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50 best autobiographies & biographies of all time

Enlightening and inspiring: these are the best autobiographies and biographies of 2024, and all time. .

Reading an autobiography can offer a unique insight into a world and experience very different from your own – and these real-life stories are even more entertaining, and stranger, than fiction . Take a glimpse into the lives of some of the world's most inspiring and successful celebrities , politicians and sports people and more in our edit of the best autobiographies and biographies to read right now.

• New autobiographies & biographies
• Inspiring autobiographies & biographies
• Sports autobiographies & biographies
• Celebrity autobiographies & biographies
• Political & historical autobiographies
• Literary autobiographies & biographies

The best new autobiographies and biographies

Sociopath: a memoir, by patric gagne.

The most unputdownable memoir you’ll read this year, Sociopath is the story of Patric Gagne, and her extraordinary life lived on the edge. With seering honestly, Patric explains how, as a child she always knew she was different. Graduating from feelings of apathy to petty theft and stalking, she realised as an adult that she was a sociopath, uncaring of the impact of her actions on others. Sharing the conflict she feels between her impulses, and her desire to live a settled, loving life with her partner, Sociopath is a fascinating story of one woman’s journey to find a place for herself in the world. 

Charles III

By robert hardman.

Meet the man behind the monarch in this new biography of King Charles III by royal expert and journalist Robert Hardman. Charting Charles III’s extraordinary first year on the throne, a year plighted by sadness and family scandal, Hardman shares insider details on the true nature of the Windsor family feud, and Queen Camilla’s role within the Royal Family. Detailing the highs and lows of royal life in dazzling detail, this new biography of the man who waited his whole life to be King is one of 2024’s must-reads. 

Naked Portrait: A Memoir of Lucian Freud

By rose boyt.

When Rose Boyt finds her old diary in a cardboard box in the summer of 2016, she is transported back to 1989 and her teenage years, a time she never remembered as especially remarkable. However, as Rose reads her accounts of sitting for her father, the painter Lucian Feud, she begins to realise how extraordinary and shocking her experiences truly were. In Naked Portrait: A Memoir of Lucian Freud , Rose Boyt explores her relationship with her father with fresh eyes, painting a vivid portrait of the brilliant, complex man he was. 

Air and Love

By or rosenboim.

When Or Rosenboim was growing up, she knew little of her family’s complex history, with her memories of family instead rooted in the traditional dishes her grandmothers prepared with love. After they had both passed away, she began to explore their recipe books, full of handwritten notes for how to make kneidlach balls in hot chicken broth, cinnamon-scented noodle kugel and stuffed vine leaves. There, Or learned of their shared past, one fraught with displacement and change. Interspersing her family’s story with their cherished recipes, Or Rosenboim’s Air and Love is a memoir about food, migration and family.

Lisa Marie Presley's memoir

By lisa marie presley.

Lisa Marie Presley was never truly understood . . . until now. Before her death in 2023, she’d been working on a raw, riveting, one-of-a-kind memoir for years, recording countless hours of breathtakingly vulnerable tape, which has finally been put on the page by her daughter, Riley Keough.

Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary

By nina stibbe.

Ten years after the publication of the prize-winning  Love, Nina  comes the author’s diary of her return to London in her sixty-first year. After twenty years, Nina Stibbe, accompanied by her dog Peggy, stays with writer Debby Moggach in London for a year. With few obligations, Nina explores the city, reflecting on her past and embracing new experiences. From indulging in banana splits to navigating her son's dating life, this diary captures the essence of a sixty-year-old runaway finding her place as a "proper adult" once and for all.

Literature for the People

By sarah harkness.

When Daniel and Alexander Macmillan moved to London from the Scottish Highlands in 1830, little did they know that the city was on the brink of huge social change, and that they would change publishing forever. This is the story of the Macmillan brothers who, after an impoverished, working-class childhood, went on to bring Alice in Wonderland and numerous other literary classics and ideas to the world. Through meticulous research and highly entertaining storytelling, Sarah Harkness brings to life the two men who founded a publishing house which has stood the test of time for almost two centuries. 

Hildasay to Home

By christian lewis.

The follow-up to his bestselling memoir Finding Hildasay , in Hildasay to Home Christian Lewis tells the next chapter of his extraordinary journey, step by step. From the unexpected way he found love, to his and Kate's journey on foot back down the coastline and into their new lives as parents to baby Marcus, Christian shares his highs and lows as he and his dog Jet leave Hildasay behind. Join the family as they adjust to life away from the island, and set off on a new journey together. 

Life's Work

By david milch.

Best known for creating smash-hit shows including NYPD Blue and Deadwood, you’d be forgiven for thinking that David Milch had lived a charmed life of luxury and stardom. In this, his new memoir, Milch dispels that myth, shedding light on his extraordinary life in the spotlight. Born in Buffalo New York to a father gripped by drug-addiction, Milch enrolled at Yale Law befire being expelled and finding his true passion for writing. Written following his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s in 2015, in Life’s Work Milch records his joys, sadnesses and struggles with startling clarity and grace. 

Will You Care If I Die?

By nicolas lunabba.

In a world where children murder children, and where gun violence is the worst in Europe, Nicolas Lunabba's job as a social organizer with Malmö's underclass requires firm boundaries and emotional detachment. But all that changes when he meets Elijah – an unruly teenage boy of mixed heritage whose perilous future reminds Nicolas of his own troubled past amongst the marginalized people who live on the fringes of every society. Written as a letter to Elijah,  Will You Care If I Die?  is a disarmingly direct memoir about social class, race, friendship and unexpected love.

The best inspiring autobiographies and biographies

By yusra mardini.

After fleeing her native Syria to the Turkish coast in 2015, Yusra Mardini boarded a small dinghy full of refugees headed for Greece. On the journey, the boat's engine cut out and it started to sink. Yusra, her sister, and two others took to the water to push the overcrowded boat for three and a half hours in open water, saving the lives of those on board. Butterfly is Yusra Mardini's journey from war-torn Damascus to Berlin and from there to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Game. A UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and one of People magazine's 25 Women Changing the World, discover Yusra and her incredible story of resilience and unstoppable spirit.

Finding Hildasay

After hitting rock bottom having suffered with depression for years, Christian Lewis made an impulsive decision to walk the entire coastline of the UK. Just a few days later he set off with a tent, walking boots and a tenner in his pocket. Finding Hildasay tells us some of this incredible story, including the brutal three months Christian Lewis spent on the uninhabited island of Hildasay in Scotland with no fresh water or food. It was there, where his route was most barren, that he discovered pride and respect for himself. This is not just a story of a remarkable journey, but one of depression, survival and the meaning of home. 

The Happiest Man on Earth

By eddie jaku.

A lesson in how happiness can be found in the darkest of times, this is the story of Eddie Jaku, a German Jew who survived seven years at the hands of the Nazis. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, and a Jew second. All of that changed in November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. But through his courage and tenacity he still came to live life as 'the happiest man on earth'. Published at the author turns one hundred, The Happiest Man on Earth is a heartbreaking but hopeful memoir full of inspiration. 

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I know why the caged bird sings, by maya angelou.

A favourite book of former president Obama and countless others, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings , recounts Angelou’s childhood in the American south in the 1930s. A beautifully written classic, this is the first of Maya Angelou's seven bestselling autobiographies. 

I Am Malala

By malala yousafzai.

After speaking out about her right to education almost cost her her life, Malala Yousafzi refused to be silenced. Instead, her amazing story has taken her all over the world. This is the story of Malala and her inspirational family, and of how one person's voice can inspire change across the globe. 

In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin

By lindsey hilsum.

In her job as a foreign correspondent, Marie Colvin reported from some of the most dangerous places in the world. It was a job that would eventually cost her her life. In this posthumous biography of the award-winning news journalist, Lindsey Hilsum shares the story of one of the most daring and inspirational women of our times with warmth and wit, conveying Colvin's trademark glamour. 

The best memoirs

This is going to hurt, by adam kay.

Offering a unique insight into life as an NHS junior doctor through his diary entries, Adam Kay's bestselling autobiography is equal parts heartwarming and humorous, and oftentimes horrifying too. With 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions and a tsunami of bodily fluids, Kay provides a no-holds-barred account of working on the NHS frontline. Now a major BBC comedy-drama, don't miss this special edition of This Is Going To Hurt including a bonus diary entries and an afterword from the author. 

The Colour of Madness

By samara linton.

The Colour of Madness  brings together memoirs, essays, poetry, short fiction and artworks by people of colour who have experienced difficulties with mental health. From experiencing micro-aggressions to bias, and stigma to religious and cultural issues, people of colour have to fight harder than others to be heard and helped. Statistics show that people from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds in the UK experience poor mental health treatment in comparison to their white counterparts, and are more likely to be held under the Mental Health Act. 

Nothing But The Truth

By the secret barrister.

How do you become a barrister? Why do only 1 per cent of those who study law succeed in joining this mysterious profession? And why might a practising barrister come to feel the need to reveal the lies, secrets, failures and crises at the heart of this world of wigs and gowns? Full of hilarious, shocking and surprising stories,  Nothing But The Truth  tracks the Secret Barrister’s transformation from hang ‘em and flog ‘em, austerity-supporting twenty-something to a campaigning, bestselling, reforming author whose writing in defence of the law is celebrated around the globe.

Is This Ok?

By harriet gibsone.

Harriet spent much of her young life feeding neuroses and insecurities with obsessive internet searching and indulging in whirlwind ‘parasocial relationships'. But after a diagnosis of early menopause in her late twenties, her relationship with the internet took a darker turn, as her online addictions were thrown into sharp relief by the corporeal realities of illness and motherhood. An outrageously funny, raw and painfully honest account of trying to find connection in the age of the internet,  Is This Ok? is the stunning literary debut from music journalist, Harriet Gibsone. 

A Letter to My Transgender Daughter

By carolyn hays.

This moving memoir is an ode to Hays' transgender daughter – a love letter to a child who has always known herself. After a caseworker from the Department of Children and Families knocked on the door to investigate an anonymous complaint about the upbringing of their transgender child, the Hays family moved away from their Republican state. In A Girlhood, Hays tells of the brutal truths of being trans, of the sacrificial nature of motherhood and of the lengths a family will go to shield their youngest from the cruel realities of the world. Hays asks us all to love better, for children everywhere enduring injustice and prejudice.

by Michelle Obama

This bestselling autobiography lifts the lid on the life of one of the most inspiring women of a generation, former first lady Michelle Obama. From her childhood as a gifted young woman in south Chicago to becoming the first black First Lady of the USA, Obama tells the story of her extraordinary life with humour, warmth and honesty. 

Kitchen Confidential

By anthony bourdain.

Regarded as one of the greatest books about food ever written, Kitchen Confidential lays bare the wild tales of the culinary industry. From his lowly position as a dishwasher in Provincetown to cooking at some of the finest restaurants across the world, the much-loved Bourdain translates his sultry, sarcastic and quick-witted personality to paper in this uncensored 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine' account of life as a professional chef. Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.

Everything I Know About Love

By dolly alderton.

Dolly Alderton, perhaps more than any other author, represents the rise of the messy millennial woman – in the very best way possible. Her internationally bestselling memoir gives an unflinching account of the bad dates and squalid flat-shares, the heartaches and humiliations, and most importantly, the unbreakable female friendships that defined her twenties. She weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age. This is a memoir that you'll discuss with loved ones long after the final page. 

The best sports autobiographies and biographies

By chris kamara.

Presenter, commentator, (sometimes masked) singer, footballer, manager and campaigner, Kammy's action-packed career has made him a bona fide British hero. Kammy had a tough upbringing, faced racism on the terraces during his playing career and has, in recent years, dealt with a rare brain condition – apraxia – that has affected his speech and seen him say goodbye to Sky Sports. With entertaining stories of his playing career from Pompey to Leeds and beyond; his management at Bradford City and Stoke; his crazy travels around the world; of  Soccer Saturday  banter; presenting  Ninja   Warrior ; and the incredible friendships he's made along the way,  Kammy  is an unforgettable ride from one of Britain's best-loved broadcasters.

Alone on the Wall

By alex honnold.

In the last forty years, only a handful of climbers have pushed themselves as far, ‘free soloing’ to the absolute limit of human capabilities. Half of them are dead. Although Alex Honnold’s exploits are probably a bit  too  extreme for most of us, the stories behind his incredible climbs are exciting, uplifting and truly awe-inspiring. Alone on the Wall  is a book about the essential truth of being free to pursue your passions and the ability to maintain a singular focus, even in the face of mortal danger. This updated edition contains the account of Alex's El Capitan climb, which is the subject of the Oscar and BAFTA winning documentary,  Free Solo .

On Days Like These

By martin o'neill.

Martin O’Neill has had one of the most incredible careers in football.   With a story spanning over fifty years, Martin tells of his exhilarating highs and painful lows; from the joys of winning trophies, promotion and fighting for World Cups to being harangued by fans, boardroom drama, relegation scraps and being fired. Written with his trademark honesty and humour,  On Days Like These  is one of the most insightful and captivating sports autobiographies and a must-read for any fans of the beautiful game.

Too Many Reasons to Live

By rob burrow.

As a child, Rob Burrow was told he was too small to be a rugby player. Some 500 games for Leeds later, Rob had proved his doubters wrong: he won eight Super League Grand Finals, two Challenge Cups, three World Club Challenges and played for his country in two World Cups. In 2019 though, Rob was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given just two years to live. He went public with the news, determined to fight it all the way. Full of love, bravery and kindness, this is the story of a man who has awed his fans with his positive attitude to life.

With You Every Step, a celebration of friendship by Rob Burrow and Kevin Sinfield

At home with muhammad ali, by hana yasmeen ali.

Written by his daughter Ali using material from her father's audio journals, love letters and her treasured family memories, this sports biography offers an intimate portrait of one of boxing's most legendary figures, and one of the most iconic sports personalities of all time. 

