Autobiographies, Biographies, Memoirs: What's the Difference?
An autobiography is a story about a person's life written in their own words, usually in first person.
A biography is a story written about a person's life written by another person, usually in third person.
A memoir is a collection of memories shared by an individual usually about a specific time or event in a person's life.
Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably.
Borrowing Books from Other Libraries
If a book is not available in SU Libraries, we can check to see if it is available through other libraries in the University System of Maryland. If not we can request it through Interlibrary Loan. You can access your account belows.
- My Library AccountsOnce you click here, scroll down to find the ILL account login.
- Interlibrary Loan (ILL)Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service offered to patrons who are unable to find certain books or articles through the SU Academic Commons Library or other USMAI Libraries. Library staff may be able to request these items if they are owned by libraries across the United States.
Who to read about?
There are tons of articles, blogs, and lists available online that can help you find your next read. Google something like "best business biographies" and browse away!
Below are some example lists of business biographies:
Or, browse lists of successful leaders or business people and then search to see if they have a biography, autobiography or memoir.
- Forbes Lists - Forbes.comBrowse lists such as: World's Billionaires; 400 Richest Americans; World's Most Powerful People; 30 under 30; and more!
- Fortune Rankings - Fortune.comBrowse lists such as : The World's 50 Greatest Leaders; Businessperson of the Year; 40 Under 40; Most Powerful Women; and more!
Select Books
Start Something That Matters by Call Number: HF5414 .M93 2011ISBN: 9781400069187Publication Date: 2011-09-06"Known as the founder of TOMS Shoes and as a contestant on The Amazing Race, Mycoskie uses his experience with TOMS, as well as interviews with leaders of non-profits and corporations, to convey valuable lessons about entrepreneurship, transparency of leadership, and living by one's values."
Sam Walton: Made in America by Call Number: HC102.5.W35 A3 1992ISBN: 9780385426176Publication Date: 1992-05-01"A biography of Samuel M. Walton, whose ingenuity and persistence contributed to his becoming one of the wealthiest men in America."
Wild Company: the untold story of Banana Republic by Call Number: HD9940.U6 B369 2012ISBN: 9781451683486Publication Date: 2012-10-02"Traces Banana Republic's beginnings and rise to becoming an international retailer, describing how the founders applied imagination while upending business conventions to develop original merchandise and marketing innovations."
Built from Scratch: how a couple of regular guys grew the Home Depot from nothing to $30 billion by Call Number: HD9999.D622 M375 1999ISBN: 0812930584Publication Date: 1999-04-27
By Invitation Only: how we built Gilt and changed the way millions shop by Call Number: HD9999.L854 G556 2012ISBN: 9781591844631Publication Date: 2012-04-12"The authors share their perspective in the dramatic story of the Gilt Groupe's birth, rise, and evolution."
Delivering Happiness: a path to profits, passion, and purpose by Call Number: HF5386 .H864 2010ISBN: 9780446563048Publication Date: 2010-06-07"Tony Hsieh--the widely-admired CEO of on-line shoe retailer, Zappos--explains how he created a unique culture and commitment to service that aims to improve the lives of its employees, customers, vendors and backers. Even better, he shows how creating happiness and record results go hand-in-hand."- Start Something That Matters by Call Number: HF5414 .M93 2011ISBN: 9781400069187Publication Date: 2011-09-06"Known as the founder of TOMS Shoes and as a contestant on The Amazing Race, Mycoskie uses his experience with TOMS, as well as interviews with leaders of non-profits and corporations, to convey valuable lessons about entrepreneurship, transparency of leadership, and living by one's values."
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon by Call Number: Z473.A485 S76 2013ISBN: 9780316219266Publication Date: 2013-10-15"This book is the definitive story of Amazon.com, one of the most successful companies in the world, and of its driven, brilliant founder, Jeff Bezos. Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now..."
Do the KIND Thing by Call Number: HD9010.L83 A3 2015ISBN: 9780553393248Publication Date: 2015-03-31"When Daniel Lubetzky started KIND Healthy Snacks in 2004, he aimed to defy the conventional wisdom that snack bars could never be both tasty and healthy, convenient and wholesome. A decade later, the transformative power of the company's "AND" philosophy has resulted in an astonishing record of achievement..."
The Fish That Ate the Whale: the life and times of America's banana king by Call Number: HD9259.B2 Z463 2012ISBN: 9780374299279Publication Date: 2012-06-05A biography of the little-known antihero, Samuel Zemurray (1877-1961), the disgraced mogul of the much hated United Fruit Company who aided the creation of Israel, funded many of Tulane University's buildings, and had a hand in the rise of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.
Idea Man: a memoir by the cofounder of Microsoft by Call Number: HC102.5.A49 A3 2011ISBN: 9781591843825Publication Date: 2011-04-19"Paul Allen, best known as the cofounder of Microsoft, has left his mark on numerous fields, from aviation and science to rock 'n' roll, professional sports, and philanthropy. His passions and curiosity have transformed the way we live. In 2007 and again in 2008, Time named him one of the hundred most influential people in the world..."
