I enjoy the period around the US Civil War, so my favorites are from that period. I really like the Walter Stahr bios. He has a recent one out on Salmon Chase and an older one on Seward, but the one on Stanton is my favorite. I also really liked Allen Guelzo's Redeemer President on Lincoln. I think that's my favorite bio on Lincoln I've read.

Outside of that period I would maybe check out The Fire Is Upon Us by Nick Buccola. It's not quite a biography. It's about the debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley at the Cambridge Union. It gets into both people's lives and is very biographical, but it also has a lot of implications for current politics and the beginning of media driven soundbites that really drive the reasoning of the right.

I suppose this qualifies - I was fascinated by: Enduring Courage: Eddie Rickenbacker and the dawn of the age of aviation - John F. Ross. An amazing life.

Probably Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey by T.G. Otte which is about the British Foreign Secretary in the years before the First World War (and up to 1916). Pretty long, something like 700 pages of main writing. It had a lot on his personal life, the inner workings of the Liberal party as well as his foriegn policy and decision making.

Runners up are The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshall, the Power Behind Five English Thrones by Thomas Asbridge and Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie (all of his biographies are very good)