They Don't Teach This

By eniola aluko.

In her autobiography, footballer Eni Aluko addresses themes of dual nationality, race and institutional prejudice, success, gender and faith through her own experiences growing up in Britain. Part memoir, part manifesto for change, They Don't Teach This is a must-read book for 2020. 

The best celebrity autobiographies and biographies

By adrian edmondson.

From brutal schooldays to 80s anarchy, through The Young Ones and beyond, Berserker! is the one-of-a-kind, fascinating memoir from an icon of British comedy, Adrian Edmondson. His star-studded anecdotes and outrageous stories are set to a soundtrack of pop hits, transporting the reader through time and cranking up the nostalgia. But, as one would expect, these stories are also a guaranteed laugh as Ade traces his journey through life and comedy. 

Beyond the Story

In honor of BTS's 10th anniversary, this remarkable book serves as the band's inaugural official release, offering a treasure trove of unseen photographs and exclusive content. With Myeongseok Kang's extensive interviews and years of coverage, the vibrant world of K-pop springs to life. As digital pioneers, BTS's online presence has bridged continents, and this volume grants readers instant access to trailers, music videos, and more, providing a comprehensive journey through BTS's defining moments. Complete with a milestone timeline, Beyond the Story stands as a comprehensive archive, encapsulating everything about BTS within its pages.

Being Henry

By henry winkler.

Brilliant, funny, and widely-regarded as the nicest man in Hollywood, Henry Winkler shares the disheartening truth of his childhood, the difficulties of a life with severe dyslexia and the pressures of a role that takes on a life of its own. Since the glorious era of  Happy Days  fame, Henry has endeared himself to a new generation with roles in such adored shows as  Arrested Development and  Barry , where he’s revealed himself as an actor with immense depth and pathos. But Being Henry  is about so much more than a life in Hollywood and the curse of stardom. It is a meaningful testament to the power of sharing truth and of finding fulfillment within yourself.

What Are You Doing Here?

By floella benjamin.

Actress, television presenter, member of the House of Lords – Baroness Floella Benjamin is an inspiration to many. But it hasn't always been easy: in What Are You Doing Here?   she describes her journey to London as part of the Windrush generation, and the daily racism that caused her so much pain as a child. She has gone on to remain true to her values, from breaking down barriers as a Play School presenter to calling for diversity at the BBC and BAFTA to resisting the pressures of typecasting. Sharing the lessons she has learned, imbued with her joy and positivity, this autobiography is the moving testimony of a remarkable woman.

Life Lessons

By jay blades.

‘Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.’ Let Jay’s words of wisdom – gleaned from his own triumphs over adversity – help you to find your best path through life. Filled with characteristic warmth and humour, Jay talks about the life lessons that have helped him to find positivity and growth, no matter what he’s found himself facing. Jay shares not only his adventures and escapades but also the way they have shaped his outlook and helped him to live life to the fullest. His insight and advice give you everything you need to be able to reframe your own circumstances and make the best of them.

A Funny Life

By michael mcintyre.

Comic Michael McIntyre specialises in pin-sharp observational routines that have made him the world's bestselling funny man. But when he turns his gaze to himself and his own family, things get even funnier. This bracingly honest memoir covers the highs, lows and pratfalls of a career in comedy, as Michael climbs the greasy pole of success and desperately attempts to stay up there.

by Elton John

Elton John is one of the most successful singer/songwriters of all time, but success didn't come easily to him. In his bestselling autobiography, he charts his extraordinary life, from the early rejection of his work to the heady heights of international stardom and the challenges that came along with it. With candour and humour, he tells the stories of celebrity friendships with John Lennon, George Michael and Freddie Mercury, and of how he turned his life around and found love with David Furnish. Me is the real story of the man behind the music. 

And Away...

By bob mortimer.

National treasure and beloved entertainer, Bob Mortimer, takes us from his childhood in Middlesborough to working as a solicitor in London in his highly acclaimed autobiography. Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The book covers his numerous misadventures along his path to fame but also reflects on more serious themes, making this both one of the most humorous and poignant celebrity memoirs of recent years. 

by Walter Isaacson

Based on interviews conducted with Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson's biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is filled with lessons about innovation, leadership, and values and has inspired a movie starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet and Seth Rogen. Isaacson tells the story of the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized the tech industry. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written and put nothing off limits, making this an unflinchingly candid account of one of the key figures of modern history.

Maybe I Don't Belong Here

By david harewood.

When David Harewood was twenty-three, his acting career began to take flight and he had what he now understands to be a psychotic breakdown. He was physically restrained by six police officers, sedated, then hospitalized and transferred to a locked ward. Only now, thirty years later, has he been able to process what he went through. In this powerful and provocative account of a life lived after psychosis, critically acclaimed actor, David Harewood, uncovers a devastating family history and investigates the very real impact of racism on Black mental health.

Scenes from My Life

By michael k. williams.

When Michael K. Williams died on 6 September 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. At the time of his death, Williams had nearly finished his memoir, which traces his life in whole, from his childhood and his early years as a dancer to his battles with addiction. Alongside his achievements on screen he was a committed activist who dedicated his life to helping at-risk young people find their voice and carve out their future. Imbued with poignance and raw honesty,  Scenes from My Life  is the story of a performer who gave his all to everything he did – in his own voice, in his own words.

The best political and historical autobiographies

The fall of boris johnson, by sebastian payne.

Sebastian Payne, Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times, tells the behind-the-scenes story of the fall of former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. After being touted saviour of the Conservative Party, it took Johnson just three years to resign after a series of scandals. From the blocked suspension of Owen Patterson to Partygate and the Chris Pincher allegations, Payne gives us unparalleled access to those who were in the room when key decisions were made, ultimately culminating in Boris's downfall. This is a gripping and timely look at how power is gained, wielded and lost in Britain today.

by Sung-Yoon Lee

The Sister , written by Sung-Yoon Lee, a scholar and specialist on North Korea, uncovers the truth about Kim Yo Jong and her close bond with Kim Jong Un. In 2022, Kim Yo Jong threatened to nuke South Korea, reminding the world of the dangers posed by her state. But how did the youngest daughter of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, his ‘sweet princess’, become the ruthless chief propagandist, internal administrator and foreign policymaker for her brother’s totalitarian regime? Readable and insightful, this book is an invaluable portrait of a woman who might yet hold the survival of her despotic dynasty in her hands.

Long Walk To Freedom

By nelson mandela.

Deemed 'essential reading for anyone who wants to understand history' by former US President, Barack Obama, this is the autobiography of one of the world's greatest moral and political leaders, Nelson Mandela. Imprisoned for more than 25 years, president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, the Nobel Peace Prize winner's life was nothing short of extraordinary. Long Walk to Freedom vividly tells this story; one of hardship, resilience and ultimate triumph, written with the clarity and eloquence of a born leader. 

The Diary of a Young Girl

By anne frank.

No list of inspiring autobiographies would be complete without Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl . Charting the thirteen-year-old's time hiding in a 'Secret Annex' with her family to escape Gestapo detection, this book (which was discovered after Anne Frank's death), is a must-read, and a testament to the courage shown by the millions persecuted during the Second World War. 

The best literary autobiographies

Winner of Pulitzer Prize in Memoir, Stay True  is a deeply moving and intimate memoir about growing up and moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging. When Hua Hsu first meets Ken in a Berkeley dorm room, he hates him. A frat boy with terrible taste in music, Ken seems exactly like everyone else. For Hua, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to – the mainstream. The only thing Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, and Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the US for generations, have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them. 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By rebecca skloot.

Born to a poor black tobacco farmer in rural Virginia in 1920, Henrietta Lacks died of cancer when she was just 31. However, her story does not end there, as her cancer cells, taken without permission during her treatment continued to live on being used for research all over the world and becoming a multi-million dollar industry, with her family only learning of her impact more than two decades after her death. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman who never knew of her lifesaving impact and asks: do we ever really own our bodies? 

A Fortunate Woman

By polly morland.

Funny, emotional and imbued with great depth, A Fortunate Woman is an exploration of the life of a country doctor in a remote and wild wooded valley in the Forest of Dean. The story was sparked when writer and documentary maker Polly Morland found a photograph of the valley she lives in tucked inside a tattered copy of John Berger’s  A Fortunate Man . Itself an account of the life of a country doctor, the book inspired a woman doctor to follow her vocation in the same remote place. And it is the story of this woman that Polly Morland tells, in this compelling portrait of landscape and community.

Father and Son

By jonathan raban.

On 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body. Learning to use a wheelchair in a rehab facility outside Seattle and resisting the ministrations of the nurses overseeing his recovery, Raban began to reflect upon the measure of his own life in the face of his own mortality. Together with the chronicle of his recovery is the extraordinary story of his parents’ marriage, the early years of which were conducted by letter while his father fought in the Second World War.

Crying in H Mart

By michelle zauner.

This radiant read by singer, songwriter and guitarist Michelle Zauner delves into the experience of being the only Asian-American child at her school in Eugene, Oregon, combined with family struggles and blissful escapes to her grandmother's tiny Seoul apartment. The family bond is the shared love of Korean food, which helped Michelle reclaim her Asian identity in her twenties. A lively, honest, riveting read.

The Reluctant Carer

By the reluctant carer.

The phone rings. Your elderly father has been taken to hospital, and your even older mother is home with nobody to look after her. What do you do? Drop everything and go and help of course. But it's not that straightforward, and your own life starts to fall apart as quickly as their health. Irresistibly funny, unflinching and deeply moving, this is a love letter to family and friends, to carers and to anyone who has ever packed a small bag intent on staying for just a few days. This is a true story of what it really means to be a carer, and of the ties that bind even tighter when you least expect it. 

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Best Autobiographies

These are the top autobiographies and memoirs according to the web’s most popular book blogs. ranked by how often they were featured..

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Best biographies and memoirs of 2021

Brian Cox is punchy, David Harewood candid and Miriam Margolyes raucously indiscreet

In a bonanza year for memoirs, Ruth Coker Burks got us off to a strong start with All the Young Men (Trapeze), a clear-eyed and poignant account of her years spent looking after Aids patients in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the 1980s. While visiting a friend in hospital, Burks witnessed a group of nurses drawing straws over who should enter a room labelled “Biohazard”, the ward for men with “that gay disease”. And so she took it upon herself to sit with the dying and bury them when their families wouldn’t. Later, as the scale of fear and prejudice became apparent, she helped patients with food, transport, social security and housing, often at enormous personal cost. Her book, written with Kevin Carr O’Leary, finds light in the darkness as it reveals the love and camaraderie of a hidden community fighting for its life.

Sadness and joy also go hand-in-hand in What It Feels Like for a Girl (Penguin), an exuberant account of Paris Lees’s tearaway teenage years in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, where “the streets are paved wi’ dog shit”. Her gender nonconformity is just one aspect of an adolescence that also features bullying, violence, prostitution, robbery and a spell in a young offenders’ institute. Yet despite the many traumas, Lees finds joy and kinship in the underground club scene and a group of drag queens who cocoon her in love and laughter.

Miriam Margolyes’s This Much Is True (John Murray) traces her path from cherished child of an Oxford GP to Bafta-winning actor to chat-show sofa staple, in a raucously indiscreet memoir replete with fruity tales of sexual experimentation, tricky co-stars and Olympic-level farting. And Bob Mortimer’s winningly heartfelt And Away… (Gallery) reveals the brilliant highs and terrible lows of his childhood as the “irritating runt” of four brothers, his initial career as a solicitor and subsequent reinvention as a celebrated comic alongside his partner in crime, Vic Reeves.

Themes of identity and belonging underpin Beautiful Country (Viking), Qian Julie Wang’s elegantly affecting account of her move from China to New York where she lived undocumented and under threat of deportation, and Nadia Owusu’s powerful Aftershocks (Sceptre), in which the author recalls a peripatetic childhood as the daughter of a volatile Armenian-American mother and a Ghanaian father, a United Nations official who died when she was 13. Both books tell remarkable stories of displacement, heartache and resilience.

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows (Bodley Head) is another tale of extraordinary resilience, as the artist Ai Weiwei vividly reflects on his own life and that of his father, who was a poet. Both men fell foul of the Chinese authorities: Ai’s father, Ai Qing, was exiled to a place nicknamed “Little Siberia”, where he lived with his young son in a dug-out pit with a roof made from mud and branches, while Ai himself was imprisoned in 2011 for 11 weeks on spurious tax charges. Lea Ypi’s Free: Coming of Age at the End of History (Penguin) is a beautifully written account of life under a crumbling Stalinist system in Albania and the shock and chaos of what came next. In telling her story and examining the political systems in which she was raised, the author and LSE professor asks tough questions about the nature of freedom.

In Maybe I Don’t Belong Here (Bluebird), the actor David Harewood lays bare his struggles with racial injustice and mental illness, and shows how these things are connected. Harewood’s childhood was punctuated by racist abuse; later, as he tried to get his career off the ground, he was bullied by colleagues and critics. At 23, he had a psychotic breakdown during which it took six police officers to restrain him, and was dispatched to a psychiatric ward where, he learns from his hospital records, he was described as a “large black man” and administered drugs at four times the recommended dose. His recollections of his unravelling, treatment and recovery are acutely drawn.

Huma Abedin’s electrifying memoir Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds (Simon & Schuster) grapples with her multiple identities as a woman with Indian parents, who was born in Michigan and raised in Saudi Arabia. It is also a brave and unflinching account of her job as aide to Hillary Clinton and her years as the wife of Anthony Weiner , the congressman at the centre of a sexting scandal that landed him in prison, prompted an investigation by child services and ultimately derailed Clinton’s presidential campaign. Of the night Abedin learned her work emails had been discovered on her husband’s laptop, which would lead to the FBI reopening its investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified information, she recalls: “I wrote one line in my notebook. ‘I do not know how I am going to survive this. Help me God.’”

