The fall season of 2013 (August through February) has the most impressive line up of biographies in years. Here are the leading contender for attention, prizes, and Washington readers:

1.  Wilson by A. Scott Berg (Putnam)

2.  Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (Ballantine)

3.  Salinger by David Shields and Shane Salerno (timed with the much talked about documentary film about the late reclusive writer)

4.  Call Me Burroughs: A Life by Barry Miles (Twelve)

5.  Norman Mailer: A Double Life by J. Michael Lennon (Simon & Schuster)

6.  Pat and Dick: The Nixons, An Intimate Portrait of a Marriage by Will Swift (Threshold Editions)

7.  Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero by Michael Korda (Harper)

8.  End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson (Morrow)

9.  The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee (Little, Brown and Company)

10.  Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout (Gotham)

11.  Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind by Gavin Edwards (It Books)

12.  Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked by Chris Matthews (Simon & Schuster)

13.  The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency by James Tobin (Simon & Schuster)

Find more information on, or buy, any of these biographies below.

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