On the one hand, there's our book list.
My personal recommendation would be Aloys Winterlings Caligula, which will appear in English translation later this year.
Caligula has been one of the most (unfairly) stereotyped figures of Antiquity, and Winterling does an excellent job of getting at the core of this multi-faceted emperor, even though Winterling sometimes is too eager to rationalize his erratic behaviour, overall, though, an excellent and well written read (I hope in the translation as well).
Winterling makes a monster back into a human again, and it's entertaining to watch him do it.
Madame de Pompadour: A Life by Evelyne Lever (trans. Catherine Temerson) First published in French, this little volume describes the short but eventful life of Louis XV's maîtresse en titre. Although sympathetic, it never romanticizes her, or her often less than enviable relationship with the king. Described as "short on scandal" by some, it instead focuses on her role as patroness of the arts and sciences, and political advisor, for better or worse, to Louis during the Seven Year's War. Although we do get personal glimpses as well, from the resentment of the court, and rivalries with the (many) other "lesser" mistresses.
Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser This is probably well known to some members already, if only because it served as the "inspiration" for the 2006 Sophia Coppola film, but it's definitely worth a read, especially for someone unfamiliar with Antoinette or her era. We get to know Antoinette as a sheltered princess, hesitant young bride, and later mother. The book never glosses over her flaws, but also helps the reader, understand, if not always agree, many of her shortcomings, both personal and political. We get to know the supporting cast of nobles, artists, servants and politicians as well.
Biographies have had a bit of a bad rap in the last couple of decades because they were seen as too wedded to what many historians believed was an old-fashioned form of history centered on "great men". The field is, however, going through a bit of a resurgence within the academic community as biographers have started to try and place their subjects more clearly within a broader social and cultural context. The following are recent books over a variety of individuals, and I think they are each excellent examples of a well-structured and well-written biography.
Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, vol. I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
Ian Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, 1889-1936 and Hitler: Nemesis, 1936-1945
David Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe
Jonathan Sperber, Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life
R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini
John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life
Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century
Peter Baker, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House
Richard Norton Smith, On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller
William Hair, The Kingfish and his Realm: The Life and Times of Huey P. Long
James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: A History of Bush's War Cabinet (A group biography of George W. Bush's foreign policy team)
Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It
Claudia Verhoeven, The Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity, and the Birth of Terrorism
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 2 volumes
David McCullough, John Adams, 2001
This has been my favorite biography for years. I've read many biographies of the American "Founding Fathers" and this will always take the cake for me. The emense and extensive research he did for this book shines through on every page.
Robert Caro's LBJ bio is one of the most comprehensive that I have ever read, four books thus far and he just became President. The master of the senate is a fantastic book.
It's always depending on the era you are interested in. A great read for the 20th centuries is certainly Winston Churchill's WW2 memories/autobiographic work.
He received his noble prize for his literary works, and he had quite a talent. He said himself (paraphrasing here) he wouldn't want others to judge his role in history, so he would simply write it himself.
Edit: Not that he's very objective about his own accomplishments, but still nice
I would suggest to go much further back in time and read the Plutarch's "Lives". It is a fascinating collection of short biographies of the great men in antiquity. Biographies come in pairs, as Plutarch is trying to compare and contrast persons of renown in Greek and Roman history. One of his main methods to describe the men in question is not through grand deeds, but through more intimate features of their lives and character. His claim is that is how you can truly know a man. Gorgeous piece of work. Up to you whether you read the whole work or select biographical pairings (lives of Cesar, Solon, Lycurgus, and Alexander, to name a few).
Peter Brown's, Augustine of Hippo. A biography by the foremost scholar of Latin late antiquity about one if Christianity's singular geniuses. Newer versions have an updated afterward in which Brown discusses how the field has changed. Great, great book.
The Winter King. A biography of Henry VII of England. You begin to see why it was so important to his son to have a male heir.
Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life is excellent (Pulitzer Prize for Biography 2011). The book generally portrays George Washington in a favorable light, but Chernow does hammer him for his views and behavior towards slavery.
I don't study the Revolution much (I do read the occasional history dealing with the era, and I had a great professor in undergrad who was a grad student under Bernard Bailyn), but this was probably the first account I read about Washington that made me understand who he was as a person, not a near-mythical figure.
My favorite biography that I have read was Kai Bird's American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do this, but I was going to ask what the best biography about Ernest Hemingway, as I have had numerous different ones recommended to me?
Best biography I've ever read. Also love the narration of the audio book.
Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.