“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of the past centuries.”
These words of the eminent philosopher and mathematician René Descartes perfectly resonate with the importance of books, particularly biographies and memoirs, in our lives. Biographies not only provide us with knowledge related to the lives of individuals but also give us an insight into those aspects of life that we do not generally know. These memoirs also tell about the challenges faced by these prominent individuals and how they overcame them without losing their temper. Also, by perusing the real-life stories of different people, we learn about different perspectives on life, thus expanding our psychological horizon. Besides, biographies also provide historical knowledge to us, along with enriching our vocabulary skills. In this article, we at BooksWagon UAE have thoughtfully curated a list of must-read biographies and memoirs to inspire you and enrich your experience of living a life beyond your own. But before that, let us briefly learn about the importance and requirements of reading biographies and memoirs.
Why You Should Read Biographies & Memoirs
The most concise answer to this question is ‘to gain experience.’ Biographies, Autobiographies, and memoirs are pregnant with unmatched experiences of prominent personalities of the world, like Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama, and others. And any sane person knows how important experience is. The following points can be read to understand the importance of pursuing biographies and memoirs:
- Practical Methods to Succeed: The biographies and memoirs bestow readers with real-life experiences of successful people, with the methods and techniques they have utilised in their initial phases.
- Historical Knowledge: These real story-based books give us knowledge about the historical underpinnings and events taking place during the lives of the people they talk about, thus enhancing our overall historical knowledge.
- Sympathy and Emotional Intelligence: Biographical books also teach us to feel the pain of others and relate to them, thus engendering empathy in us for others. Also, they promote emotional intelligence and stability while understanding the happiness or dread of the subjects.
- Intro-spection and Identity Formation: By seeing how successful people have navigated their lives through periods of self-doubt, pessimistic thinking, and lack of motivation to hustle, we can learn different methods to surf the tides of our lives.
Along with all these benefits, biographies and memoirs also enhance our comprehension skills and our vocabulary by teaching us new words and phrases along with their usage. Now, after concisely understanding the uses of memoirs, let us move to the list of some famous ‘biography and memoir’ books.
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
Articulated by the writer of bestselling biographies like ‘Steve Jobs’ and others, this book about the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and the owner of X (formerly Twitter), gives a detailed insight into the life of Elon Musk, from his childhood to becoming one of the richest persons of the world. This inspiring biography book deals with the following topics related to him:
- Childhood Trauma: The book talks about Elon being bullied during his school years and the absence of emotional compassion and stability from his father’s side, making Musk a taciturn and introverted person who began to have a blatantly logic-driven approach towards everything and everyone.
- Hardcore Management: The second important theme is about his nature being a hard work-driven approach, which he often demanded from his workers and engineers as well. This is what makes him one of the most successful innovators.
- Money is Secondary: Another important philosophy of Elon highlighted by this book is his mission-mode working, which always kept financial gain and monetary profits secondary to his goal. Although he is the richest person in the world, he has never put money first, even after multiple failures and losses.
- The Twitter Acquisition: The book gives details about how Elon took over Twitter and rebranded it as ‘X’ just for the sake of his desire to control the ultimate playground to resolve his feelings of exclusion from his bullied youth.
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Written by Ron Chernow, this biography novel of the most notorious yet one of the most philanthropic businessmen of the USA details the life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., from his humble beginnings to becoming the first billionaire in the world. The things covered by this masterpiece about this business tycoon are:
- Initiation and Business Acumen: Rockefeller was born to a snake-oil salesman in a household following strict Baptist principles, but suffering from financial instability. John began as a humble bookkeeper and slowly began to realise the importance of the burgeoning oil industry.
- Rise of Standard Oil: He established a company, which later came to be known as Standard Oil, in the 1860s and began to monopolise the oil extraction, refining, and marketing industries using his cutthroat tactics of eliminating competitors.
- Turn towards Philanthropism: The second half of the book focuses on the philanthropic activities of Rockefeller, which he undertook after almost monopolising the whole oil business. He donated money to establish many institutions, like the University of Chicago, the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Autobiography of A Yogi
This autobiography is written by Paramhansa Yogananda and details his life from being a curious little boy to becoming a world-famous spiritual guru. After the great speech that Swami Vivekananda delivered in the Chicago Parliament of Religions, this book is the best treatise that introduces the Western world to the philosophy of India and the concept of Kriya Yoga. The memoir can be understood under three extensive headings, viz.:
- Early Life: Born as Mukund Lal Ghosh in 1893 in a devoted Bengalee family, Paramhansa began to show an inclination towards spiritualism and divinity. He often ran away from the house and sat beside mystics and yogis to look for the answers to questions that his curious mind used to ask.
