A list of my top ten biographies is likely to connect with nobody completely, but that is because biographies are enjoyed because they connect with us for a variety of reasons. I’ve listed those that I’ve enjoyed the most and some of them because the biographer himself was such a good writer.

I could easily have limited this to major Christian figures or to other categories.

Feel free to comment on your one or two favorite biographies.

1. G. Sayer, Jack: C.S. Lewis and His Times.

2. G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox

3. P. Ackroyd, Dickens

4. W. Martin, A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story

5. E.K. Kaplan, S.H. Dresner, Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness

6. E. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography

7. F. Scott Elledge, E.B. White

8. T. Teachout, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken

9. G. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards

10. A. Hoffman, Inventing Mark Twain

Others include:

A. Hollingsworth, The Simple Life of Mister Rogers
B. Reynolds, Dorothy L. Sayers
K.S. Lynn, Hemingway
M. Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin
F. Kiernan, Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy
J. Cash, Flannery O’Connor: A Life
T. Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965
T. Dudley-Smith, John Stott
J. McMorris, The Warden of English: The Life of H.W. Fowler
F.W. Dillistone, C.H. Dodd
C. Clinton, Hariett Tubman