for attendees at the 2014 Compleat Biographer Conference have been taken. If this record pace continues, some sessions will sell out or we might even have to turn folks away.

While we are thrilled at the prospect of a sold-out conference, we would hate to see loyal members unable to attend. Go to the registration site NOW and lock in your place!

Also, please consider that because of college commencements, reasonably priced hotels rooms can be hard to come by in Boston in May. Consult Orbitz or other major travel websites to look for decent accommodations. (Check out www.airbnb.com as well.) Many rooms are not close to the University of Massachusetts, but you can take advantage of Boston’s excellent public transportation to get to the conference site. Be sure to leave yourself commuting time.

Finally, BIO is setting up a roommate and car-pooling list serve. If you would like to be on this listserv, send a note to Lori Izykowski and let her know. We will be sending out regular emails with the names of conference attendees who want to share rooms or car pool together to the conference and conference events.

Gems to be Found on 2014 Spring List of Biographies

February 9th, 2014

Begley was the books editor at the New York Observer before starting his Updike biography.

The 2014 spring list of forthcoming biographies is not as robust as that of previous spring seasons. Yet there are plenty of works that will attract attention and readers.

As usual, BIO is posting a complete list of the works on its website and, as in the past, the list will be continually updated as we learn about forthcoming books that we may have missed. Here, however, are some from the list bound to attract considerable notice:

A literary figure’s life is expected to garner the bulk of biographical attention this spring when Harper publishes the long-awaited biography of writer John Updike by Adam Begley in April. Simply called Updike, the book is the first biography of the late writer to cover his entire life.

Among other books this spring that focus on literary lives are The Extraordinary Life of Rebecca West: A Biography by Lona Gibb, which Counterpoint will publish in May, Maeve Binchy: The Biography by Piers Dudgeon, coming from Thomas Dunne in July, and The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature by Ben Tarnoff, a March book from Penguin.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt as war leader will be the subject of two works this spring. First out will be No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation Into War by David Kaiser from Basic Books. Nigel Hamilton, former BIO President, will offer the first of what is expected to be a two-volume look at FDR at war. His Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942 will be published by Houghton Mifflin in May.

Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer Kai Bird will be out with his The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, which Crown will publish in late May.

Washington writer Mark Perry will publish his take on one of the twentieth century’s most controversial military leaders. His The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur will be in stores in April from Basic Books.

Joseph’s previous book was
Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama.

Stokely, Peniel E. Joseph’s biography of civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael, will be published by Basic Book in March. Joseph was a Compleat Biographer panelist in 2013 and is previously the author of Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama.

Those who have wondered how a mausoleum-like building on Capitol Hill in Washington came to house one of the world’s great depositories of William Shakespeare’s works will find their answer in Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger by Stephen Grant that Johns Hopkins University Press will bring out in March. The same month Thomas Dunne will publish Joan Barthel’s American Saint: The Life of Elizabeth Seton.

Conservative columnist, occasional candidate for president, and former Nixon aide Pat Buchanan will be out and about with a new look at his former boss. His The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from the Dead to Create America’s New Majority will be out from Crown in July.

Sports fans are likely to grab copies of Michael Jordan by Roland Lazenby when Little, Brown and Company brings out the title in May. And watchers of another kind of court will be on the lookout for Scalia: A Court of One by Bruce Allen Murphy from Simon & Schuster.

Not on this list, but to be added to the growing number of books using the subtitle “biography” will be the May book, The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmitt, detailing the 700-year “life” of the English-language novel.

Compleat Biographer Preview: Panelists Megan Marshall and Linda Leavell in Conversation

February 9th, 2014

Linda Leavell

Megan Marshall

BIO members Megan Marshall and Linda Leavell will present “Making Modernism: A Conversation Between Biographers” at the BIO conference on May 17. As a prelude to that, Marshal interviwed Leavell about her new book and a recent honor.

Megan Marshall is the author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. She is at work on a short biography of Elizabeth Bishop for the Amazon “Icons” series.

Spring 2014

February 6th, 2014

March

• Marjorie Harris Carr: Defender of Florida’s Environment by Peggy Macdonald (University Press of Florida)
  Suffer and Grow Strong: The Life of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1834–1907 by Carolyn Newton Curry (Mercer University Press)
• Stephen Ward: Scapegoat by Douglas Thompson (John Blake)
• Rachel Carson and Her Sisters: Extraordinary Women Who Have Shaped America’s Environment by Robert K. Musil (Rutgers University Press)
• Leaving Home: The Remarkable Life of Peter Jacyk by John Lawrence Reynolds (Figure 1 Publishing)
• The Unknown Henry Miller: A Seeker in Big Sur by Arthur Hoyle (Arcade Publishing)
• Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul by Daniel Gordis (Schocken Books)
• A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man by Holly George-Warren (Viking)
• Pete Rose: An American Dilemma by Kostya Kennedy (Sports Illustrated Books)
• Stokely by Peniel E. Joseph (Basic Books)
• Faisal I of Iraq by Ali A. Allawi (Yale University Press)
• American Saint: The Life of Elizabeth Seton by Joan Barthel (Thomas Dunne)
• Brooks: The Biography of Brooks Robinson by Doug Wilson (Thomas Dunne)
• Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong by Juliet Macur (Harper)
• The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age by Myra MacPherson (Twelve)
• Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne by Douglas V. Mastriano (University Press of Kentucky)
• The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography by Miriam Pawel  (Bloomsbury)
• The Double Life of Paul De Man by Evelyn Barish (William Morrow)
• Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger by Stephen H. Grant (Johns Hopkins University Press)

