What's the difference between biography and memoir?

Biography


Definition:

  • (n.) The written history of a person's life.
  • (n.) Biographical writings in general.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In his biography, Tony Blair admits to having accumulated 70 at one point – "considered by some to be a bit of a constitutional outrage", he adds.
  • (2) Michael Holroyd, in his biography of George Bernard Shaw , gives an illuminating example of myopic hostility to Russia by the right even when we desperately needed allies.
  • (3) Tommy (1975), an engaging version of the Who's slightly dotty rock opera, was followed by two of his less successful freeform biographies, Lisztomania (1975), starring the Who's Roger Daltrey, and Valentino (1977), starring Rudolf Nureyev.
  • (4) A biography, magazine articles, and various surveys of his work convey the impression that his ideas are timely, or at least that they are historically important.
  • (5) Haki's naivety about English detective fiction is more than matched by Latimer's ingenuous excitement as Haki describes to him Dimitrios's sordid career, and he decides it would be fun to write the gangster's biography.
  • (6) "Cameron's interpretation of Merkel's stance is partially based on a misunderstanding," said Stefan Kornelius, foreign editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung and author of an authorised Merkel biography.
  • (7) His many books, which included a biography of Oliver Cromwell and a celebration of the radical millenarian groups of the period called The World Turned Upside Down, were widely read.
  • (8) A brief biography of David Edward Hughes is outlined.
  • (9) Yet the biography of this pupil and successor of Korsakov is that of a liberal, who championned the cause of human rights under the ancient regime, and in particular those of the mentally ill. His theoretical writings, published in the medico-psychological Annales in 1903-1904, are a contribution to the critique made by the French speaking school of the extended conception of dementia praecox developed by Kraepelin in 1899, and taken up by Bleuler in 1911, with his description of the group of schizophrenias.
  • (10) Another lawsuit obliged Ian Hamilton to rewrite large sections of an unauthorised biography published in 1988 – the supreme court ruled that quotations from Salinger's letters infringed his copyright.
  • (11) As any biography will also tell you, for all his shape-shifting brilliance, Bowie is a Royal Variety Performance vaudevillian at heart.
  • (12) It is a sophisticated grid, mounted upon a database that is said to have been more than two years in the development, containing biographies of individuals believed to pose a threat to US interests, and their known or suspected locations, as well as a range of options for their disposal.
  • (13) After the Scot sued Rooney over allegations in a biography the pair reconciled but whether Moyes would want him to stay at United is not yet clear, though he will have the final say on the striker's future.
  • (14) In the case of Twitter this may include who wrote the tweet, their biography, their location, when it was written, how many other tweets have been on that users account, what time it was, who it was sent to, where the author is normally based and, surprisingly in the case of Twitter , the 140 characters of the content in the tweet as well,” he said.
  • (15) For a time, he tells me, the new library operated without a biography section; crime and sci-fi disappeared, too.
  • (16) The details of her biography presented here are not as well known--especially the subsequent course of her illness and treatment and her struggle against prostitution and the white slave trade, the latter carried on with special fascination.
  • (17) I first met Boris in 1987, and a few years ago wrote an unauthorised biography of him , but no specialist knowledge is required to see that this is what he is like.
  • (18) Douglas county sheriff John Hanlin said during the press conference that officials were still working to notify victims next-of-kin and said the medical examiner’s office was expected to release their names and brief biographies Friday afternoon.
  • (19) As the key leave campaigner Boris Johnson said in his biography of Winston Churchill two years ago, the European Union, together with Nato, “has helped to deliver a period of peace and prosperity for its people as long as any since the days of the Antonine emperors”.
  • (20) He was an astonishing figure, as Tim Hilton’s magisterial 2002 biography of him proves.

Memoir


Definition:

  • (n.) Alt. of Memoirs

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In his memoirs, Reynolds recalls how, just before the Great Train Robbery took place, he had smoked a Montecristo No 2 cigar: "The thought ran through my mind: I have brought Cuba to Buckinghamshire."
  • (2) Bill Gates betrayed his ailing business partner and tried to deprive him of his share of the Microsoft fortune, according to a scathing memoir from Paul Allen , the company's billionaire co-founder.
  • (3) But Choi had come to the meeting with Kim prepared, according to her husband's memoir.
  • (4) It's hard to believe that her memoir, My Salinger Year , has not yet been published (it comes out this week).
  • (5) Tony Blair, in a new edition of his memoirs , argues powerfully that our political system is broken.
  • (6) She was often less secure than she sounded – as PR adviser, Tim Bell’s memoirs, serialised (where else?)
  • (7) I do want to rule the world.” Bowie was also getting unhealthily interested in the occult; in her memoir, his then wife Angie Bowie describes how he was convinced that the indoor pool in their house in Doheny Drive was possessed by the devil , which led to the pair of them attempting an exorcism.
  • (8) In my memoir Out of Place (1999) I described the strange and contradictory worlds in which I grew up, providing for myself and my readers a detailed account of the settings that I think formed me in Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon.
  • (9) Bin Laden, who was 54 when he died, also had a copy of The America I Have Seen, a vitriolic memoir of a short trip to the US by the Egyptian thinker and activist Syed Qutb , considered the godfather of modern jihadi thinking and hanged in 1966.
  • (10) The popularity of criminal memoirs in the 1990s brought new opportunities and Reynolds wrote The Autobiography of a Thief in 1995.
  • (11) A similar situation occurred in the US last year, when the defence department paid $47,000 to destroy a former army intelligence officer's Afghan war memoir.
  • (12) After Hollande spent two hours on French radio in a patent relaunch of his presidency, a film producer announced that a biopic of Trierweiler’s revenge memoir, Merci Pour Ce Moment (Thank You For This Moment), is now in the works.
  • (13) One-offs such as The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), The Good Terrorist (1985) and Love, Again (1996), so different from each other, and from the books belonging to schemes and series, revealed her enduring fascination with literary experiment.
  • (14) Its infamous clubs – The Viper Room, Whisky A Go Go – are the backdrops for a thousand rock memoirs; its vertiginous hills contain more celebrity homes per square mile than anywhere else in the world.
  • (15) She also spoke of her "suspicion" of memoir as a form: a form that her younger sister the novelist Margaret Drabble – who spoke at the festival on Thursday but was notably absent from Byatt's event – undertook in her 2009 book The Pattern in the Carpet, about the writers' aunt Phyllis.
  • (16) Carville’s aide-memoire gets an outing whenever politicians are losing an argument about something that isn’t the economy and want to pretend it doesn’t matter.
  • (17) Some of the Los Alamos scientists, Tibbets wrote in his memoirs, had their heads in the clouds.
  • (18) Although in her memoir and her new book, Chua traces some of the problems with what could be called, almost interchangeably, triple-package or tiger parenting, there is no doubt she is essentially in favour of it.
  • (19) • Revolution 2.0: A Memoir from the Heart Of The Arab Spring, by Wael Ghonim, is published by Fourth Estate (£14.99 and ebook).
  • (20) Then, earlier this month, a tentative legal settlement was reached that required Frey and his American publisher, Doubleday, to provide refunds to readers who felt they were defrauded in buying a book classified as memoir.