Elon Musk by Call Number: HC102.5.M88 V36 2015ISBN: 9780062301239Publication Date: 2015-05-19"Elon Musk, the entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, sold one of his internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius's life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits. Vance uses Musk's story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition?..."
Creativity, Inc.: overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration by Call Number: HD53 .C394 2014ISBN: 0593070097Publication Date: 2014"As a young man, the author had a dream: to make the world's first computer-animated movie. Nine years later and against all odds, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. This book reveals the ideals and techniques, honed over years, that have made Pixar so widely admired - and so profitable."
The Intel Trinity: how Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove built the world's most important company by Call Number: HD9696.S44 I566 2014ISBN: 9780062226761Publication Date: 2014-07-15"The definitive history of the Intel Corporation--the essential company of the digital age--told through the lives of its three preeminent figures: Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove. Intel has often been hailed as the most important company in the world, and with good reason: While technology companies come and go, Intel remains, more than four decades after its inception, a defining company of the global digital economy..."
Steve Jobs by Call Number: QA76.2.J63 I722 2011ISBN: 9781451648539Publication Date: 2011-10-24"From the author of bestselling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, this is the exclusive biography of Steve Jobs. Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years--as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues--Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
Edison by Call Number: TK140.E3 J75ISBN: 0471548065Publication Date: 1992-02-25"Regarded as the classic standard biography on Thomas Edison. It is the only biography written in the last 40 years to be recommended by the official voice of the caretakers of the Edison Laboratory National Monument in New Jersey which houses all of Edison's original records, sketches, notes, correspondence and memoranda. Depicts Edison as a pivotal figure in America's economic and industrial revolution success and at the same time as a human being, including his exploitative and, at times, crude qualities."
Tesla by Call Number: TK140.T4 C37 2013ISBN: 9780691057767Publication Date: 2013-05-12"Nikola Tesla was a major contributor to the electrical revolution that transformed daily life at the turn of the twentieth century. His inventions, patents, and theoretical work formed the basis of modern AC electricity, and contributed to the development of radio and television. Like his competitor Thomas Edison, Tesla was one of America's first celebrity scientists, enjoying the company of New York high society..."
The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the invention of Silicon Valley by Call Number: TK7807.N69 B47 2005ISBN: 0195163435Publication Date: 2005-06-10"Hailed as the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford of Silicon Valley, Robert Noyce was a brilliant inventor, a leading entrepreneur, and a daring risk taker who piloted his own jets and skied mountains accessible only by helicopter. Now, in The Man Behind the Microchip, Leslie Berlin captures not only this colorful individual but also the vibrant interplay of technology, business, money, politics, and culture that defines Silicon Valley. Here is the life of a giant of the high-tech industry, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel who co-invented the integrated circuit, the electronic heart of every modern computer, automobile, cellular telephone, advanced weapon, and video game..."
Titan : the life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Call Number: CT275.R75 C47 1999ISBN: 0679757031Publication Date: 1999-09-07"John D. Rockefeller, Sr., - history's first billionaire and the patriarch of America's most famous dynasty - is an icon whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller's exceptionally rich trove of papers." "Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world's richest man by creating America's most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America."...
Sons of Wichita by Call Number: HC102.5.K65 S38 2014ISBN: 9781455518739Publication Date: 2014-05-20"Like the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of the modern age, but they have never been the subject of a major biography... until now. Not long after the death of his father, Charles Koch, then in his early 30s, discovered a letter the family patriarch had written to his sons. "You will receive what now seems to be a large sum of money," Fred Koch cautioned. "It may either be a blessing or a curse." Fred's legacy would become a blessing and a curse to his four sons-Frederick, Charles, and fraternal twins David and Bill-who in the ensuing decades fought bitterly over their birthright, the oil and cattle-ranching empire their father left behind in 1967..."
Masters of Enterprise: giants of American business from John Jacob Astor and J.P. Morgan to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey by Call Number: HF3023.A2 B68 1999ISBN: 0684854732Publication Date: 1999-06-07"Here, in a wittily told and deeply insightful history, is a complete set of portraits of America's greatest generators of wealth. Only such a collective study allows us to appreciate what makes the great entrepreneurs really tick. As H.W. Brands shows, these men and women are driven, they are focused, they deeply identify with the businesses they create, and they possess the charisma necessary to persuade other talented people to join them. They do it partly for the money, but mostly for the thrill of creation."
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the business of life by Call Number: HG172.B84 S37 2008ISBN: 9780553805093Publication Date: 2008-09-29"A portrait of the life and career of investment guru Warren Buffett sheds new light on the man, as well as on the work, ideas, business principles, strategies, and no-nonsense insights that have guided his phenomenally successful business endeavors."
The Power Broker by Call Number: NA9085.M68 C37 1974ISBN: 0394480767Publication Date: 1974-07-12"This is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man-an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives." Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 1975.
Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: the arts of leadership and war by Call Number: PA4494 .C7 2006ISBN: 0312355319Publication Date: 2006-05-02"Tells the story about Cyrus the Great's military campaigns. This work allows business executives and managers, military officers, and government officials, to learn about and benefit from Cyrus the Great's extraordinary achievements."
