Are people getting bored of biogs?

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I think I've only read like about 3 biographies in my whole life. I'm just not interested enough in people's lives. But maybe I'm missing out. Do you read them? And do you tend to prefer autobiographies (which I have definitely never read any of) or ones written by others?

― N., Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

When I was about 13 we had to do an English project where we wrote a biography of someone we knew (obviously not some 500 page job, just a brief outline) and I did my mum. I think that's about the only biography I've ever been near. It is very interesting, if anyone would like to publish it get in touch.

― Emma, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i don't like either biographies or autobigraphies. you know those people who say they only read biographies? i'm like the opposite. i read the brian wilson one though and that was quite good (i've since read some big criticisms of that book, but i did think it was pretty good). i can't bring myself to read the bez or mingus ones. i don't like star anecdotes.

― gareth, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"the third act is always bloody"

― mark s, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tosches write amazing Biogs. Hellfire blew my mind.

Epic scope & span = Deutscher.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Good biographies: 'Genius' by James Gleick (?) [on Richard Feynman], 'Wittgenstein' by Ray Monk, and 'Hilbert' by Constance Reid.

― Josh, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a great one on Liberace I read last year. Strange but true!

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The three I have read:

'Wittgenstein' by Ray Monk
'Lennon' by Ray Coleman
'Rosebud' by David Thomson

I have also read Johnny Rogan's 'Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance' but that doesn't count, on any level.

― N., Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a great one on Liberace I read last year. Strange but true!

Ned Ned Ned would that happen to be the University of Chicago Press's own Liberace: An American Boy by Darden Asbury Pyron? I.e. it is big big big and for the dust jacket we did shiny foil stamping over Liberace's outfit, seeing as he probably would have wanted it that way?

― Nitsuh, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

When I was about 13 we had to do an English project where we wrote a biography of someone we knew

We got given that 'project' too, only it was when I was 11 (you were obviously v.backward in your school). I wrote it about a doctor who lived over the road, but I couldn't make his life stretch to a page of an A5 exercise book so I added fictitious material for colour. Like the fact that he loved eating jelly babies (he didn't, as far as I am aware). I didn't know the word for pager so I wrote 'one-of-those-bleepy-things', which got underlined in red. But I got away with the fictional flourishes and received a good mark. In this way I learned that dishonesty pays.

― N., Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Who's this "Rosebud" fella?

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't like biographies much either, and I'm disinterested-to- actively against knowing much biographical detail of people whose art or thinking interests me; I'd rather know sociocultural context and I get bored with the idea of a coherent narrative about one person's life. It just distances me from them, 'cos my life couldn't be manhandled into a coherent narrative with a crane. This also makes me suspicious of the biographer's Art. I took the Wheen Marx with me on holiday last year; I remember that being ok.

― Ellie, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd rather know sociocultural context and I get bored with the idea of a coherent narrative about one person's life.

YES i agree! in a nutshell, well put.

― gareth, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

would that happen to be the University of Chicago Press's own Liberace: An American Boy by Darden Asbury Pyron?

Not sure, actually.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The only biography I've read is Mick Foley's "Have a Nice Day".

― jel --, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't like biographies much either, and I'm disinterested-to- actively against knowing much biographical detail of people whose art or thinking interests me;
Well, no, sometimes I do believe that knowing the person behind the picture (heh) is a good demystifier (scheppling?). Finding out how much VanGogh was fascinated with Japan makes me realize that maybe we sometimes lump artists together in one genre without realizing how different they actually are. I need sleep. Help.

― helenfordsdale, Friday, 1 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

three months pass...

well... i had to write an auto in year 8 (13) and it really stumped, its not like i dun have nothin to write about (i've had lueokemia), its just that i felt rather snobbish writing about myself... but thats just me, anyways... auto's suck unloss they written by dying ppl old ppl, or old dying quadraplegic ppl... or maybe yer averarge yal yankee, oh well...

― dole, bob dole, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Anthony Trollope's autobiography is very good. There's something bafflingly strange about his writing style - it's sort of unintentionally hilarious deadpan comedy. And it's quite short.

Nick - I had the same problem. I got a high mark for writing about my family's non-existent strawberry patch when I was five. I thought I would get in trouble when the teacher showed it to my parents, but strangely they didn't seem to notice my lies.

― maryann, Monday, 17 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

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