April

• Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life by Stephen Parker (Bloomsbury)
• The Butcher of Poland: Hitler’s Lawyer by Hans Frank, Garry O’Connor, and Michael Holroyd (Spellmount)
• Jane Austen: Her Life, Her Times, Her Novels by Janet Todd (Andre Deutsch)
• Russell Long: A Life in Politics by Michael S. Martin (University Press of Mississippi)
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur by Mark Perry (Basic Books)
• Julian Hawthorne: The Life of a Prodigal Son by Gary Scharnhorst (University of Illinois Press)
• Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams by Margery M. Heffron and David L. Michelmor (Yale University Press)
• Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh (Knopf)
• Woodrow Wilson and World War I: A Burden Too Great To Bear by Richard Striner (Rowan & Littlefield)
• Malthus: The Life and Legacies of an Untimely Prophet by Robert J. Mayhew (Belknap Press)
• No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation Into War by David Kaiser (Basic Books)
• A Very Principled Boy: The Life of Duncan Lee, Red Spy and Cold Warrior by Mark A. Bradley (Basic Books)
• James Gandolfini: The Real Life of the Man Who Made Tony Soprano by Dan Bischoff (St. Martin’s Press)
• John Wayne: The Life and Legend by Scott Eyman (Simon & Schuster)
• Updike by Adam Begley (Harper)
• Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause by Heath Hardage Lee  (Potomac Books)
• A Taste for Intrigue: The Multiple Lives of François Mitterrand by Philip Short (Henry Holt)
• Tom Horn in Life and Legend by Larry D. Ball  (University of Oklahoma Press)

May

• The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty by J. Randy Taraborrelli (Grand Central Publishing)
• Ain’t It Time We Said Goodbye: The Rolling Stones on the Road to Exile by Robert Greenfield (Da Capo)
• The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames by Kai Bird (Crown)
• John Quincy Adams: American Visionary by Fred Kaplan (Harper)
• The Odd Couple: The Curious Friendship between Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin by Richard Bradford (Biteback Publishing)
• The Extraordinary Life of Rebecca West: A Biography by Lorna Gibb (Counterpoint)
• Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby (Little, Brown and Company)
• Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty by Daniel Schulman (Grand Central Publishing)
• The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark by Meryl Gordon (Grand Central Publishing)
• The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America by John F. Kasson (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Martin Freeman: The Biography by Nick Johnstone (Andre Deutsch)
• Mildred on the Marne: Mildred Aldrich, Front-line Witness 1914-1918 by David Slattery-Christy (Spellmount)
• Becoming Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst by Adam Phillips (Yale University Press)
• The Literary Churchill: Author, Reader, Actor by Jonathan Rose (Yale University Press)
• Jabotinsky: A Life by Hillel Halkin (Yale University Press)
• The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautiful to American Independence by David Bromwich (Belknap Press)
• The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps by Michael Blanding (Gotham)
• James Madison: A Life Reconsidered by Lynne Cheney (Viking)
• The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942 by Nigel Hamilton (Houghton Mifflin)

June

• A Man Called Harris: The Life of Richard Harris by Michael Sheridan, Anthony Galvin (History Press)
• Scalia: A Court of One by Bruce Allen Murphy (Simon & Schuster)
• Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr (Simon & Schuster)
• Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce by Sylvia Jukes Morris (Random House)
• Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness by Paul Binding (Yale University Press)
• Stephen Crane: A Life of Fire by Paul Sorrentino (Belknap Press)
• Young Ovid: A Life Recreated by Diane Middlebrook (Counterpoint)
• Brando’s Smile: His Life, Thought, and Work by Susan L. Mizruchi (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s by Tom Doyle (Ballantine Books)
• The Real Custer: From Boy General to Tragic Hero by James S. Robbin (Regnery)
• Olivier by Philip Ziegler (MacLehose Press)
• Queen Victoria: A Life of Contradictions by Matthew Dennison (St. Martin’s Press)

July

• The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from the Dead to Create America’s New Majority by Patrick J. Buchanan (Crown)
• Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces by Miles J. Unger (Simon & Schuster)
• Robert Morris’s Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder by Ryan K. Smith (Yale University Press)
• The Search for Anne Perry: The Hidden Life of a Bestselling Crime Writer by Joanne Drayton (Arcade Publishing)
• Fierce Patriot : The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman by Robert L. O’Connell, (Random House)
• Maeve Binchy: The Biography by Piers Dudgeon (Thomas Dunne Books)
• Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight by Jay Barbree,  (Thomas Dunne Books)
• Joe and Marilyn by C. David Heymann (Atria/Emily Bestler Books)

August

• Robert Cantwell and the Literary Left : A Northwest Writer Reworks American Fiction by T.V. Reed (University of Washington Press)
• Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano by Dana Thomas (Penguin)
• Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• William Wells Brown: An African-American Life by Ezra Greenspan (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Bolano: A Biography by Monica Maristain (Melville House)
• The Good Son by Christopher Andersen (Gallery Books)