Just as Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to men, J. Robert Oppenheimer “raided Mount Olympus and…brought back for man the very thunderbolts of Zeus.” For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity. One can see why Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s revelatory biography of one of the 20th century’s most important figures took more than two decades to complete. The book was released in 2005, and the following year received a Pulitzer Prize. This only cam

Andre Agassi's autobiography is aptly named: Open. Open in the honest, raw sense of the word. Or is it a command? "Open me. Read me. Go deeper." Whatever it may be, the book can easily stay open for long periods of time. The prose is a pulsating cannonball, hurtling the words at you, leaving you no time to rest. Sentences are crafted to last, in most instances, no more than twenty or thirty words. Bang! Bang! Almost as if the experience of reading the book was meant to be a r

Ron Chernow receiveda Pulitzer Prize for his cradle-to-grave chronicle of the Father of the United States of America, George Washington. He has also written lauded biographies on Washington's confidant and fellow Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, Civil-War General and 19th U.S President Ulysses S. Grant; and most recently, famed American novelist Mark Twain, who Grant knew well. For many seeking biographies of one of America's most important - if not the most important - f