TOPIC · 39 BOOKS

Biographies and memoirs

Books I have read about biographies and memoirs, brought together across genres, periods and countries.

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Cover of Postfutbolista: De futbolista de segunda división a ejecutivo de primera

Postfutbolista: De futbolista de segunda división a ejecutivo de primera

Albert Serrano PonsAlbert is a great friend of mine, I know his story and he explains very well how someone had to completely reinvent themselves after professional football.

Cover of Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley

Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley

Antonio García MartínezOne of the funniest and most honest books I have read about Silicon Valley. It covers Facebook, startups, money and egos from the inside, without trying to make any of its characters look particularly admirable. It is hilarious on the author's journey from one large technology company to another and all the bullshit surrounding them.

Cover of Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Dan LyonsIt's a very funny and rather cynical look at the world of startups from within HubSpot. It has very good moments, although sometimes it gives the feeling that the author is more interested in adjusting accounts than understanding why he lived his experience this way.

Cover of Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time

Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time

Howard SchultzIt's a very interesting book about how to start a company. I loved understanding how Howard Schultz turned an idea about coffee shops into a global company. It talks about brand, customer experience and culture with enthusiasm that explains pretty well why Starbucks ended up being what it is.

Cover of Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days

Jessica LivingstonA collection of interviews with founders recounting the early days of their companies, when almost nothing was clear.

Cover of The Entrepreneur's Club: UNIQLO

The Entrepreneur's Club: UNIQLO

Kigyoka NetworkI loved this little book about UNIQLO and the way of thinking of Tadashi Yanai. It's very short, straightforward and full of concrete business decisions that explain how the company was built.

Cover of To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History

To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History

Lawrence LevyIt's really interesting for me to understand Pixar from a financial and business standpoint, not just from the movies.

Cover of The Emperor

The Emperor

Ryszard KapuścińskiI've been to Ethiopia several times, so I wanted to read this book about one of the most complex times in the country. The portrait of Haile Selassie through the voices of those who lived around his court is very original. It has memorable images and characters, although it didn't catch me as much as other Kapuściński books.

Cover of Another Day of Life

Another Day of Life

Ryszard KapuścińskiKapuściński tells the story of Angola's independence from roads, hotels and cities that are being emptied.

Cover of Fouché

Fouché

Stefan ZweigZweig portrays Fouché as a political survivor capable of adapting to any regime, and I really liked to understand how someone seemingly secondary could retain so much power during a completely chaotic era.

Cover of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Tony HsiehI loved the story of Tony Hsieh and Zappos for their obsession with culture and customer service, and it also helps to understand how a company can turn its values into very concrete decisions.

Cover of Mi Marruecos

Mi Marruecos

Abdellah TaïaAn autobiographical book of the author's youth in Morocco, written already from Paris. I am very interested in Moroccan culture and this book has allowed me to understand more things.

Cover of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin

The Autobiography of Charles Darwin

Charles DarwinDarwin wrote his autobiography when he was older. It is very interesting to know the life of one of the most important scientists in history, although sometimes it becomes difficult to read. The best are the details of certain events in his life and the environment around everything.

Cover of My Name Is Charles Saatchi and I Am an Artoholic

My Name Is Charles Saatchi and I Am an Artoholic

Charles SaatchiThe founder of Saatchi & Saatchi, an iconic advertising agency, and one of the world's leading art collectors, in this book he answers questions from journalists and the public.

Cover of Ganarse la vida

Ganarse la vida

David TruebaTrueba shares episodes of her childhood and adolescence, of her way of thinking, to tell how she ended up devoted to film and literature.

Cover of Limonov

Limonov

Emmanuel CarrèreIt is the biography of Eduard Limonov, a Russian writer of the 20th century. It is interesting for his life (of course very intense), but more so for everything around him (communist Russia, NYC, Paris, Sarajevo, poverty, success, etc.).

Cover of Carta a mi mujer

Carta a mi mujer

Francisco UmbralIn this posthumous book, Umbral tells how his marriage and life with his wife were in the 1980s. It seemed like a wonderful book, I enjoyed it from beginning to end, with stories, anecdotes, details, comments and descriptions about his wife.

Cover of Oblivion: A Memoir

Oblivion: A Memoir

Héctor Abad FaciolinceHector Abad Faciolince reconstructs the life of his father and family during the most violent years of the Colombian conflict in Medellín.

Cover of The Life of Chekhov

The Life of Chekhov

Irène NémirovskyA biography of the classic Russian writer Anton Chekhov. I enjoyed it, not only for his life, but for the portrait of Tsarist Russia in its final years and the dissection it makes of Russians and their culture.

Cover of The fabulous showman

The fabulous showman

Irving WallaceThe biography of P.T. Barnum, one of the most intense I've ever read and the person who really invented the world of entertainment as we know it today.

Cover of Running

Running

Jean EchenozThe life of Emil Zatopek, a Czech runner from the 1940s who without any style (they laughed at the faces he wore when running) or sports training, broke all the records in athletics at his time, even at the Olympics. And living within the communist regime, which also posed him several problems.

