Be careful with the LBJ series. It will absolutely ruin all other biographies for you. You will become intolerant to other authors’ lack of detail.
Ever since finishing them, I have been on the hunt for historical biographies of similar quality. While I haven't found any that match up completely, here are a few that come close in my opinion:
* Truman by David McCullough
* Grant by Ron Chernow
* American Caesar by William Manchester
I've also read the three-part Churchill series by Manchester, but it didn’t quite measure up to the LBJ series for me.
If you have any other suggestions, please share them!
My brother in law loves Vonnegut, I read all of his books also. Personally, I don't understand the appeal
My favorite recent biography was on both JCR Licklider and the world he helped create; 'The Dream Machine', Waldrop.
Even more abstract, 'The Prize', Yergin, might be called a biography of the oil industry and 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' is a biograpy of that dread beast. Those were my favorite books before starting Caro.
It's slow to start as the Romans fight the same Veientes a hundred times over, but when it's good, it's really good.
The stories are historic so there are realistic lessons in them. It's interesting as a working class person to read how the plebs were able to take some power from the owning class, for example.
The battles are tactical. The heroes are epic. The highs are very high and the lows very low.
Anyways it was preserved on paper 2000 years for a reason. It's unbelievably good.