Ron Chernow: Mark Twain

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow turns to one of America’s most enduring and enigmatic figures: Mark Twain.

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller and one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2025, Chernow’s definitive biography of Twain is the new standard for our understanding of a writer whose expansive sense of humor, justice, and freedom have seeped into the marrow of the American experience.

In this conversation, drawing on an extraordinary archive of letters and unpublished manuscripts, Chernow traces Twain’s rise from restless journalist to literary celebrity, cultural critic, and global icon: a figure of dazzling wit and ambition, whose public persona and classic novels — including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and many others — masked personal hardship, financial calamity, and profound loss.

Hear Chernow, a master storyteller in his own right, as he brings Twain vividly to life — a conversation about a near-mythic American figure as layered, complex, and contradictory as America itself.

“A comprehensive biography of one of the most important writers and social commentators in American history.” — Barack Obama