Cover of Lightning

Lightning

Jean EchenozIt's not a biography of Nikola Tesla as such, but through another character, Jean Echenoz tells many real situations and stories about Tesla. Very interesting and very entertaining.

Cover of Queremos su dinero

Queremos su dinero

Jesús Martínez del ValWhat a book and what a story. From a great Spanish entrepreneur and businessman in the 1980s, a visionary who brought the Amstrad computers to Spain. He was the first to create a large distribution network and see the future of personal computers at that time.

Cover of Happy at any cost: The revolutionary vision and fatal quest of Zappos CEO

Happy at any cost: The revolutionary vision and fatal quest of Zappos CEO

Katherine Sayre and Kirsten GrindThere's very little talk about this book among entrepreneurs, and it's a basic one. How sad the story of Tony Hsie, founder of Zappos, a company sold to Amazon that inspired thousands of entrepreneurs more than ten years ago with his book Delivering Happiness.

Cover of But You Did Not Come Back

But You Did Not Come Back

Marceline Loridan-IvensAn intense and moving book. And You Did Not Come Back is the author’s letter to her father, who did not survive Auschwitz. They were deported at the same time, but she survived. She recounts her memories and the effect the experience had on the rest of her life.

Cover of An Unsung Hero

An Unsung Hero

Michael SmithThe incredible story of Tom Crean, an Irish explorer who participated in three of the great expeditions to Antarctica and worked with both Scott and Shackleton. He was one of the last men to see Scott alive, walked tens of miles to save a comrade and took part in the boat trip and the South Georgia crossing during the Endurance expedition. He survived everything, returned to Ireland and barely talked about his exploits.

Cover of North to Paradise

North to Paradise

Ousman UmarThe autobiographical story of a Ghanaian boy who crosses Africa to Spain. It's impressive that everything he suffers, what happens, the situations, everything is much harder than we imagine.

Cover of Shoe Dog

Shoe Dog

Phil KnightThe autobiography of Nike’s founder. It had been recommended to me many times, and rightly so. A terrific book. It reads like a novel and teaches lessons about both life and business.

Cover of Spare

Spare

Príncipe HarryThe joke of the year. I really enjoyed the book, the truth. I ate it and had a lot of fun. It's like a novel where you have a much broader context of everything that happens and you face the main characters.

Cover of Intimidades de Shakespeare y Víctor Hugo

Intimidades de Shakespeare y Víctor Hugo

Regina CardóRegina Cardó tells how for years she received guests at her home in the colony of Anzures and the relationship she ended up having with Jorge Riosse, a kind and talented young tenant who, after his death, was linked to several murders of women in Mexico in the nineties. I read it because for a few years I lived right in front of that house and loved learning about the history of the place and understanding what the colony was like back then.

Cover of Natura Bissé

Natura Bissé

Ricardo FisasAutobiography of the founder of Natura Bissé, one of Spain's leading cosmetics brands. I was delighted not only by the author's values but also by the familiar, close and innocent style with which he writes the book.

Cover of Screw it, let’s do it

Screw it, let’s do it

Richard BransonA short, straightforward and energetic book by Richard Branson. More than a complete autobiography, it's a collection of stories and lessons about entrepreneurship, taking risks, having fun working and not waiting forever to get things done.

Cover of Cómo maté a mi padre

Cómo maté a mi padre

Sara JaramilloThis is the story of her family, and the demons they lived with after her father was murdered.

Cover of Amerigo

Amerigo

Stefan ZweigThe second time I read it, I love how Zweig tells the story of a man who, following a journey he never made or claimed to have made, named a continent.

Cover of The Right to Heresy: Castellio Against Calvin

The Right to Heresy: Castellio Against Calvin

Stefan ZweigWhat I like most about Zweig's biographies and historical books is that his own opinion is intertwined in the narrative and how he intuits and imagines the way the protagonists reason, as if it were inside his mind.

Cover of Montaigne

Montaigne

Stefan ZweigAnother book by Zweig. A brief biography of Montaigne that ends up being also a book about freedom, self-reflection and how to stay out of fanaticism in an era dominated by wars and intolerance.

Cover of Three Masters: Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky

Three Masters: Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky

Stefan ZweigIt deserves the highest score from Dostoyevsky, which is a masterpiece, what a way to understand and explain the three authors, their characters, their relationship with their environment, and their personalities.

Cover of Another Life

Another Life

Theodor KallifatidesI expected nothing from this book, but it had been strongly recommended and I devoured it. A Greek writer living in Sweden gives up his study and, at the age of 77, feels blocked. He recounts different stages of his life and how he overcame that block. Very good.

Cover of Elon Musk

Elon Musk

Walter IsaacsonI've enjoyed it from start to finish. Not only because I admire Musk, but because it's well written, you can better understand his genius (and his complex way of being), and it's very easy to read.