Boring Bio!

This biography of Martin Luther virtually puts me to sleep.  I think it is the most effective sleep aid I've ever used.  I was at first excited to read a biography.  Normally I find them exciting and illuminating, but this one does not fit into that exciting bio category.  It makes me wonder, what makes a biography a good read?  And in this case, what makes a biography a bad read?

I think a good biography has its own style.  The kind of biographies I like put me in the story somehow- they  make me feel the weather, smell what's in the air, go back to a certain time period etc.  A good biography really makes me tap into the subject's thoughts and emotions.  It gets me caught up in what he/she's thinking and doing.  There are moments of intensity and suspense, but many moments describing how and why the subject was going through a given experience.  It tells more than who and when.  It tells how and why and offers more to the story than an outline of events or a plain description, but really answers the question of why something happened b exploring many elements.  

Marty's biography just sort of seems to ramble on.  The first page or so, describing the birth day of Luther was appealing to me, but then I was totally detached.  I feel like Marty could describe the most horrid of horrible things or the greatest of great things or the saddest of sad or whatever and my eyes will just gloss over it.  I feel like it could be a really long encyclopedia article because it gives a good description, but doesn't really get me emotionally involved.  I am not plugged into this bio, I want something else.

When it comes to biography vs. autobiography, I think I favor the autos.  I'm just thinking in my head of what I like, and one of my favorite books is Jeanette Walls's The Glass Castle.  I think an autobiography is more appealing to me because it can offer a lot of emotion and perhaps more flavor to the story, although this isn't always the case.