The actor Brian Cox lost his father to pancreatic cancer when he was eight years old, his mother battled with mental illness and his childhood was one of almost Dickensian poverty. But you won’t find self-pity in his meandering but amusingly irreverent memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Quercus). Instead, we get a whistlestop tour of his working life, during which he takes entertaining pot-shots at Johnny Depp (“overrated”), Steven Seagal (“ludicrous”) and Edward Norton (“a pain in the arse”).

Finally, two terrific biographies. Frances Wilson’s smart and scholarly Burning Man: The Ascent of DH Lawrence (Bloomsbury) paints a vivid picture of a brilliant writer who was “censored and worshipped” in his lifetime, and remained furious at the world and at those not sufficiently cognisant of his genius.

And Paula Byrne’s The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym (William Collins), about the British postwar novelist whom Philip Larkin compared to Jane Austen, is a touching and revealing portrait of a flawed romantic and a free spirit.

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50 Must-Read Biographies

Rebecca Hussey

Rebecca holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. She teaches courses in composition, literature, and the arts. When she’s not reading or grading papers, she’s hanging out with her husband and son and/or riding her bike and/or buying books. She can't get enough of reading and writing about books, so she writes the bookish newsletter "Reading Indie," focusing on small press books and translations. Newsletter: Reading Indie Twitter: @ofbooksandbikes

View All posts by Rebecca Hussey

The best biographies give us a satisfying glimpse into a great person’s life, while also teaching us about the context in which that person lived. Through biography, we can also learn history, psychology, sociology, politics, philosophy, and more. Reading a great biography is both fun and educational. What’s not to love?

Below I’ve listed 50 of the best biographies out there. You will find a mix of subjects, including important figures in literature, science, politics, history, art, and more. I’ve tried to keep this list focused on biography only, so there is little in the way of memoir or autobiography. In a couple cases, authors have written about their family members, but for the most part, these are books where the focus is on the biographical subject, not the author.

The first handful are group biographies, and after that, I’ve arranged them alphabetically by subject. Book descriptions come from Goodreads.

Take a look and let me know about your favorite biography in the comments!

All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen

“In  All We Know , Lisa Cohen describes their [Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, and Madge Garland’s] glamorous choices, complicated failures, and controversial personal lives with lyricism and empathy. At once a series of intimate portraits and a startling investigation into style, celebrity, sexuality, and the genre of biography itself,  All We Know  explores a hidden history of modernism and pays tribute to three compelling lives.”

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

“Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as ‘Human Computers,’ calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women.”

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie

“In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them – in works that readers of all kinds could admire.  The Life You Save May Be Your Own  is their story – a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us.”

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester

“As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.”

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

“In a sweeping narrative, Fraser traces the cultural, familial and political roots of each of Henry’s queens, pushes aside the stereotypes that have long defined them, and illuminates the complex character of each.”

John Adams by David McCullough

“In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot — ‘the colossus of independence,’ as Thomas Jefferson called him.”

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Melissa Fleming

“Emotionally riveting and eye-opening,  A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea  is the incredible story of a young woman, an international crisis, and the triumph of the human spirit. Melissa Fleming shares the harrowing journey of Doaa Al Zamel, a young Syrian refugee in search of a better life.”

At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess in Victorian England by Walter Dean Myers

“One terrifying night in 1848, a young African princess’s village is raided by warriors. The invaders kill her mother and father, the King and Queen, and take her captive. Two years later, a British naval captain rescues her and takes her to England where she is presented to Queen Victoria, and becomes a loved and respected member of the royal court.”

John Brown by W.E.B. Du Bois

“ John Brown is W. E. B. Du Bois’s groundbreaking political biography that paved the way for his transition from academia to a lifelong career in social activism. This biography is unlike Du Bois’s earlier work; it is intended as a work of consciousness-raising on the politics of race.”

Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen L. Carter

“[Eunice Hunton Carter] was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s ― and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted.”

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

“An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members.”

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.”

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

“Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered.”

Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario

“In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.”

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

“After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve ‘the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century’: What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett & his quest for the Lost City of Z?”

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

“Amanda Foreman draws on a wealth of fresh research and writes colorfully and penetratingly about the fascinating Georgiana, whose struggle against her own weaknesses, whose great beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a part in the affairs of the world make her a vibrant, astonishingly contemporary figure.”

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik Ping Zhu

“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame she was just trying to make the world a little better and a little freer. But along the way, the feminist pioneer’s searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. [This book], created by the young lawyer who began the Internet sensation and an award-winning journalist, takes you behind the myth for an intimate, irreverent look at the justice’s life and work.”

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

“A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance—including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker—acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother.”

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

“ Shirley Jackson  reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the literary genius behind such classics as ‘The Lottery’ and  The Haunting of Hill House .”

The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

“This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart.”

The Life of Samuel Johnson   by James Boswell

“Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail.”

Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers

“Barbara Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention. Yet Jordan herself remained a mystery.”

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

“This engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from her own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; a devastating accident at age eighteen that left her crippled and unable to bear children.”

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph

“Often photographed in a cowboy hat with her middle finger held defiantly in the air, Florynce ‘Flo’ Kennedy (1916–2000) left a vibrant legacy as a leader of the Black Power and feminist movements. In the first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the life and political influence of this strikingly bold and controversial radical activist.”

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

“In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food.”

The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma by Peter Popham

“Peter Popham … draws upon previously untapped testimony and fresh revelations to tell the story of a woman whose bravery and determination have captivated people around the globe. Celebrated today as one of the world’s greatest exponents of non-violent political defiance since Mahatma Gandhi, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only four years after her first experience of politics.”

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”   by Zora Neale Hurston

“In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

“Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.”

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln’s political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.”

The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart

“A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and call them the New Negro — the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.”

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux

“Drawing from the private archives of the poet’s estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde’s iconic status, charting her conservative childhood in Harlem; her early marriage to a white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence as an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as a seminal poet of American literature.”

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

“Thurgood Marshall stands today as the great architect of American race relations, having expanded the foundation of individual rights for all Americans. His victory in the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case outlawing school segregation, would have him a historic figure even if he had not gone on to become the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.”

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

“ The Mayor of Castro Street  is Shilts’s acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s.”

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

“The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.”

How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell

This book is “a vivid portrait of Montaigne, showing how his ideas gave birth to our modern sense of our inner selves, from Shakespeare’s plays to the dilemmas we face today.”

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm

“From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, this brilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. Janet Malcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend of Sylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plath biographies.”

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley   by Peter Guralnick

“Based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, [this book] traces the evolution not just of the man but of the music and of the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait of Elvis and his world.

Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

“Kate Summerscale brilliantly recreates the Victorian world, chronicling in exquisite and compelling detail the life of Isabella Robinson, wherein the longings of a frustrated wife collided with a society clinging to rigid ideas about sanity, the boundaries of privacy, the institution of marriage, and female sexuality.”

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

“A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained?”

The Invisible Woman: The Story of Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan by Claire Tomalin

“When Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857, she was 18: a professional actress performing in his production of  The Frozen Deep . He was 45: a literary legend, a national treasure, married with ten children. This meeting sparked a love affair that lasted over a decade, destroying Dickens’s marriage and ending with Nelly’s near-disappearance from the public record.”

Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter

“Slowly, but surely, Sojourner climbed from beneath the weight of slavery, secured respect for herself, and utilized the distinction of her race to become not only a symbol for black women, but for the feminist movement as a whole.”

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

“Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America’s first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes.”

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

“With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life, [Chernow] carries the reader through Washington’s troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian Wars, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his magnificent performance as America’s first president.”

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

“ Ida: A Sword Among Lions  is a sweeping narrative about a country and a crusader embroiled in the struggle against lynching: a practice that imperiled not only the lives of black men and women, but also a nation based on law and riven by race.”

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

“But the true saga of [Wilder’s] life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography.”

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

“Although mother and daughter, these two brilliant women never knew one another – Wollstonecraft died of an infection in 1797 at the age of thirty-eight, a week after giving birth. Nevertheless their lives were so closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies so eerily similar, it seems impossible to consider one without the other.”

Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee

“Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.”

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

“Of the great figures in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins’ bullets at age thirty-nine.”

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

“On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.”

Want to read more about great biographies? Check out this post on presidential biographies , this list of biographies and memoirs about remarkable women , and this list of 100 must-read musician biographies and memoirs .

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The best autobiographies to read in 2023

• Nik Rawlinson

Discover the back stories of some of the best-known names in showbiz and politics, in their own words

Read an autobiography, and you’ll feel closer to the subject than you’d ever get in real life. They might not reveal their deepest, darkest secrets, but they will usually wind back the clock and walk you through their childhood and early years, so you can see how they became the person they are today.

The raciest autobiographies are frequently indiscreet, the most engaging may name-drop with wild abandon, and the best stand on the quality of their writing, regardless of the subject matter. Some are ghost-written, granted, but so long as the voice sounds authentic and the contents are true, does that matter?

Here, we’ve picked out six of the best autobiographies you can buy today. Most were published in the past couple of years, although one is considerably older and was re-released in 2018, several decades after it was first published. We’ve included it because of the quality of the writing and the compelling story it tells.

Before that, though, if you’re struggling to choose between them – or any of the dozens of other autobiographies published every year – check out our tips for choosing the best autobiography for you.

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Best autobiographies: At a glance

• Best showbiz autobiography: One of them by Michael Cashman | £9.19
• Best political autobiography: Free by Lea Ypi | £6.99
• Best autobiography for the 90s TV generation: Gotta Get Theroux This by Louis Theroux | £6.99

How to choose the best autobiography for you

They say everyone has at least one story in them. Perhaps that’s why there are so many autobiographies to choose from. The trick is to pick one that appeals to you, and keeps your attention from the first page to the last.

Look for something unfamiliar

The most engrossing book is often one that immerses you in an entirely unknown world, yet evokes it so clearly that the images are vivid and all-encompassing. For most readers, Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and Lea Ypi’s Free, each of which features in our selection, fall into these categories. They take the reader into a realm that most will (thankfully) never have experienced. And, in doing so, they demonstrate that a return to those places, times and attitudes is something we must avoid.

Uncover the other side of a story

The biggest-selling autobiographies are those written by the most recognisable names in show business, sport, politics and music, and most of the readers who pick them up are hoping they’ll tell the stories behind the headlines. Gotta Get Theroux This, by Louis Theroux, delivers here, examining not only how Theroux himself came to prominence, but the back stories – and occasional fall-out – of some of his most high-profile encounters. Elton John’s Me is an incredibly honest and revealing chronicle of his life, while Tom Allen’s No Shame is a candid tale of growing up gay in the suburbs – a world away from the glamour of primetime TV.

Don’t forget the audiobook option

Where an autobiography has been written by an actor or other public performer, it’s not uncommon for them to also narrate the audiobook. This is true of Adam Buxton with Ramble Book, Michael Cashman with One of Them, Miriam Margolyes with This Much is True , and Stephen Fry with his various volumes of autobiography, including The Fry Chronicles , More Fool Me  and Moab Is My Washpot . Hearing the author’s words in their own voice brings another dimension to the work, and lets you take them with you wherever you’re going, whatever you’re doing.

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1. One of Them by Michael Cashman: Best showbiz autobiography

Price: £9.19 | Buy now from Amazon

Michael Cashman will be remembered by many as Albert Square’s yuppie graphic designer, Colin. But his time in EastEnders is just a small, if very visible, episode in a varied, high-profile career that took him from the back streets of London’s East End to the benches of the House of Lords. Indeed, performing is, in many ways, a mere side act: this is a book in which, at least in the second half, politics takes centre stage.

Cashman grew up in what could well have been EastEnders’ back yard (if it hadn’t actually been filmed in west London), but his childhood, in which untrustworthy and exploitative strangers loom large, would likely have been too extreme for the soap’s scriptwriters to contemplate. He was perfectly cast, then, as a truly mould-breaking character at a time when gay relationships were rarely portrayed as being equal to their straight equivalents on mainstream TV.

After close to 200 episodes, he left to pursue other interests, and eventually found himself elected to the European Parliament, representing the seat of West Midlands. He was a spokesperson on human rights and, before his time in Brussels drew to a close in 2014, he’d been awarded a CBE for public and political service. Returning to Britain wasn’t the end of his political career, nor of his campaigning, and he took his seat in the House of Lords as a life peer.

From humble beginnings, Cashman has reached great heights in both show business and politics, despite facing significant challenges. There are some shocking episodes in his autobiography, but perhaps none is so heartbreaking as that with which it draws to a close.

Key details – Length: 432 pages; Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing; ISBN: 978-1526612366

One of Them: From Albert Square to Parliament Square

2. free: coming of age at the end of history by lea ypi: best political autobiography.

Lea Ypi is professor of political theory at the London School of Economics, but she grew up in Albania during the years of communist rule. Her grandfather had been prime minister for just over a year in the early 1920s, and was assassinated in December 1940. Those facts – and the detrimental impact the family’s association with the former prime minister would have – were kept from her during her childhood.

To a degree, it’s kept from the reader, too. The book is cleverly structured, with the first part covering Ypi’s life under socialism, and the second venturing into the years of the free market economy and the country’s transition to capitalism. Thus, as Ypi grows and learns, so do we. Through her narrative, we overhear relatives talk of family members who have gone away to “university”, always wondering whether there isn’t more to their back story. Inevitably, there is. This is a curious biography, then – one in which the reader grows with the narrator, and learns through her own experience. Yet there’s no naivete in her description of those early years, and no raised eyebrows or nudge to the reader who, reading from the future, knows better than she did herself.

Neither is there any romanticising of life on either side of that political transition. “Five years after the fall of socialism, episodes of our life back then had become part of the repertoire of amusing family anecdotes,” Ypi writes. “It didn’t matter if the memories were absurd, hilarious or painful, or all of these at once. We would joke about them over meals, like drunken sailors who had survived a shipwreck and relisted showing one another the scars.”

