Youngsters really shouldn't write biographies

Post Reply New Topic

And they've been doing it for longer than old people like to pretend they have, it's not just a modern fad.

I have an autobiography of Billy McNeill written in '66. He won the European cup in '67. He says how he thinks his life is great and he's achieved everything he can think of achieving.

Maybe a 27 year old shouldn't have been writing an autobiography.

Not sure if this is the sort of memory I ought to share on Reddit or at the pub - I'm being a wee bit disrespectful pointing it out maybe - but I wanted to put it somewhere.

I think he wrote 2, I've read 2 that he wrote, maybe he wrote even more.

Anyone else got any egs of biographies where you feel the person was too young to write it, based on them going onto greater things later?

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has a biography. I'm not sure if he's supposed to have written it himself or had it written for him, but he has one. While 37 is getting up there in years on terms of active professional soccer players, it seems a bit early in terms of pretty much everything else, especially with the money he'll still have at his disposal when he retires from playing. Also, his biography keeps being categorized as "fiction" at one of my local bookstores, which I find hilarious. (they have a separate category for biographies.)

If you don't like biographies written by young people, then don't read them.

Simple.

I’m 58.

I wouldn’t write my own autobiography.

It’s my fault....but my life wouldn’t be interesting enough.

If it was, I might not be here today

I would read Denis Istomin's story. It is really compelling. I have also read biographies of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer-definitely very accomplished men in their field.

Quality over quantity


If the life is so fascinating, age doesn't matter


If the life is humdrum, no point writing a book

Erm this is sort of like a tribute to a guy who died today in his 70s...

All I'm saying is if he waited a year he could have written about the best bit of his life.

And yeah I know he wrote other bios but it was kind of ironic that he wrote it a year before and he implied in it 'I don't see how my life could get better'.

I guess what I mean is 'it aint over til it's over' and 'the best bit of your life could be next year'.

In Calvin and Hobbes, there was a strip where Calvin is sitting at his desk with a pencil and a piece of paper. Calvin tells Hobbes that he's writing his autobiography. Hobbes tells him, "But you're only six years old.", and Calvin says, "I've only got one piece of paper."

Best eg of a youngster where it's ok is Malala.

Hopefully she'll never go through all that again and if she does something else with her life/continuing what she's doing in her life now is a next chapter.

It's just funny because I bought the McNeill book specifically thinking he wrote it in '67 after May, specifically to read about Lisbon and it wasn't in cos it hadn't happened yet but it was only a year too early.

I should maybe not phrase it as 'youngsters shouldn't write biographies'. More like 'youngsters should know their future is ahead of them and be excited for the next chapter of that autobiography'.

What the hell?

I'd say if someone wants to write a auto-biography they can write it at whatever age they choose. If they go on to do more things and want to write another one later down the road then they are free to do that as well.

I am not really into telling people how they should write or how they should create artwork or how they should make music. Ruins the creative aspect of those things if everyone's following the same set of guidelines.

True but youse clearly aren't reading the OP properly.

That cover looks familiar...

Nothing I do is original , I don't have an original idea in my head , it's all plagiarism

Don't give anyone any ideas!



I agree. Just because something really good happened to that particular guy a year later, doesn't mean everyone should put projects on hold just in case something else/ better were to ever happen. It might not, so... Carpe diem.

Yeah in retrospect maybe it should be 'always check when a biography was written rather than assuming people do things right after success rather than before'.

I'd have put it on Reddit but it's maybe disrespectful to bring it up in the first place.

Was a bit of a strange coincidence though.