Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography

by William Zinsser

It was quickly obvious, for instance, that the ability to write is only part of the baggage needed for such inquisitive work. A biographer must also have the insouciance of a psychiatrist or a priest - a talent for being unruffled by quirky behavior - and the patience of a detective.

“There are two reasons why a man does anything. There’s a good reason and there’s the real reason.” The modern biographer’s task is to find the real reasons.

reality is not about facts, but about the relationship of facts to one another.” How six biographers found that relationship is the subject of this book.

The New York Public Library on six Monday evenings in the winter of 1985.

Beginning writers are endlessly encouraged to “write about what you know.” But it’s the task of a biographer or a historian to know what you write about, to get beneath the surface. You have to know enough to know what to leave out. You have to know enough so that as you’re writing, everything is second nature. And you have to know a great deal that you can’t get from books - especially from other people’s books on the same subject, or even from printed records, such as letters, diaries, and contemporary newspaper accounts.

Harry Truman was not just the only President who has used an atomic weapon - he was the President who started the CIA, who started the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who started the National Security Council, who set in motion much of the progress we’ve seen in civil rights. He recognized the new state of Israel. He launched the Marshall Plan, and with his Point Four Program and Truman Doctrine

He became a kind of cosmic hick. Picturesque. Abrupt. Feisty. Simple.