Key details – Length: 336 pages; Publisher: Penguin; ISBN: 978-0141995106

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

3. gotta get theroux this by louis theroux: best autobiography for the 90s tv generation.

Louis Theroux is best known for his calm, persistent profiling of rich, famous or unusual characters. Here, he turns that focus on himself as he recounts a career that, from the outside, he seems almost to have fallen into. On the subject of landing his own series off the back of work on TV Nation, Theorux writes that “from a state of directionless obscurity I had been vaulted into a realm of possibility I hadn’t ever dared imagine. And one part of me saw it this way. But another, greater part was dubious, suspecting that the transformation was not wholly earned and therefore not really mine.”

Earned or not, Theroux has more than proved his right to grace our screens in the years since, through a series of groundbreaking documentaries exploring, and sometimes exposing, the less often represented.

Born in Singapore to travel writer Paul and BBC arts producer Anne, he grew up in London, then went to boarding school, spent summers on Cape Cod, and later moved to the US under his own steam as his journalistic career took off. First came newspapers, then television. “For a year and a half, up the Amazon in a rocket motorboat, in the revolutionary hills of Mexican Chiapas, among religious crazies in Jerusalem and good old boys in the backroads of the Deep South, and occasionally amid the almost-as-alien milieu of a well-funded workplace with ambitions to change American television and society, I worked at TV Nation. But it was all a salutary apprenticeship – I was learning, without realising it, skills and techniques that I would rely on throughout the course of my TV career.”

Many of his career highs are well known, but here their background and aftermath are explored in detail. He looks back on his encounter with Jimmy Savile, the resulting broadcast, and the investigation that followed Savile’s death, at which Theroux was called to speak. And he describes the fall-out from an ill-advised tweet, and how it made him feel (“my lawyer advised me to instruct a high-powered QC… I would brood about my own stupidity at sending the tweet and the likelihood of its having catastrophic consequences… I wondered inwardly whether I’d be remortgaging the house, and should I just apologise, or did that, as the lawyers claimed, lay me open to massive damages…”).

It’s easy to imagine that investigative presenters like Theroux simply swoop in, do their jobs and move on to the next subject, the next programme or the next big thing with barely a thought for the one they’re leaving behind. This autobiography proves that not to be the case at all. Not only are there real people behind the stories; there are real people presenting them, too.

Key details – Length: 416 pages; Publisher: Pan; ISBN: 978-1509880393

Gotta Get Theroux This: My life and strange times in television

4. ramble book by adam buxton: best autobiography for kids and teens of the 80s.

It wasn’t his first TV appearance, but Adam Buxton hit the big time in 1996, with Channel 4’s The Adam and Joe Show. Since then, he’s been a regular on BBC3, Xfm, the Edinburgh Festival, films and Eight out of Ten Cats Does Countdown’s dictionary corner. To many, he’ll be best known for his long-running podcast, with a simple formula – an unhurried, rambling chat – that attracts guests of impressive calibre. You don’t need to scroll far through the archive to come across Joe Lycett, Robbie Williams, Zadie Smith, Derren Brown, David Sedaris, Michael Palin, Frank Skinner, and skaters Torvill and Dean. The mix is as eclectic as it is entertaining.

But it’s also not surprising that they feature. The aptly named Ramble Book is a roll-call of the great and the good, with whom Buxton’s diverse media career has brought him into contact. He was at school with documentary maker Louis Theroux – and the “Joe” of The Adam and Joe Show is their mutual friend, filmmaker Joe Cornish. Buxton’s father was the Sunday Telegraph travel editor, as a result of which Buxton junior visited such diverse destinations as Brabadon, China and “all over America” during his childhood.

Yet it’s not a showy book. It’s underpinned by a humbleness, frequently diverts into introspection or random thoughts, and finds Buxton in situations familiar to us all, like the times we’ve made fools of ourselves objecting to what we consider somebody else’s bad behaviour – and the discomfort we often feel afterwards.

There’s a humanity to Ramble Book, a familiarity, and a reminder that famous people are just like the rest of us – just a bit better known.

Key details – Length: 368 pages; Publisher: Mudlark; ISBN: 978-0008293338

Ramble Book: Musings on Childhood, Friendship, Family and 80s Pop Culture

5. conundrum by jan morris: best trans and gender dysphoria autobiography.

Jan Morris was born James Humphry Morris in Somerset in 1926, and died in Wales in 2020. She underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1972, after travelling to Morocco for the procedure. Two years later, she wrote Conundrum, in which she told the story of her transition. It was re-released in 2018.

Morris is best known as a travel writer, and that career took her to Everest with Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, to Fiji, to Suez during the crisis and, memorably, to Italy. Her work on Venice is of particular note. But Conundrum is something else entirely. It’s an internal journey – a journey home in many respects – that sets out its stall at the very beginning.

“I was three or perhaps four years old when I realised that I had been born into the wrong body, and should really be a girl,” she writes. “I remember the moment well, and it is the earliest memory of my life.” What follows is a highly evocative sentence, that hints at the beauty of the writing to come: “I was sitting beneath my mother’s piano, and her music was falling around me like cataracts, enclosing me as in a cave.”

Morris was far from alone in her conviction that she’d been born into the wrong body, but Britain was not a society in which she was free to undertake the necessary transition on her own terms and, “for forty years… a sexual purpose dominated, distracted and tormented my life: the tragic and irrational ambition, instinctively formulated but deliberately pursued, to escape from maleness into womanhood… each year my longing to live as a woman grew more urgent, as my male body seemed to grow harder around me”.

It’s impossible not to fall in love with Morris’ style. That her subject matter is one so rarely discussed makes this short autobiography all the more engaging.

Key details – Length: 160 pages; Publisher: Faber & Faber; ISBN: 978-0571341139

6. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah: Best race history autobiography

“I was nine years old when my mother threw me out of a moving car.” She was saving his life. Noah was born in apartheid South Africa, to a black mother and white father, at a time when inter-racial relationships were illegal. It was a world and a time “where violence was always lurking and waiting to erupt… Had I lived a different life, getting thrown out of a speeding minibus might have fazed me. I’d have stood there like an idiot… but there was none of that. Mom said ‘run’ and I ran. Like the gazelle runs from the lion, I ran.”

It’s a story that will thankfully be unfamiliar to a large part of its audience. For a white reader with no experience of the political system under which he came into the world, it’s difficult to comprehend Noah’s need to remain hidden and so often confined to the house. Apartheid came to an end when Noah was still a child, but even in the wake of that momentous event the fall out was unequal and extreme.

“What I do remember, what I will never forget,” he writes, “is the violence that followed. The triumph of democracy over apartheid is sometimes called the Bloodless Revolution. It is called that because very little white blood was spilled. Black blood ran in the streets.”

Today, as the host of The Daily Show, Noah has been named as one of the most powerful people in New York media. To have reached such heights after so difficult a start in life makes this story all the more remarkable.

For younger readers, there’s also a YA version of this book, at £8.17 .

Key details – Length: 304 pages; Publisher: John Murray; ISBN: 978-1473635302

Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

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Blog – Posted on Monday, Jan 21

The 30 best biographies of all time.

Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”

At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction .

All the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels , if not more so. With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time — some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great biographies out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized biography recommendation  😉

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1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

This biography of esteemed mathematician John Nash was both a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and the basis for the award-winning film of the same name. Nasar thoroughly explores Nash’s prestigious career, from his beginnings at MIT to his work at the RAND Corporation — as well the internal battle he waged against schizophrenia, a disorder that nearly derailed his life.

2. Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film The Imitation Game - Updated Edition by Andrew Hodges

Hodges’ 1983 biography of Alan Turing sheds light on the inner workings of this brilliant mathematician, cryptologist, and computer pioneer. Indeed, despite the title ( a nod to his work during WWII ), a great deal of the “enigmatic” Turing is laid out in this book. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during the war, his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and of course, the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s — when homosexual acts were still a crime punishable by English law.

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical, but also a work of creative genius itself. This massive undertaking of over 800 pages details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life: from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid (and ultimately career-destroying) affair with Maria Reynolds. He may never have been president, but he was a fascinating and unique figure in American history — plus it’s fun to get the truth behind the songs.

Prefer to read about fascinating First Ladies rather than almost-presidents? Check out this awesome list of books about First Ladies over on The Archive.

4. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston

A prolific essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Hurston turned her hand to biographical writing in 1927 with this incredible work, kept under lock and key until it was published 2018. It’s based on Hurston’s interviews with the last remaining survivor of the Middle Passage slave trade, a man named Cudjo Lewis. Rendered in searing detail and Lewis’ highly affecting African-American vernacular, this biography of the “last black cargo” will transport you back in time to an era that, chillingly, is not nearly as far away from us as it feels.

5. Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

Though many a biography of him has been attempted, Gilbert’s is the final authority on Winston Churchill — considered by many to be Britain’s greatest prime minister ever. A dexterous balance of in-depth research and intimately drawn details makes this biography a perfect tribute to the mercurial man who led Britain through World War II.

Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book, which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight, Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the equation, replacing the \'dominion of matter\' with \'a great stillness\'--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly frightening.

Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character, which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change the world. --Gregory McNamee

6. E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

This “biography of the world’s most famous equation” is a one-of-a-kind take on the genre: rather than being the story of Einstein, it really does follow the history of the equation itself. From the origins and development of its individual elements (energy, mass, and light) to their ramifications in the twentieth century, Bodanis turns what could be an extremely dry subject into engaging fare for readers of all stripes.

7. Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

When Enrique was only five years old, his mother left Honduras for the United States, promising a quick return. Eleven years later, Enrique finally decided to take matters into his own hands in order to see her again: he would traverse Central and South America via railway, risking his life atop the “train of death” and at the hands of the immigration authorities, to reunite with his mother. This tale of Enrique’s perilous journey is not for the faint of heart, but it is an account of incredible devotion and sharp commentary on the pain of separation among immigrant families.

8. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

Herrera’s 1983 biography of renowned painter Frida Kahlo, one of the most recognizable names in modern art, has since become the definitive account on her life. And while Kahlo no doubt endured a great deal of suffering (a horrific accident when she was eighteen, a husband who had constant affairs), the focal point of the book is not her pain. Instead, it’s her artistic brilliance and immense resolve to leave her mark on the world — a mark that will not soon be forgotten, in part thanks to Herrera’s dedicated work.

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Perhaps the most impressive biographical feat of the twenty-first century, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about a woman whose cells completely changed the trajectory of modern medicine. Rebecca Skloot skillfully commemorates the previously unknown life of a poor black woman whose cancer cells were taken, without her knowledge, for medical testing — and without whom we wouldn’t have many of the critical cures we depend upon today.

10. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992. Five months later, McCandless was found emaciated and deceased in his shelter — but of what cause? Krakauer’s biography of McCandless retraces his steps back to the beginning of the trek, attempting to suss out what the young man was looking for on his journey, and whether he fully understood what dangers lay before him.

11. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families by James Agee

"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” From this line derives the central issue of Agee and Evans’ work: who truly deserves our praise and recognition? According to this 1941 biography, it’s the barely-surviving sharecropper families who were severely impacted by the American “Dust Bowl” — hundreds of people entrenched in poverty, whose humanity Evans and Agee desperately implore their audience to see in their book.

12. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Another mysterious explorer takes center stage in this gripping 2009 biography. Grann tells the story of Percy Fawcett, the archaeologist who vanished in the Amazon along with his son in 1925, supposedly in search of an ancient lost city. Parallel to this narrative, Grann describes his own travels in the Amazon 80 years later: discovering firsthand what threats Fawcett may have encountered, and coming to realize what the “Lost City of Z” really was.

13. Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Though many of us will be familiar with the name Mao Zedong, this prodigious biography sheds unprecedented light upon the power-hungry “Red Emperor.” Chang and Halliday begin with the shocking statistic that Mao was responsible for 70 million deaths during peacetime — more than any other twentieth-century world leader. From there, they unravel Mao’s complex ideologies, motivations, and missions, breaking down his long-propagated “hero” persona and thrusting forth a new, grislier image of one of China’s biggest revolutionaries.

14. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson by Andrew Wilson

Titled after one of her most evocative poems, this shimmering bio of Sylvia Plath takes an unusual approach. Instead of focusing on her years of depression and tempestuous marriage to poet Ted Hughes, it chronicles her life before she ever came to Cambridge. Wilson closely examines her early family and relationships, feelings and experiences, with information taken from her meticulous diaries — setting a strong precedent for other Plath biographers to follow.

15. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

What if you had twenty-four different people living inside you, and you never knew which one was going to come out? Such was the life of Billy Milligan, the subject of this haunting biography by the author of Flowers for Algernon . Keyes recounts, in a refreshingly straightforward style, the events of Billy’s life and how his psyche came to be “split”... as well as how, with Keyes’ help, he attempted to put the fragments of himself back together.

16. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

This gorgeously constructed biography follows Paul Farmer, a doctor who’s worked for decades to eradicate infectious diseases around the globe, particularly in underprivileged areas. Though Farmer’s humanitarian accomplishments are extraordinary in and of themselves, the true charm of this book comes from Kidder’s personal relationship with him — and the sense of fulfillment the reader sustains from reading about someone genuinely heroic, written by someone else who truly understands and admires what they do.

17. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

Here’s another bio that will reshape your views of a famed historical tyrant, though this time in a surprisingly favorable light. Decorated scholar Andrew Roberts delves into the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his near-flawless military instincts to his complex and confusing relationship with his wife. But Roberts’ attitude toward his subject is what really makes this work shine: rather than ridiculing him ( as it would undoubtedly be easy to do ), he approaches the “petty tyrant” with a healthy amount of deference.

18. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert A. Caro

Lyndon Johnson might not seem as intriguing or scandalous as figures like Kennedy, Nixon, or W. Bush. But in this expertly woven biography, Robert Caro lays out the long, winding road of his political career, and it’s full of twists you wouldn’t expect. Johnson himself was a surprisingly cunning figure, gradually maneuvering his way closer and closer to power. Finally, in 1963, he got his greatest wish — but at what cost? Fans of Adam McKay’s Vice , this is the book for you.

19. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

Anyone who grew up reading Little House on the Prairie will surely be fascinated by this tell-all biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Caroline Fraser draws upon never-before-published historical resources to create a lush study of the author’s life — not in the gently narrated manner of the Little House series, but in raw and startling truths about her upbringing, marriage, and volatile relationship with her daughter (and alleged ghostwriter) Rose Wilder Lane.

20. Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled just after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot of Prince’s life is actually a largely visual work — Shahidi served as his private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. And whatever they say about pictures being worth a thousand words, Shahidi’s are worth more still: Prince’s incredible vibrance, contagious excitement, and altogether singular personality come through in every shot.

21. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

Could there be a more fitting title for a book about the husband-wife team who discovered radioactivity? What you may not know is that these nuclear pioneers also had a fascinating personal history. Marie Sklodowska met Pierre Curie when she came to work in his lab in 1891, and just a few years later they were married. Their passion for each other bled into their passion for their work, and vice-versa — and in almost no time at all, they were on their way to their first of their Nobel Prizes.

22. Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

She may not have been assassinated or killed in a mysterious plane crash, but Rosemary Kennedy’s fate is in many ways the worst of “the Kennedy Curse.” As if a botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Yet in this new biography, penned by devoted Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of Rosemary’s post-lobotomy life is at last revealed.

23. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

This appropriately lyrical biography of brilliant Jazz Age poet and renowned feminist, Edna St. Vincent Millay, is indeed a perfect balance of savage and beautiful. While Millay’s poetic work was delicate and subtle, the woman herself was feisty and unpredictable, harboring unusual and occasionally destructive habits that Milford fervently explores.

24. Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes

Holmes’ famous philosophy of “biography as pursuit” is thoroughly proven here in his first full-length biographical work. Shelley: The Pursuit details an almost feverish tracking of Percy Shelley as a dark and cutting figure in the Romantic period — reforming many previous historical conceptions about him through Holmes’ compelling and resolute writing.

25. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Another Gothic figure has been made newly known through this work, detailing the life of prolific horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson. Author Ruth Franklin digs deep into the existence of the reclusive and mysterious Jackson, drawing penetrating comparisons between the true events of her life and the dark nature of her fiction.

26. The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

Fans of Into the Wild and The Lost City of Z will find their next adventure fix in this 2017 book about Christopher Knight, a man who lived by himself in the Maine woods for almost thirty years. The tale of this so-called “last true hermit” will captivate readers who have always fantasized about escaping society, with vivid descriptions of Knight’s rural setup, his carefully calculated moves and how he managed to survive the deadly cold of the Maine winters.

27. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The man, the myth, the legend: Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, is properly immortalized in Isaacson’s masterful biography. It divulges the details of Jobs’ little-known childhood and tracks his fateful path from garage engineer to leader of one of the largest tech companies in the world — not to mention his formative role in other legendary companies like Pixar, and indeed within the Silicon Valley ecosystem as a whole.

28. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Olympic runner Louis Zamperini was just twenty-six when his US Army bomber crashed and burned in the Pacific, leaving him and two other men afloat on a raft for forty-seven days — only to be captured by the Japanese Navy and tortured as a POW for the next two and a half years. In this gripping biography, Laura Hillenbrand tracks Zamperini’s story from beginning to end… including how he embraced Christian evangelism as a means of recovery, and even came to forgive his tormentors in his later years.

29. Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff

Everyone knows of Vladimir Nabokov — but what about his wife, Vera, whom he called “the best-humored woman I have ever known”? According to Schiff, she was a genius in her own right, supporting Vladimir not only as his partner, but also as his all-around editor and translator. And she kept up that trademark humor throughout it all, inspiring her husband’s work and injecting some of her own creative flair into it along the way.

30. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

William Shakespeare is a notoriously slippery historical figure — no one really knows when he was born, what he looked like, or how many plays he wrote. But that didn’t stop Stephen Greenblatt, who in 2004 turned out this magnificently detailed biography of the Bard: a series of imaginative reenactments of his writing process, and insights on how the social and political ideals of the time would have influenced him. Indeed, no one exists in a vacuum, not even Shakespeare — hence the conscious depiction of him in this book as a “will in the world,” rather than an isolated writer shut up in his own musty study.

If you're looking for more inspiring nonfiction, check out this list of 30 engaging self-help books , or this list of the last century's best memoirs !

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Best of the Year: The 15 Best Bios and Memoirs of 2022

From ruminations on addiction and recovery to genre-bending blends of biography and cultural criticism, these are 2022's best memoirs.

This list is part of our Best of the Year collection, an obsessively curated selection of our editors' and listeners' favorite audio in 2022. Check out The Best of 2022 to see our top picks in every category.

There are few stories more compelling or more intimately told than those soul-baring memoirs that seek not just to recount the experiences of one's own life but to draw some greater commentary on the big existential questions. What does it mean to be human? What is our purpose in being here? How much of who we are is purely self-determined? How much is an amalgamation of all those who have left an impact on us? Like all great autobiographies, the very best memoirs of 2022 muse on those questions, contemplating everything from the impact of art and culture on identity to navigating the labyrinthine worlds of grief and illness, addiction and recovery. Exceptional in both their prose and narration, these listens represent a few of the year's best memoirs.

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Constructing a Nervous System

Audible's Memoir of the Year, 2022 To call Margo Jefferson’s exquisite Constructing a Nervous System a memoir is a bit of a misnomer. After all, this skillfully crafted autobiography dances between genres so fluidly, leaping from the personal to deft cultural analysis in a dazzling display of narrative choreography. Jefferson constructs this stunner of a memoir through a literary lens, one that all but embodies the artists she riffs off of and analyzes, developing a story of the self through the creations, personalities, and perspectives of other artists. In a totally unique style that splinters the form of memoir altogether and frequently sees the text in dialogue with itself, this sharp listen illuminates that so much of who we are is built upon what we love and the things we encounter—be it the lasting presence of a late family member or a voice rising from a turntable. — Alanna M.

Told through the perspective of his nine-year-old self, Javier Zamora’s Solito is a moving account of his perilous, exhausting solo journey from El Salvador to the United States, where his parents awaited him. Zamora was entirely reliant on the support and compassion of his fellow migrants to survive—a story that is both his own and shared by many. Zamora is a poet first, and his delivery is pitch-perfect, lending a lyrical cadence and a well of emotion to an already beautifully crafted memoir. His voice, at times quivering, small, or uncertain, much like his young self, is wielded as an instrument of the story, not an appendix, reminding the listener of the human beings behind the statistics and political platforms. — A.M.

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?

There are some sounds I consider synonymous with my Irish heritage: the slap of ghillies and the clack of reel shoes, the melodic jaunt of lilting or swell of an accordion, and the entrancing lull of a good story. The latter is embodied in Séamas O’Reilly’s tender retrospective on grief, family, and childhood, all amidst the din of the Troubles. However, a dry tearjerker this is not. Instead, whether musing on his father’s unmatched haggling abilities or offering asides on the oddities of death’s theatrics, O’Reilly brings so much joy and soul into his story that it’s impossible not to smile along. There is simply so much love, life, and heart in this rich memoir that you can almost hear it breathing. — A.M.

The Invisible Kingdom

In this deeply researched and insightful memoir, author Meghan O’Rourke illuminates how chronic illness has become the defining medical mystery of our times, and the source of a painful dissonance between the promises of modern medicine and the lived experiences of so many. Drawing on her own health issues as well as her background as a poet, O’Rourke weaves insights from doctors, patients, researchers, and other experts into a captivating and lyrical narrative. The current spotlight that long COVID has thrown on autoimmune and other “invisible” conditions is a central focus of the memoir, and many people will feel seen—and hopefully heard—by the eloquent voice O’Rourke gives to a monumental challenge. — Kat J.

Lost & Found

I’ve always found something peculiar about “loss” as a euphemism for death. Even still, it feels so apt—that sense that something is missing, at first an acute awareness and in time, an understanding of that absence’s permanence. Kathryn Schulz pulls on this thread in her gorgeous memoir Lost & Found , an account of the universality and ubiquity of those two most human experiences—love and death—as filtered through the loss of her father and the life she built with her wife. As someone muddling through a similar grief journey while trying to nurture a relationship of my own, I found a resonant comfort and hope in Schulz’s thoughts on bereavement and all the life there is still left to lead. — A.M.

What My Bones Know

As someone with a mood disorder, I find solace in listens that take new avenues for exploring the complicated and often isolating side effects of mental health conditions. Reconstructing her experiences with guided meditation and using recordings from real therapy sessions, Stephanie Foo takes a highly journalistic approach to dissecting her CPTSD diagnosis in this vulnerable and intelligent memoir. Unpacking how and why her trauma affects her the way it does, What My Bones Know is not only uniquely suited for audio but constructs a creative audio experience that challenged me as a listener in unexpected and illuminating ways. — Haley H.

Quite the Contrary

This juicy and culturally significant listen, which happens to be the memoir of one of my Audible colleagues, is one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of gulping down. In Quite the Contrary, Yvonne Durant gradually unfurls the mother of all cocktail-party stories—the intimate account of her love affair with jazz legend Miles Davis—against her equally compelling career trajectory as a rare Black woman making waves in advertising’s competitive heyday. Witty, poignant, and funny, Durant lets us into secret spaces of celebrity, culture, and bygone New York, unforgettably brought to life by narrator Allyson Johnson. — K.J.

His Name Is George Floyd (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

This landmark biography from Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa is built on more than 400 interviews conducted in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, offering the most complete portrait of Floyd’s life and legacy to date. Star narrator Dion Graham pairs with the authors to create a powerhouse performance that moves from Floyd’s ancestral roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina to the housing projects of Houston and his death at the hands of Minneapolis police, paying homage to his life while revealing its deep intersections with America’s history of racism and inequality. — H.H.

To fans of Brandon Stanton's street photography project and bestselling book Humans of New York, Stephanie Johnson—better known as Tanqueray—is nothing short of a superstar. So, to finally hear the septuagenarian share more unfiltered, incredible stories about being a burlesque dancer in 1970s New York City—and many other necessary reinventions to survive life's ups and downs—in her own feisty, raunchy, badass way is a milestone storytelling event that is at times hilarious as well as heartbreaking. Millions fell in love with her indomitable spirit by reading about her life on social media, but listening to this legendary lady is unforgettable. As she says: "Make room for Tanqueray, because here I come." — Jerry P.

The Book of Baraka

Told in collaboration with renowned journalist Jelani Cobb, The Book of Baraka combines poetry and prose with the history that helped to shape Ras Baraka, the current mayor of Newark, New Jersey, into the man he is today. It’s the story of a young Black boy’s coming of age as the son of one of the most influential and controversial poets and revolutionaries of the era but also of how that boy would later shape his city—first as a poet, then as an educator, and now, as mayor. As a former resident of Newark myself, I have nothing but praise for Baraka’s accomplishments. But don’t just take it from me. His is a story you definitely don’t want to miss out on, and it should be heard from the mayor himself. — Michael C.

Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for any story involving animals, particularly when those little critters are of the motley variety. Needless to say, I was drawn to Laurie Zaleski’s Funny Farm immediately. An account of running a rescue for beasties ranging from cats to horses? That ridiculously cute cover? Sign me up. What I didn’t expect, however, was a truly affecting memoir that extended far beyond barnyard antics, exploring the depths of Zaleski’s difficult childhood, her mother’s remarkable strength, and carrying on a mission inherited. So sure, come for the adorable furry and feathered friends, but stay for the author’s graceful, heartrending tribute to her late mother and a testament to the redemptive power of caring for others, four-legged or otherwise. — A.M.

Fatty Fatty Boom Boom

If you’re a fan of true crime podcasts, you probably already know Rabia Chaudry’s euphonic voice—as host of both Undisclosed and Rabia and Ellyn Solve the Case , her skills behind the microphone are well documented. Chaudry's gifts for performance and storytelling shine the clearer in her deeply personal debut memoir. So named in reference to Chaudry’s childhood nickname, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom is an immensely relatable listen for anyone who has ever battled body image issues, a rumination on those most complicated relationships (with both food and family), and a love letter to Pakistani cuisine. — A.M.

Also a Poet

A true blend of biography and memoir, Ada Calhoun’s Also a Poet is a fascinating gem of a listen. Calhoun, the author behind nonfiction listens like Why We Can’t Sleep and St. Marks Is Dead , turns her eye toward a subject matter far closer to home. In examining her strained, complicated relationship with her father, the acclaimed art critic Peter Schjeldahl, Calhoun comes across an unexpected connection between them: the late bohemian poet Frank O’Hara. Twisting in its exploration of family, legacy, and art, this Audible Original—which features exclusive archival audio of artistic giants—is an evocative act of catharsis. — A.M.

Corrections in Ink

Journalist Keri Blakinger has dedicated much of her career to shining a light on the stark realities of criminal justice in America. Her ongoing work with nonprofit news collective The Marshall Project aims to provide a better quality of life for prisoners, with Blakinger advocating for inmate safety and well-being while underscoring their oft-disregarded humanity. But Blakinger’s focus isn’t merely academic—as detailed in Corrections in Ink , she’s lived through the prison system herself. Employing well-crafted, blazing prose and narration marked by an uncommon frankness, she recounts her battle with addiction and subsequent incarceration. Listening to her story is sometimes difficult, painful even, but that’s part of its power—this is a courageous, contemplative memoir poised to change the conversation. — A.M.

