I've never read biographies and I'd like to start

[Hoolahoophop]

I'm trying the 50 book challenge this year. So far iv read 3
Mrs England by Stacy Halls
Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Passing by Nella Larsen

I've never really got into biographies by id like to splatter a few in between the easy reads I enjoy and a few classics.

I've just got into audiobook so think biographies might be good for the walk to work.

I've reserved Michelle Obarma, Louis Therox and Dave Grohl from the library as I was scanning through and they caught my eye.

Can anyone recommend biographies that are easy reading, funny and uplifting. Maybe someone inspiring in a gentle way. I'm a Mum, an accidental business woman (who procrastinates terribly, so could do with some kick up the arse inspiration).

Or someone who takes a completely opposite path, a homespun natural healer of mystic!

Any ideas. Thanks

Maya Angelou.

Reach for the Sky, story of WW2 pilot Douglas Bader. Read it decades ago and still remember it.

Contemporary and funny (with darker themes) are Sue Perkins - Spectacles, Tom Allen - No Shame and Grace Dent - Hungry.

Also loved Anne Glenconner - Lady in Waiting for a fascinating insight into her life in rarefied circles.

Read Katherine Hepburn - Me years ago and I remember really enjoying it too: a glimpse of a bygone age.

You could try mine if you're looking for inspirational...I walked across America whilst forty-sob-sob-sob something, fat, funny and four years sober. Oh, and then there was the small matter of a pandemic starting..

Hence, living in a tent in the wilderness seemed perfectly reasonable after the world went to hell in a handbag.

Previously I had hiked from the sofa to the fridge and back. It's available in Paperback and on Kindle.

www.amazon.co.uk/Everything-You-Ever-Taught-Me-ebook/dp/B096FYV6J9/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3O2EOEKMFPZSM&keywords=everything+you+ever+taught+me&sprefix=everything+You+Ever+Taught%2Caps%2C190&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1642506302&sr=8-1

Thank you, some great suggestions there. PersonIrresponsible I will check you out!

Anne Glenconner sounds good and I like Tom Allen

Maya Angelou has 7 biographies, that's quite a bookshelf.

I should try Reach for the Sky but worried it might be a bit heavy.

Thanks again.

Dawn French - Dear Fatty. Made me laugh and cry.

I really liked the most recent ones from Bob Mortimer, Louis Theroux and Rob Beckett.

Not a biography strictly speaking but Wild by Cheryl Strayed is fantastic

Roald Dahl. Boy and Going Solo. Read by Dan Stevens. You can listen to an extract on roalddahl.com
Delightful. Funny and cracking storytelling.

Not a biography but consider ‘The Powerful and the Damned’ by Lionel Barber. Edited diaries of the Chief Editor of the FT during the financial crisis years. I alternately howled with laughter and was horrified all the way through.

David attenborough's is really interesting. I've listened to it on audible and he reads it himself.

@DelurkingAJ

Not a biography but consider ‘The Powerful and the Damned’ by Lionel Barber. Edited diaries of the Chief Editor of the FT during the financial crisis years. I alternately howled with laughter and was horrified all the way through.

Perfect present for my husband - thanks - I would never have come across this myself

The Anne Glenconner one is fabulous, I agree with pp.

Anita Roddick - Business As Unusual would be up your street.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

I've just started This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes, which is good so far.

Not a biography, but if you like interesting non fiction, The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe is a wonderful read (there's a fantastic film based on it too).

Seconding Anne Glenconner's autobiography, Lady in Waiting. It's so good, and she's a good writer, too, which makes it all the more enjoyable. I had to abandon Rick Stein's autobiography- it was so dull.

Also seconding Hungry by Grace Dent. I loved it. I've listened to her podcast, Comfort Eating, and thoroughly enjoyed that too.

I really enjoyed Bruce Springsteen's autobiography - Born to Run

Thanks so much, loads more great suggestions, my reading list will be full for the year.

Another vote for Bob Mortimer, I am also enjoying Taste by Stanley Tucci

I love biographies, autobiographies and memoires. I've just finished Miriam Margolyes which was very funny and also quite poignant in places.

I'm currently reading Michael Buerk's and Ken Clarke's (I like having a couple on the go). Next after that is Sasha Swire's Diary of an MP's wife.

For classics - Roald Dahl's Boy and Going Solo are very good, as is Stephen Fry's Moab is my Washpot.

Hungry - Grace Dent
The World I Fell Out Of - Melanie Reid
Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother - Amy Chua (if you want a laugh!)

If you want inspiration/a kick up the arse how about “The Pursuit of Happyness”?

I came on to say Hungry by Grace Dent and see others have beaten me to it - one of my favourite reads of last year

More of a diary via letters, but if you haven’t read “Love, Nina” by Nina Stibbe I would hugely recommend it.

I love old movies and read a lot of biographies such as Clark Gable, Robert Mitchum etc. David Niven wrote a few which are full of funny anecdotes and interesting stories - Bring on the Empty Horses, and The Moons a Balloon are two of them.

YY to The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid. Very honest but not self-pitying _ and occasionally funny in a dry way - account of her experience of becoming tetraplegic following a riding accident.
Additionally, if you are lucky enough to have good mobility it makes you very grateful for it.

Anne Glenconner's 'Lady in Waiting'.

I'm waiting to read Joan Collins' recently released 'My Unapologetic Diaries', it's somewhere in my reading pile, and should be a good gossipy light read.

Not quite an autobiography, labelled as a memoir of childhood reading, I enjoyed Lucy Mangans 'Bookworm'.