Looking for good biographies
 

What's the best book on:

Orson Welles
Da Vinci
Picasso
Kurosawa

There were more I wanted, can't remember now. I'm also just generally searching for interesting people that I don't know enough about -- Important people over throughout history.

In case all the other Book Talkers are busy preparing their running mate speeches for standing with Bandoman in a certain election.... you may like to take a quick look through these two threads:<ul><li><A HREF="http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=190648" target="_blank">Need opinions on great books on great directors [inc. Kurosawa] </a><li><A HREF="http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=314751" target="_blank">Can anybody recommend books about film-making? [merged] </a></li></ul>

I've been knterested in "The Emperor and the Wolf" in the past, but am now seeing no new buying options on Amazon. Is this out of print?

For books on Welles, you have plenty of choices. Speaking as a Welles partisan, the only ones I'd stay away from are Charles Higham's book and David Thomson's Rosebud, both of which have distinct axes to grind against Welles. Frank Brady's Citizen Welles is solid but older (1986), and Simon Callow's Road to Xanadu only goes up to Citizen Kane. Barbara Leaming's bio of Welles is fun but very superficial. And of course, there is This is Orson Welles, which strictly speaking isn't a biography but comes straght from the man himself (and Peter Bogdanovich).

The Emperor and the Wolf is an interesting read, though I can't imagine it's already out of print. There's no other bio of Kurosawa available at any rate, beyond his autobiography, which is worth reading despite it only going up to Rashomon or so.

Well, I got Emperor and the Wolf from Amazon part of a clearance sale. Maybe it is out of print?

Thanks gang. I think i'll check out Emperor and the Wolf.

Is there any definitive Welles book? He might be the one i'm most interested in.