Dirtbag, Massachusetts

Kidlit author Isaac Fitzgerald rocketed into the capital-L literary landscape with this astounding memoir-in-essays, its instantly iconic title matched by an unforgettable voice. With his origins firmly in Massachusetts, Fitzgerald grew up with a love of literature and a bohemian sensibility that transcended his rough-and-tumble background and its narrow presentation of masculinity. That foundation serves him well in this fiercely honest, vulnerable, and rowdy collection of reminiscences that range from Boston to Burma (now Myanmar), connecting the dots from Fitzgerald’s former lives as an altar boy, fat kid, and small-time criminal to lightning-bolt musings on religion, race, body image, and family. Both literally and literarily speaking, his voice is one to savor. — K.J.

Best of the Year: The 14 Best Celebrity Memoirs of 2022

Despite the glitz and glamour, these celebrity memoirs take us through the highs and lows of the human experience.

Editors Select: May 2024

14 new listens our editors say you can't miss — from fiction to romance to thrillers, check out our most anticipated listens of the month.

The birth of "Quite the Contrary"

Debut memoirist and Audible editor Yvonne Durant goes behind the scenes of how the true story of her great love and pioneering career came to life as an Audible Original.

• Best of 2022
• Best of the Year

100 Best Autobiography Books of All Time

We've researched and ranked the best autobiography books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more

Tara Westover | 5.00

Bill Gates Tara never went to school or visited a doctor until she left home at 17. I never thought I’d relate to a story about growing up in a Mormon survivalist household, but she’s such a good writer that she got me to reflect on my own life while reading about her extreme childhood. Melinda and I loved this memoir of a young woman whose thirst for learning was so strong that she ended up getting a Ph.D.... (Source)

Barack Obama As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018... (Source)

Alexander Stubb If you read or listen to only one book this summer, this is it. Bloody brilliant! Every word, every sentence. Rarely do I go through a book with such a rollecoaster of emotion, from love to hate. Thank you for sharing ⁦@tarawestover⁩ #Educated https://t.co/GqLaqlcWMp (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

Michelle Obama | 5.00

Barack Obama Of course, @MichelleObama’s my wife, so I’m a little biased here. But she also happens to be brilliant, funny, wise – one of a kind. This book tells her quintessentially American story. I love it because it faithfully reflects the woman I have loved for so long. (Source)

Piers Morgan Congrats to @MichelleObama on sensational sales of her new book #Becoming. I always take people as I find them & when I met her at the White House, she was a delightfully warm, friendly & genuine lady. A great First Lady & now a best-selling author. https://t.co/nlSUHI01SM (Source)

Randi Zuckerberg "I love the book Becoming by @MichelleObama and Creative Curve by Allen Gannett." @GoldieChan (Source)

Born a Crime

Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah | 4.88

Bill Gates As a longtime fan of The Daily Show, I loved reading this memoir about how its host honed his outsider approach to comedy over a lifetime of never quite fitting in. Born to a black South African mother and a white Swiss father in apartheid South Africa, he entered the world as a biracial child in a country where mixed race relationships were forbidden. Much of Noah’s story of growing up in South... (Source)

Mark Suster Please don't read @Trevornoah's book "Born a Crime." It's such a remarkable story that you need to hear him narrate it on @audible_com. You'll laugh out loud, cry, get angry, be in disbelief. You'll have many "driveway moments" where you can't stop even though you're home (Source)

Heather Zynczak So excited for our latest speaker announcement for #PSLIVE19! Trevor Noah! I am a huge @TheDailyShow fan! And his book -Born a Crime -and life story are amazing. Can't wait! Join us! https://t.co/N6ykJq7TOy https://t.co/r0dIx5RFVI (Source)

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl, William J. Winslade, et al. | 4.83

Tony Robbins Another book that I’ve read dozens of times. It taught me that if you change the meaning, you change everything. Meaning equals emotion, and emotion equals life. (Source)

Jimmy Fallon I read it while spending ten days in the ICU of Bellevue hospital trying to reattach my finger from a ring avulsion accident in my kitchen. It talks about the meaning of life, and I believe you come out a better person from reading it. (Source)

Dustin Moskovitz [Dustin Moskovitz recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank, B.M. Mooyaart, Eleanor Roosevelt | 4.83

Tim Fargo @Quixoticnance Good point, Nancy. The museum is a powerful experience, esp. when you've read her book. (Source)

Catalina Penciu I'm a huge fan of personal stories and biographies like this one. (Source)

Alice Little I remember being a fourth grader and trying to check out [this book] and being told it was grossly inappropriate and going so far as to have my parents take it to the school board and petition for me to be allowed to read this book. (Source)

The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls | 4.72

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese | 4.71

Bill Gates I don’t know how Kalanithi found the physical strength to write this book while he was so debilitated by the disease and then potent chemotherapy. But I’m so glad he did. He spent his whole brief life searching for meaning in one way or another -- through books, writing, medicine, surgery, and science. I’m grateful that, by reading this book, I got to witness a small part of that journey. I just... (Source)

Ryan Holiday Despite its popularity, When Breath Becomes Air is actually underrated. It’s make-you-cry good. (Source)

Bethany S. Mandel More Shabbat reading recommendations: This book was breathtaking and such a powerful advertisement for the joy of parenthood. https://t.co/V8BH97eiL9 (Source)

A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE

Phil Knight | 4.67

Bill Gates This memoir, by the co-founder of Nike, is a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like: messy, precarious, and riddled with mistakes. I’ve met Knight a few times over the years. He’s super nice, but he’s also quiet and difficult to get to know. Here Knight opens up in a way few CEOs are willing to do. I don’t think Knight sets out to teach the reader... (Source)

Warren Buffett The best book I read last year. Phil is... a gifted storyteller. (Source)

Andre Agassi I've known Phil Knight since I was a kid, but I didn't really know him until I opened this beautiful, startling, intimate book. And the same goes for Nike. I've worn the gear with pride, but I didn't realize the remarkable saga of innovation and survival and triumph that stood behind every swoosh. Candid, funny, suspenseful, literary - this is a memoir for people who love sport, but above all... (Source)

Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel | 4.60

Johanna Reiss Elie Wiesel wrote..that he was considering running into the barbed wire once, but he didn’t because his father needed him. (Source)

Steven Katz Probably the best known memoir that has been written about the experience of the death camps. (Source)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Malcolm X, M. S. Handler, Ossie Davis, Attallah Shabazz, Alex Haley | 4.60

Casey Neistat Aside from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Casey's favorite book is The Second World War by John Keegan. (Source)

Ryan Holiday I forget who said it but I heard someone say that Catcher in the Rye was to young white boys what the Autobiography of Malcolm X was to young black boys. Personally, I prefer that latter over the former. I would much rather read about and emulate a man who is born into adversity and pain, struggles with criminality, does prison time, teaches himself to read through the dictionary, finds religion... (Source)

Keith Ellison Malcolm X is somebody that everybody in America’s prisons today could look at and say, ‘You know what, I can emerge, I can evolve' (Source)

Don't have time to read the top Autobiography books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

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Tina Fey | 4.59

Sheryl Sandberg I absolutely loved Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and didn't want it to end. It's hilarious as well as important. Not only was I laughing on every page, but I was nodding along, highlighting and dog-earing like crazy. [...] It is so, so good. As a young girl, I was labeled bossy, too, so as a former - O.K., current - bossypants, I am grateful to Tina for being outspoken, unapologetic and hysterically... (Source)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey | 4.55

Richard Branson Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Bianca Belair For #BlackHistoryMonth I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 5th Book: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings By: Maya Angelou Another autobiography classic that will be hard to not find on any must- read book list! https://t.co/mGRG76lLRn (Source)

Julia Enthoven I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is beautifully written, and I really enjoy the voice of the protagonist and think it’s sad and fascinating to read about her time in history. (Source)

Hillbilly Elegy

A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

J. D. Vance | 4.49

Bill Gates The disadvantaged world of poor white Appalachia described in this terrific, heartbreaking book is one that I know only vicariously. Vance was raised largely by his loving but volatile grandparents, who stepped in after his father abandoned him and his mother showed little interest in parenting her son. Against all odds, he survived his chaotic, impoverished childhood only to land at Yale Law... (Source)

Ryan Holiday In terms of other surprising memoirs, I found JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy to be another well-written gem. (Source)

Ben Shapiro A very well-written book. [...] The whole thing is a critique of individual decisions. (Source)

I Am Malala

The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb | 4.48

Adrienne Kisner Malala’s story of triumph is a battle cry for girls (and boys) everywhere. Education can set you free. (Source)

The Hiding Place

The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie Ten Boom, John Sherrill, et al. | 4.48

Alison Alvarez What I really took with me from the book were the descriptions of how she dealt with the stress of solitary confinement and eventually the Ravensbruck concentration camp. I adapted some of her techniques for keeping her mind occupied to deal with my own problems with anxiety and worry. Also, it’s a book with a surprising amount of joy in it for subject matter that is so dark. (Source)

A Child Called "It" (Dave Pelzer, #1)

Dave Pelzer | 4.46

Andre Agassi | 4.46

Bill Gates [On Bill Gates's reading list in 2011.] (Source)

Yaro Starak I don’t just read business biographies. I’m a huge tennis fan, so I’ve read a lot of tennis biographies: John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Scott Draper, Rod Laver. There’s so many I’ve read over the years, Jimmy Connors, great, I love it because I love reading the “behind the scenes” stories, the more “soap opera” aspect of tennis, I guess it’s a little bit like my soap opera sometimes. (Source)

Ian Cassel Such an amazing book https://t.co/IbVT7G9LDY (Source)

From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Cheryl Strayed | 4.44

Nancy Goldstone I found the narrative honest and riveting. The author used the journey through the hiking trail to work out her problems. (Source)

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

Adventures of a Curious Character

Richard P. Feynman, Ralph Leighton, Edward Hutchings, Albert R. Hibbs | 4.43

Sergey Brin Brin told the Academy of Achievement: "Aside from making really big contributions in his own field, he was pretty broad-minded. I remember he had an excerpt where he was explaining how he really wanted to be a Leonardo [da Vinci], an artist and a scientist. I found that pretty inspiring. I think that leads to having a fulfilling life." (Source)

Larry Page Google co-founder has listed this book as one of his favorites. (Source)

Peter Attia The book I’ve recommended most. (Source)

A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen King | 4.42

Mark Manson I read a bunch of books on writing before I wrote my first book and the two that stuck with me were Stephen King’s book and “On Writing Well” by Zinsser (which is a bit on the technical side). (Source)

Jennifer Rock If you are interested in writing and communication, start with reading and understanding the technical aspects of the craft: The Elements of Style. On Writing Well. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. (Source)

Benjamin Spall [Question: What five books would you recommend to youngsters interested in your professional path?] On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft by Stephen King, [...] (Source)

The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow, et al | 4.40

Gabriel Coarna I read "The Last Lecture" because I had seen Randy Pausch give this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo (Source)

A Family Tragicomic

Alison Bechdel | 4.39

Hillary Chute Alison has a strip that’s been running for a long time called Dykes to Watch Out For, but this is an autobiographical book. ‘Fun Home’ is short for the funeral home Alison’s dad ran when she was a child. It’s a book that blew me away and continues to blow me away every time I read it – and I must have read it five or six times by now: probably the best book I’ve read in the past ten years in any... (Source)

Amy Poehler | 4.39

Long Walk To Freedom

Nelson Mandela | 4.37

Bianca Belair For #BHM I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 21st Book: Long Walk to Freedom -Nelson Mandela Read about his journey from childhood to the struggles of living under apartheid to becoming a freedom fighter & leader of his country. He is inspirational! https://t.co/bdvZu0kbh0 (Source)

Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt, #1)

FrankF McCourt | 4.37

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

Mindy Kaling | 4.35

Angela Kinsey .@mindykaling I am rereading your book and cracking up. I appreciate your chapter on The Office so much more now. But all of it is fantastic. Thanks for starting my day with laughter. You know I loves ya. ❤️ https://t.co/EB99xnyt0p (Source)

Yashar Ali Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from @mindykaling's book (even though I'm an early riser): “There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.” https://t.co/pS56bmyYjS (Source)

Walter Isaacson | 4.34

Elon Musk Quite interesting. (Source)

Bill Gates [On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012.] (Source)

Gary Vaynerchuk I've read 3 business books in my life. If you call [this book] a business book. (Source)

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates | 4.32

Barack Obama The president also released a list of his summer favorites back in 2015: All That Is, James Salter The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (Source)

Jack Dorsey Q: What are the books that had a major influence on you? Or simply the ones you like the most. : Tao te Ching, score takes care of itself, between the world and me, the four agreements, the old man and the sea...I love reading! (Source)

Doug McMillon Here are some of my favorite reads from 2017. Lots of friends and colleagues send me book suggestions and it's impossible to squeeze them all in. I continue to be super curious about how digital and tech are enabling people to transform our lives but I try to read a good mix of books that apply to a variety of areas and stretch my thinking more broadly. (Source)

Brain on Fire

My Month of Madness

Susannah Cahalan | 4.32

Joann Corleyschwarzkopf Need a fun boost for your team? Want to jump-start great problem-solving? >Book a 1-hour #creativethinking, virtual experience & get a complimentary pdf copy - Brain on Fire: Unleashing Your Creative Superpowers! for each attendee #teambuilding Info here: https://t.co/j6hOxMJrNH https://t.co/b9hAxV90Mf (Source)

Jessica Flitter The readability for me is probably the key element for students—and maybe for teachers as well—because it’s a book that you really can’t put down. If that’s what we need to make students readers, then I’m all for it. (Source)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass | 4.30

Bianca Belair For #BlackHistoryMonth  I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 6th Book: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass By: Frederick Douglass The 1st of many autobiographies that he wrote, and another classic you will find on almost every must-read A.A list. https://t.co/v5PgGpoqxQ (Source)

Patti Smith | 4.29

Malcolm Gladwell I finished it in one sitting, then wept. It's that good. (Source)

