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Investing columnist for The Wall Street Journal and editor of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor.

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  Glorious Country

  Their words

  I loved this historical biography of America's greatest landscape painter, and not just because I have an intense personal interest in Church. Johnson's writing is luminously beautiful, her assiduous research never impedes the narrative, and the illustrations are spectacular.

  jasonzweig.com

Writer and artist, author of Steal Like an Artist; publishes a weekly newsletter and an annual list of the books he read.

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  Tolstoy: A Biography

  Their words

  A.N. Wilson's Tolstoy: A Biography is excellent.

  austinkleon.com

China economy researcher based in Beijing who writes on his personal blog about Chinese political economy, history, books and music.

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  The Lumumba Plot

  Their words

  Nominally a biography of Patrice Lumumba, this book is actually a gripping, blow-by-blow account of how the Congo stumbled to independence from Belgian rule.

  andrewbatson.com

Co-founder of Microsoft and of the Gates Foundation. Writes Gates Notes on global health, energy and climate, and on whatever they have been reading.

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  Personal History

  Their words

  That story is told in her riveting memoir Personal History, which came out in 1997—just a few years before she passed away—and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.

  gatesnotes.com

Software engineer and essayist who writes about programming, formal methods, philosophy and literature at thoughts.wyounas.com.

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  The Strangest Man

  Their words

  I found this an engaging biography and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

  thoughts.wyounas.com

Interface designer and researcher, known for the talks Inventing on Principle and Media for Thinking the Unthinkable and for essays on dynamic representations of ideas. Founder of Dynamicland, where he is building a communal computer.

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  The Design and Evolution of C++

  Their words

  Biography of a language.

  worrydream.com

American author of The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy and Stillness Is the Key. Writes the Reading List book-recommendation email (started 2008) and owns The Painted Porch bookstore in Bastrop, Texas. Hosts The Daily Stoic podcast.

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  Pontius Pilate

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  Ann Wroe’s biography of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea–the man who sentenced Jesus to his gruesome death–was so overwhelmingly good that I could only read a couple pages at a time.

  ryanholiday.net

Marketing author and daily blogger; founder of the altMBA and the Akimbo workshops, and author of books including Purple Cow and This Is Marketing.

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  King: A Life

  Their words

  King: A Life, is a clear and direct biography of one of our greatest citizens.

  seths.blog

American author of The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy and Stillness Is the Key. Writes the Reading List book-recommendation email (started 2008) and owns The Painted Porch bookstore in Bastrop, Texas. Hosts The Daily Stoic podcast.

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  Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman

  Their words

  this one is one of the best leadership books I have ever read

  ryanholiday.net

Pseudonymous essayist. Writes at gwern.net on AI scaling, statistics, genetics and long-running internet research, with heavy citation and a habit of revising old essays in place rather than leaving them wrong.

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  Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

  Their words

  A solid biography, though I don’t have anything in particular to say about it.

  gwern.net

Computer science professor at Georgetown University and author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism and Slow Productivity; writes about focus, technology and work at calnewport.com and hosts the Deep Questions podcast.

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  Steven Spielberg: A Biography

  Their words

  My key takeaway from the book: Spielberg, for reasons that McBride can never quite nail down, was capital-D driven. His story provides a master class in the potential of mixing relentless ambition, talent, and perfect timing.

  calnewport.com

Economist and journalist; Financial Times columnist as The Undercover Economist, author of How to Make the World Add Up, and presenter of the Cautionary Tales podcast.

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  The Man From the Future

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  Ananyo Bhattacharya, The Man From the Future – A biography not only of the genius’s genius, John von Neumann, but also of von Neumann’s ideas and influence, which are nearly impossible to exaggerate. Serious and brilliantly-written.

  timharford.com

American author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything Is F*cked. Writes essays and book reviews at markmanson.net.

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  Isaac Newton

  Their words

  Just a really, really well-written biography. And of arguably the most important man in history.

  markmanson.net