- Mentorship by Sri Yukteshwar: From him, Mukund Lal learned about the practice of Kriya Yoga by spending years of monastic training and discipline under him. This is where Mukund Lal got transformed into Swami Paramhansa Yogananda.
- Travel to the West: In 1920, he went to America to participate in the International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston. There, he spent around 15 years teaching the West about meditation and Kriya Yoga and, ultimately, synthesising the Western sciences with Indian spiritualism.
The Story of My Life
Written by the legendary author Helen Keller, this autobiography articulates he life story, beginning from the loss of her eyesight and hearing capacity at the age of 19 months to the time of her college at Radcliffe. This is one of the great biographies for teenagers, which highlights how she came out of all of her troubles and triumphed over the challenges she faced. The book can be understood under the following headings:
- Early Childhood: Helen Keller was born in Alabama and lost her capacity to see and hear by the age of 19 months due to a severe illness. This incident began to hinder her capability to communicate and express herself, which often made her extremely frustrated.
- Anne Sullivan: At the age of six, she met Anne Sullivan, her teacher and guide, who taught her to experience the world without relying on her eyes and ears. She used to write ‘D-O-L-L’ on one of Keller’s hands while giving her the actual doll in the other. That’s how Keller began to relate words to objects.
- Learning to Speak: Because of the loss of hearing, Hellen struggled a lot in learning to speak properly. But Anne made it possible for her when she began to learn to speak by touching the face of her teacher while she was speaking.
- Formal Education: Despite all of her disabilities and challenges, Hellen attended formal school education through institutions like the Wright-Humanson School for the Deaf and the Redcliffe College.
Today, we have an ample amount of literature authored by this wonderful writer, such as ‘Optimist’, ‘My Religion’, ‘The World I Live In’, ‘Out of the Dark’, and ‘The Open Door’.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
This book is a collection of 12 journals of the Roman Emperor and General Marcus Aurelius, outlining the Stoic principles of living life while controlling what you can control and leaving the rest to fate. The book is more about the philosophical understanding of life, wherein Marcus Aurelius gave examples from his and his companions’ lives to simplify the profound philosophical ideas of Stoicism. The book talks about certain core principles, which are:
- Control Your Perceptions: Instead of external circumstances, which are out of your control, you need to focus on your reactions towards them. By controlling your perceptions regarding the externalities, you will be able to think clearly and handle the situations accordingly.
- Live in the Present: Avoid distractions coming from your past experiences and also from your unachieved future goals. Try to live in the present moment with complete focus on the surrounding environment. The past is gone, and the future is uncertain; the present is the only thing that you have.
- Embrace the Mortality: Regularly reflect upon the certainty of death. This will keep reminding you to prioritise what actually matters without procrastination and will keep you away from the anxiety of dying unknowingly.
- Duty and Service: The whole philosophy of Stoicism is deeply rooted in the concept of duty for duty’s sake, with working for the common good. Aurelius advocated empathy and compassion, even when dealing with difficult and ungrateful people.
Concluding Remarks
A good biography does not detail the life of people like pouring out information from a file. Rather, it is the one that provides an insight into and an in-depth analysis of the life of the concerned person. It teaches us about the difficulties which people have faced in their lives and how they triumph over them, the ideas and beliefs which help them during their moments of hardship, the compassion and emotional intelligence with which they handled everything without losing their cool. Besides, these memoirs also enrich our linguistic capabilities by providing us with new terminology to use. If you are also looking for some bestselling biography books in the UAE, then you are at the right place. On bookswagon.ae, you will get a chance to grab biography and memoir books at the lowest possible rates with attractive discounts. We provide home delivery of books throughout the UAE, across all the emirates, be it Sharjah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi or others. So, without wasting any more seconds of your precious time, visit BooksWagon UAE and buy biography books of your favourite historical personalities now.
Often Asked Questions
Q1) What is the difference between a biography and a memoir?
Ans) Biographies and memoirs talk about the lives of people in different ways. A biography gives complete details of the life stories of people, while a memoir describes a particular incident or some events from their lives.
Q2) From where can I order biographies and memoirs in the UAE?
Ans) bookswagon.ae is one of the most trusted online bookstores in the UAE, where you will get all the biographies and memoirs at the most affordable rates with attractive discounts and home delivery throughout the country.
Q3) What are some of the most prominent biographies?
Ans) ‘Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.’; ‘The Books of Elon’; ‘Autobiography of A Yogi’; ‘My Experiments With Truth’; ‘The Story of My Life’; ‘Barack Obama: Out of Many, One’; ‘Meditations’; and ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ are some of the most prominent biographies and memoirs.