Seth Godin This is the single best audiobook ever recorded by Patti Smith. It is not going to change the way you do business, but it might change the way you live. It's about love and loss and art. (Source)

Academic Batgirl This book helped me to see how my life as an academic is artful and creative, and gave me renewed faith in embracing risks, innovation, and taking on art with love and strength even when it’s frustrating or “success” is not assured. Recommend! 8/end https://t.co/tkWtSVY6b9 (Source)

Kitchen Confidential

Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Anthony Bourdain | 4.27

Eric Ripert I love that Tony’s world in the kitchen was filled with pirate-like renegades when mine was peopled with regimented professionals. How eye-opening and entertaining to read about the other side! (Source)

Jon Favreau Great book. (Source)

Jason Kottke This book is 18 years old but aside from some details, it felt as immediate and vital as when it came out. What a unique spirit we lost this year. (Source)

Dreams from My Father

A Story of Race and Inheritance

out of 5 stars2,17 | 4.26

Robert McCrum He is really is a globish president and a brilliant writer. He is of Kenyan origin, grew up in Kansas and Hawaii. His reference is Islam, America, Kenyan tribal customs, Indonesia. (Source)

The Complete Persepolis (Persepolis, #1-4)

Marjane Satrapi | 4.25

Orange Is the New Black

My Year in a Women's Prison

Piper Kerman | 4.25

The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1)

Pooneh Ghoddoosi I read the book and it was great, but more people saw the film because it was nominated for an Academy Award. And after seeing the movie, so many people I knew came up to me and told me that they thought it was exactly the story of my life. And not just me, but most of my Iranian friends had the same feeling of “Oh God, that could have been me, I could have written that book – it could have been... (Source)

Eat, Pray, Love

Elizabeth Gilbert | 4.25

Chelsea Frank I read everything with an open mind, often challenging myself by choosing books with an odd perspective or religious/spiritual views. These books do not reflect my personal feelings but are books that helped shape my perspective on life, love, and happiness. (Source)

Gabriel Coarna I started reading "Eat, Pray, Love" as soon as I finished watching Elizabeth Gilbert give this talk. (Source)

The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Mahatma Gandhi's Autobiography with a Foreword by the Gandhi Research Foundation

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, D. Fog, Mahadev Desai | 4.22

Barack Obama According to the president’s Facebook page and a 2008 interview with the New York Times, this title is among his most influential forever favorites. (Source)

Tim Cook I have two books going right now: One is the Bobby Kennedy book [“Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon,” by Larry Tye] that just came out. The other is quite an old book. It’s a Gandhi book [“Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth”] that I got interested in because we went to the Gandhi museum when we were in India recently. I tend to like nonfiction and... (Source)

Cory Booker A profound read. (Source)

The 5 Love Languages

The Secret to Love that Lasts

Gary Chapman and Oasis Audi | 4.21

Kaci Lambe Kai The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman impacted how I interpret and receive love. Not just romantically, but in my friendships and business relationships. I had several personal and professional relationships that improved when I could appreciate that their "love language" was different than mine. I could at least see their efforts as an attempt at showing me love and kindness, even if it wasn't... (Source)

Pedro Cortés The books that had the biggest impact are the ones that are controversial and challenge people's beliefs around work, relationships, life, and money most of them were things I already thought about (that's how I found them or decided to read them) but just by putting it in an actionable and structured way it made me think 100x more clearly about my goals and beliefs. Such examples could be the... (Source)

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

Felicia Day, Joss Whedon | 4.20

Simon Cocking A great book for millennials and beyond. Review of You're Never Weird On The Internet by @feliciaday https://t.co/f8zMiInP0Z @SimonCocking @Irish_TechNews @joss https://t.co/OdLSGIlbjD (Source)

Born Standing Up

A Comic's Life

Steve Martin | 4.17

Adam Savage On a big road trip, I read it out loud to my wife, she read it out loud to me. Then we got the audio book and we listened to Steve Martin read it. (Source)

James Altucher And while you are at it, throw in “Bounce” by Mathew Syed, who was the UK Ping Pong champion when he was younger. I love any book where someone took their passion, documented it, and shared it with us. That’s when you can see the subleties, the hard work, the luck, the talent, the skill, all come together to form a champion. Heck, throw in, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Earth” by Commander Chris... (Source)

Bill Nye This is the story of my hero. The guy who inspired me to do what I do now. (Source)

The Story of My Life

Helen Keller | 4.17

Craig Brown I only vaguely knew about her myself to begin with. I think she’s more famous in America, and deserves to be. Helen Keller, who died in 1968, was deaf, dumb and blind. She was struck deaf and blind by meningitis at the age of 18 months, which makes you “dumb” as you don’t know what other people are saying. (Source)

Hyperbole and a Half

Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Allie Brosh | 4.17

Bill Gates While she self-deprecatingly depicts herself in words and art as an odd outsider, we can all relate to her struggles. Rather than laughing at her, you laugh with her. It is no hyperbole to say I love her approach -- looking, listening, and describing with the observational skills of a scientist, the creativity of an artist, and the wit of a comedian. (Source)

Three Daughters of China

Jung Chang | 4.16

Vishakha Desai To me Wild Swans is one of those iconic books for understanding the generations of Chinese women. She is from this amazing intellectual family and it’s about what happens to them. The book just has this tremendous power. It’s an amazing journey. It’s about what women do to survive and also how they suffer. (Source)

Harry Wu Wild Swans is talking about people who are living at the highest level of society but they are still suffering persecution and live in fear. And the peasants in the village became slaves, they became nothing. So what the book does brilliantly is give a real insight into what life was like for ordinary people against the backdrop of the ever-changing China. (Source)

Tales of Childhood (Roald Dahl's Autobiography, #1)

Roald Dahl | 4.16

Twelve Years a Slave

Solomon Northup | 4.15

Ryan Holiday I read two important memoirs from slaves as well, and strongly recommend 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup and A Slave in the White House about Paul Jennings. (Source)

Keith Richards | 4.15

Harry Khachatrian Binged Keith Richards’ autobiography, LIFE in about 3 days. Great book! Highly recommend it to anyone remotely interested in the Rolling Stones, blues, or music in general https://t.co/trzEHkvBgE (Source)

Scrappy Little Nobody

Anna Kendrick | 4.14

Talking as Fast as I Can

From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)

Lauren Graham and Random House Audi | 4.14

An Unquiet Mind

A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Kay Redfield Jamison | 4.14

Jonathan Glover Kay Redfield Jamison is a psychologist who has co-authored the major psychiatric textbook on manic depression. It authoritatively covers every aspect of the science, from genetics to pharmacology, and also has chapters on the links with creativity and on what the illness feels like. The chapters on the subjective experience are enriched with vivid quotations from patients. In her autobiography,... (Source)

Tanya Byron This is a divine book. A patient of mine who suffers with a bipolar illness, an absolutely inspiring young genius, recommended it to me. So I read it, and then we discussed it in a lot of our sessions together. (Source)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali | 4.13

A Long Way Gone

Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah | 4.13

American Sniper

The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen, Jim DeFelice | 4.13

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

A Mostly True Memoir

Jenny Lawson | 4.12

Why Not Me?

Mindy Kaling | 4.12

Permanent Record

Edward Snowden | 4.12

John Sargent Edward Snowden decided at the age of 29 to give up his entire future for the good of his country. He displayed enormous courage in doing so, and like him or not, his is an incredible American story. There is no doubt that the world is a better and more private place for his actions. Macmillan is enormously proud to publish Permanent Record. (Source)

Kara Swisher Btw @Snowden new book “Permanent Record” is quite good and surprisingly a love letter to the Internet as it was. (Source)

Me Talk Pretty One Day

David Sedaris | 4.12

All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1)

James Herriot | 4.11

Stories I Only Tell My Friends

An Autobiography

Rob Lowe | 4.11

Wishful Drinking

Carrie Fisher | 4.11

Tuesdays with Morrie

Mitch Albom | 4.10

Confessions

Saint Augustine and Henry Chadwic | 4.10

Susan Jacoby The Confessions is a book that everybody should read. It is seminal, if you can excuse the expression. (Source)

Carlos Eire St Augustine of Hippo was one of the first thinkers to struggle with the concepts of time, memory and eternity. (Source)

Richard Harries He was a wonderful, wonderful writer and a deeply passionate man. He was very sensual. (Source)

Into Thin Air

A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

Jon Krakauer | 4.09

Katie Phang @AshaRangappa_ @yashar It’s an amazing book! (Source)

Holger Seim eval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'theceolibrary_com-large-mobile-banner-2','ezslot_6',164,'0','1'])); When it comes to adventure stories, I love Into Thin Air. (Source)

The Art of the Deal

Donald J. Trump, Tony Schwartz | 4.08

Jim Hanson You already had Trump officials testifythey disagreed w/ @realDonaldTrump Interesting thing about executive power The executive has the power Not the advisers Here's a good book on it https://t.co/KGlUpucCNI Time for the acquittal https://t.co/xICCPPuvM5 (Source)

Marc M. Lalonde The easiest way to Clean Up my Friends List is to post this... I love this book! | Let's get to know each other a little. I'll start... Here's MY Story: https://t.co/o8gIl1TxR7 #AskLalonde #marcmlalonde #wealthy #inspiration https://t.co/6ULSKHiIj3 (Source)

Secret Agent Number Six The failing George W. Washington and his dad George H.W. Washington were fake Presidents. They did not think of The Constitution before I did.They stole all of my ideas for it from "The Art of the Deal" which you should read right now because its the best book ever. No collution! (Source)

Girl, Interrupted

Susanna Kaysen | 4.08

Rae Earl In this book and in her use of language she explores how the brain tumbles (Source)

Autobiography of a Yogi

Paramahansa Yogananda | 4.08

Steve Jobs One book in particular stayed with Jobs his entire life, and Isaacson noted that it was the only book Jobs had downloaded on his iPad 2: “Autobiography of a Yogi,” “the guide to meditation and spirituality that he had first read as a teenager,” Isaacson writes, “then re-read in India and had read once a year ever since.” (Source)

Marc Benioff If you haven't read it, and if you want to understand Steve Jobs, it's a goood idea to dip into [this book]. (Source)

Dominic Steil [One of the books that had the biggest impact on .] (Source)

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

Amy Schumer | 4.07

A Story of Justice and Redemption

1, 160 | 4.07

Chris Sacca Proud that @crystale and I could help fund the making of a film about one of our heroes, Bryan Stevenson. If you’ve read the book, then you know how powerful this film is. #JustMercy https://t.co/vNfXK4Imwr (Source)

Howard Schultz Perhaps one of the most powerful and important stories of our time. (Source)

Furiously Happy

A Funny Book About Horrible Things

Jenny Lawson | 4.06

The Princess Diarist

Carrie Fisher | 4.06

Running with Scissors

Augusten Burroughs | 4.05

This is Going to Hurt

Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

Adam Kay | 4.05

Quinn Cummings @lorapenza You might love @amateuradam's book. (Source)

Bob Dylan | 4.05

Greil Marcus Dylan has had a career of extraordinary richness and variety. Yet here he is writing a memoir that completely ignores everything which made him a world figure. It ignores all of his most famous songs, it ignores all the periods in which he was a great star. It’s all about times when he was trying to learn, when he was confused and lost but absolutely alive with the thrill of discovering new... (Source)

Troublemaker

Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

Leah Remini, Rebecca Paley | 4.05

The Ride of a Lifetime

Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

Robert Iger | 4.05

Brian Chesky Bob's book is great and he's an excellent CEO. (Source)

Brené Brown I expected a book written by the person who has led Disney for decades to be defined by both gripping storytelling and deep leadership wisdom. [The author] delivers, and then some! [This book] is leadership gold—you won’t forget the stories or the lessons. (Source)

Karlie Kloss [Karlie Kloss] says [this book] really inspired her to become a better boss. (Source)

Brown Girl Dreaming

Jacqueline Woodson | 4.04

Barack Obama In November 2014, Obama took a trip to D.C. independent bookstore Politics and Prose to honor small businesses and add to his personal library. Accompanied by daughters Malia and Sasha, POTUS picked up novels from the Redwall fantasy series by Brian Jacques, as well as some from the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park. He also added this title to his heavy bags. (Source)

Know My Name

Chanel Miller | 4.04

Marian Keyes Oh! So GREAT! If you're able, PLEASE read her powerful book. https://t.co/3itlgrS7Mz (Source)

Laura I. Gómez Finished Chanel Miller's book. My eyes and soil are still raw from emotion. What a powerful memoir. (Source)

Charlie Brinkhurstcuff Chanel Miller's book is breathtaking and painful (Source)

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Chris Hadfield | 4.03

Chris Goward Here are some of the books that have been very impactful for me, or taught me a new way of thinking: [...] An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. (Source)

Simon Carley Also love the idea of being a zero. Totally agree that some of my finest colleagues are that. I’m fact the doc I want to look after me in resus is defo a zero. (Read the book to find out why). (Source)

Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Ashlee Vance | 4.03

Richard Branson Elon Musk is a man after my own heart: a risk taker undaunted by setbacks and ever driven to ensure a bright future for humanity. Ashlee Vance's stellar biography captures Musk's remarkable life story and irrepressible spirit. (Source)

Casey Neistat I'm fascinated by Elon Musk, I own a Tesla, I read Ashlee Vance's biography on Elon Musk. I think he's a very interesting charachter. (Source)

Roxana Bitoleanu A business book I would definitely choose the biography of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance, because of Elon's strong, even extreme ambition to radically change the world, which I find very inspiring. (Source)

Wings of Fire

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Arun Tiwari | 4.03

Can't Hurt Me

Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

David Goggins | 4.03

Joe Rogan David Goggins is a being of pure will and inspiration. Just listening to this guy talk makes you want to run up a mountain. I firmly believe people like him can change the course of the world just by inspiring us to push harder and dig deeper in everything we do. His goal to be 'uncommon amongst uncommon people' is something we can all use to propel ourselves to fulfill our true potential. I'm a... (Source)

