Trying to pick a biography to read

[ICantCash]

My favorite type of reading is biography/autobiographies and I am more into really eccentric characters or criminals. I have considered maybe reading something on Pablo Escobar or Jim Morrison or someone like that. Wondering if anyone has some suggestions?

[Blarg]

Jean Genet, William Burroughs, Henry Miller, Benjamin Franklin, any of the many good Mafia books out. Wise Guy and Casino are both great. Confessions of a Stock Operator is a blast, though likely almost entirely fiction. The Secret History of the Sword is full of eccentric characters cutting each other up and beating each other over the head, though it's about weaponry and not a biography.

[glorfindel]

The Jack Kerouac biography, "Memory Babe," is well researched and written, and filled with interesting characters and incidents.

[Wynton]

The book about Sammy Gravano, who was the biggest murderer/rat of all time, was pretty good. It may have been called "Sammy the Bull," but I really don't remember.

[diebitter]

Not exactly a biography, but Hunter S Thompson's book 'Hell's Angels', where he lived among them for some time, is pretty good.

[fyodor]

'Subtle is the Lord' by Abraham Pais, an Albert Einstein bio

'Infinite Potential' by David Peat, a David Bohm bio

are both well worth the read.

[Enrique]

The Man Who Knew Only Numbers A very eccentric, interesting mathematician. The most prolific mathematician since Leonhard Euler, his story is very much worth the read. You get to read very funny anecdotes relating to Erdos.

Another good mathematics biography out there is The Man Who Knew Infinity which is a double biography because to understand Ramanujan you must understand Hardy. Both Hardy and Ramanujan are eccentric and incredible. In this book you also get a feel of WWI and how it impacted the university of Cambridge. You also get a nice feel of the huge difference in culture between India and England.

Both the stories of Erdos and Ramanujan are legendary and worth the read.

[Rubeskies]

[ QUOTE ]
Not exactly a biography, but Hunter S Thompson's book 'Hell's Angels', where he lived among them for some time, is pretty good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I second this recomendation. Thompson rode with the Hell's Angels for a year or so. Got to know them. Got inside their minds. Risked his life. Pretty crazy stuff.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
The book about Sammy Gravano, who was the biggest murderer/rat of all time, was pretty good. It may have been called "Sammy the Bull," but I really don't remember.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, this was an excellent one.

[Blarg]

Yes, very good book.

Also, there's a very good biography of Dracula out that anchors him in the context of his time. The real guy, not the monster. And Graham Green's first autobiographical book is excellent. Second, not so much.