Barbara Oakley This week’s astonishing book is Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds, by David Goggins. David grew up in an unbelievably tough environment with a deeply abusive father. He experienced prejudice and poverty, and suffered learning difficulties that left him graduating from high school barely able to read or do math. He became a depressed, overweight young man with an attitude. But... (Source)

Wes Gray @davidgoggins , excited to hear you will be at @LTRaceSeries alongside the CAF team. Myself, @patrickcleary01 and @RyanPKirlin look forward to the challenge and we'll see you there. We all love your book and thanks for signing our copies! (Source)

Upstairs at the White House

My Life with the First Ladies

J. B. West and Mary Lynn Kotz | 4.03

A Stolen Life

Jaycee Dugard | 4.03

Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen | 4.03

Andi Dumitrescu I am currently reading: Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run, Einstein's Puzzle Universe, Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe and I am Ozzy. (I’m going through a physics and biographies period) (Source)

The Audacity of Hope

Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama | 4.03

Elton John | 4.02

Danny Baker I can confirm: The Elton John Book is fantastic, captain. (Source)

Glennon Doyle, Glennon Doyle Melton | 4.02

Laura Wright I am BEYOND excited to dive into UNTAMED by the incredible @glennondoyle. Her book Love Warrior changed my life Many of you message me and ask me how I found my happiness again - it truly started with this woman’s words !! Untamed is available in March https://t.co/uc7km6PC3X (Source)

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Haruki Murakami | 4.02

Brian Koppelman The single best distillation of the kind of focus, commitment, and sense of mission it takes to become a great artist. (Source)

Anant Jain On the non-business side of things, “What I Talk about When I Talk About Running” by Haruki Murakami is my recent favorite. I’m a long distance runner and I was extremely delighted to find out that one of the top fiction writers in the world draws a huge chunk of his inspiration from long distance running. In this book, Murakami beautifully connects running to writing, which are two skills close... (Source)

A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway, James Naughton, et al | 4.02

Mohsin Hamid We think of Hemingway as an American writer, but much of his writing is set outside of the United States, just as much of his life was set outside of the United States. (Source)

Janine di Giovanni The fact that Hemingway writes it as an old, rather bitter man trapped in his Idaho home with a bullying wife while he dreams of his youth in Paris with his first wife and child is so touching to me. (Source)

Wai Chee Dimock This is a memoir by Hemingway about his time in Paris, which includes sketches of people like F Scott Fitzgerald. (Source)

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath, Maggie Gyllenhaal, et al | 4.02

Bryony Gordon As a teenage girl, you have to read The Bell Jar. It’s a rite of passage. (Source)

The CEO Library Community (through anonymous form) One of the best 3 books I've read in 2019 (Source)

Tim Kendall Despite its subject matter, The Bell Jar is often a very funny novel. Perhaps we miss it because the pall of Plath’s biography descends across the whole work and reputation. But The Bell Jar is viciously funny. There are people still alive today who won’t talk about it because they were so badly hurt by Plath’s portrayal of them. (Source)

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Lori Gottlieb | 4.02

Arianna Huffington This is a daring, delightful, and transformative book. Lori Gottlieb takes us inside the most intimate of encounters as both clinician and patient and leaves us with a surprisingly fresh understanding of ourselves, one another, and the human condition. Her willingness to expose her own blind spots along with her patients’ shows us firsthand that we aren’t alone in our struggles and that maybe we... (Source)

Oliver Burkeman Gottlieb is a journalist and a writer, but she’s a working psychotherapist, and this is the story of a crisis in her own life, intertwined with a whole cast of characters based on her patients. They ring so incredibly true. (Source)

Andrea Barber My new favorite book 😍😍 @LoriGottlieb1 https://t.co/7iQsEH7sDa (Source)

As You Wish

Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride

Cary Elwes, Joe Layden, Rob Reiner | 4.01

Five Presidents

My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford

Clint Hill | 4.01

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Jean-Dominique Bauby, Jeremy Leggatt | 4.01

Henry David Thoreau | 4.01

Laura Dassow Walls The book that we love as Walden began in the journal entries that he wrote starting with his first day at the pond. (Source)

Roman Krznaric In 1845 the American naturalist went out to live in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Thoreau was one of the great masters of the art of simple living. (Source)

John Kaag There’s this idea that philosophy can blend into memoir and that, ideally, philosophy, at its best, is to help us through the business of living with people, within communities. This is a point that Thoreau’s Walden gave to me, as a writer, and why I consider it so valuable for today. (Source)

The Fry Chronicles (Memoir #2)

Stephen Fry | 4.01

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion | 4.00

Catalina Penciu I can't forget The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. (Source)

My Family and Other Animals (Corfu Trilogy #1)

Gerald Durrell | 4.00

M G Leonard It’s a real work of genius and needs to be kept on every child’s bedside table. (Source)

Scar Tissue

Anthony Kiedis and Larry Sloman | 4.00

Ella Botting Another book is Scar Tissue. I really resonate with those kind of stories, they stay with me and inspire me daily. (Source)

Marley and Me

Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

John Grogan | 4.00

Craig Pearce Prior to getting into books about business and startups, I read mostly fictional books, and mostly about dogs (think Marley and Me or The Art of Racing In The Rain). (Source)

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

These 12 Stunning Autobiographies Will Leave You in Wonder

By Mia Barzilay Freund

We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to win Wimbledon , run The Washington Post , or get drunk with Jimmy Buffett ? Through the best autobiographies and celebrity memoirs , we can access gripping true stories told in the words of the people who lived through them.

Translating experience into language is a creative act. Autobiography can be earnest or irreverent, playful or profound. Often, real life can be stranger than fiction. The best autobiographies bring us closer to remarkable people and circumstances—and they’re well-written, to boot.

But that’s not all. The best examples from the genre can provide insights that help us improve our own lives. After all, there’s nothing like a story of perseverance against all odds to prove anything is possible.

These tales of endurance, transformation, and unlikely triumph are sure to command your attention––and dare we say, inspire your own main character energy .

Open by Andre Agassi

You don’t need to love tennis to find yourself totally engrossed by the story of Agassi’s legendary career. Once the number-one player in the world, Agassi led a life of pressure and publicity—from his intense childhood coached by his father to his high-profile marriages to Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf to the acute physical pain of his last chapter in professional tennis. The book was written with the help of ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer, whose own memoir The Tender Bar inspired a 2021 film with Ben Affleck. (Moehringer most recently helped Prince Harry pen his memoir, Spare .)

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

The Glass Castle

A New York Times bestseller for more than eight years, this stunning memoir details the author’s unconventional upbringing and her trajectory from a trailer park in Arizona to the New York City literary scene. Under her troubled but relentlessly dreaming father, Wells nurtured her imagination as she and her siblings learned to fend for themselves within their dysfunctional household. Her approach was creative and sometimes painful—like when she suffered full-body burns cooking hot dogs at age three, or when she fashioned homemade braces from rubber bands and wire. A brilliant prequel, Half Broke Horses , focuses on Walls’s adventurous grandmother during the early 1900s.

The Accidental Life by Terry McDonell

The Accidental Life

A legend in the world of magazines and publishing, McDonell was the trusted editor and friend of literary greats like James Salter and George Plimpton. His 2016 memoir chronicles relationships and skirmishes across a four-decade career in journalism—from sipping wine with Jimmy Buffett to playing “acid golf” with Hunter S. Thompson. Each chapter comes marked with a word count, making for satisfying, self-contained dips into literary lore. Evocative, irreverent, and honest, McDonell’s memoir spans a wild and wonderful time in American media.

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

How to Say Babylon

A poet as well as a memoirist, Sinclair fills her 2023 memoir with lyrical descriptions of her upbringing in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where the Rastafarian faith into which she was born prescribed rigid codes on the basis of gender. However, language—specifically, poetry —served as a welcome escape, made possible by Sinclair’s literature-loving mother. Moving and unflinching, Babylon is an astonishing feat of memory set in motion.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird

Angelou enlarged and enriched the genre of autobiography with her 1969 account of her early life in Stamps, Arkansas. In it, she fashions her younger self into a literary character through whom she revisits events of the past. A young Maya endures affronts to her humanity through encounters with racism and sexual violence, but her story channels adolescent insecurity into self-possession, reflected in the author’s breathtaking command of language and narrative.

Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper Jones

Easy Beauty

Born with sacral agenesis, a rare condition that affects her gait and stature, Cooper Jones is keenly aware of the reactions her physicality elicits. Her subtle and humorous 2022 memoir—a Pulitzer Prize finalist—challenges the reader to reassess the way bodies claim space , tracing how Cooper Jones’s own perspective shifts when she unexpectedly becomes a mother.

Personal History: A Memoir by Katharine Graham

Personal History

Graham’s Pulitzer Prize–winning autobiography explores her isolating upbringing amid extreme privilege, her exhilarating and agonizing marriage, and her leadership of The Washington Post during its coverage of events like the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal. With its intimate insight into a formidable figure in American life, Graham’s Personal History makes the memoir a literary force.

Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington

Vogue ’s longtime creative director pulls back the curtain on the fashion industry and the creative world surrounding it, documenting the insecurities of moving from industry outsider to insider and the joy of bringing to life fashion fantasies in the magazine’s pages. Beginning with her upbringing in Wales and her early career in modeling, Coddington recounts things in a playful and characteristically British tone: the professional squabbles, artistic decisions, iconic outfits, and all. The memoir also features Coddington’s personal photographs, as well as lush spreads from her favorite features.

Por Estas Calles Bravas / Down These Mean Streets by Piri Tomás

Down These Mean Streets

Growing up in Spanish Harlem in the 1930s and ’40s, Tomás experienced discrimination and abuse on the basis of his Puerto Rican heritage. In an environment of poverty and violence, he fell into crime and drug addiction and eventually was incarcerated over a dispute with a police officer. His vivid personal account, available in both English and Spanish, details his journey from a place of hopelessness to self-acceptance through storytelling.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Douglass’s narrative is an important document of American history, as well as an essential piece of American literature. It records his experiences under slavery and his eventual escape and involvement in the abolition movement. A story of incredible hardship and triumph, the narrative includes the acquisition of language itself; Douglass taught himself to read and write, skills the enslaved were otherwise denied.

The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

The Long Loneliness

A leader in the Catholic Worker movement, Day was a radical political organizer and journalist governed by principles of nonviolence and charity. Her autobiography captures a storied life, including her religious conversion, her personal conflicts over motherhood, and her founding and operation of the Catholic Worker newspaper. Her autobiography stands as an exquisite piece of personal reflection and social activism (with a moving introduction by psychiatrist Robert Coles).

Night by Elie Wiesel

Written in 1960, Wiesel’s memoir is the sobering account of his experiences during the Holocaust, including his time in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. At certain moments, his prose takes on a fractured, faltering quality, as if language itself fails to capture the horrors he endured. Sixty-four years after its publication, Night remains an important record of a dark chapter in recent history.

By Christian Allaire

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Pulitzer Prizes 2024: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists

Jayne Anne Phillips won the fiction award for “Night Watch,” while Jonathan Eig and Ilyon Woo shared the biography prize.

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By Elizabeth A. Harris and Joumana Khatib

Eighteen books were recognized as winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize on Monday, in the categories of history, memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction and biography, which had two winners.

Night Watch , by Jayne Anne Phillips

A story about a mother and daughter set in the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, W.Va., after the Civil War. “Night Watch,” which was also longlisted for the National Book Award, is about surviving war and its aftermath. “I consider Phillips to be among the greatest and most intuitive of American writers,” wrote our critic Dwight Garner.

Fiction finalist: Wednesday’s Child: Stories , by Yiyun Li

A short story collection written over the course of a decade that examines aging and loss. The stories touch on a woman who makes a spreadsheet of every person she’s lost, a middle-aged practitioner of Eastern medicine and an 88-year-old biologist.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Fiction finalist: Same Bed Different Dreams , by Ed Park

An imagined alternate history of Korea that includes assassins, slasher films and the dangers of social media. In a review in The Times, the critic Hamilton Cain called the book “wonderfully suspenseful, like watching a circus performer juggle a dozen torches; will one slip his agile hands?”

Random House

No Right to an Honest Living , by Jacqueline Jones

Jones, a historian and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, examines the hypocrisy of Boston before the Civil War. The city was known for its antislavery rhetoric and as the center of abolitionism, but Black residents endured “casual cruelty” in the work force and were condemned to lives of poverty without the chance for equal employment.

Basic Books

History finalist: Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion , by Elliott West

This is an examination of the American West and its physical and cultural transformation in the 19th century. The book covers the 1840s, when the West was home to various Native cultures, and moves through the next three decades, when the area was organized into states and territories and connected by railroads and telegraph wires.

University of Nebraska Press

History finalist: American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the U.S. Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, by Michael Willrich

This book is a history of the American anarchist movement in the early 20th century. While many working class immigrants saw it as heroic, others considered it a frightening foreign ideology.

King: A Life , by Jonathan Eig

This major study of the civil rights icon draws on a landslide of recently released White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, letters, oral histories and other material. Eig shows a masterly command of his research, showing King in intimate moments, and arguing that his nonviolence has been mistaken for passivity. Put simply, our critic Dwight Garner wrote, “Eig’s book is worthy of its subject.”

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom , by Ilyon Woo

In 1848, William and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple, disguised themselves as a sick, wealthy white man traveling with his male slave and headed north. Woo tells the story of their stunning, perilous journey in novelistic detail, tracing their path through the United States and eventual passage to England, where they wrote a popular book about their escape.

Simon & Schuster

Biography finalist: “ Larry McMurtry: A Life ,” by Tracy Daugherty

This is the first comprehensive biography of McMurtry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Lonesome Dove” and “The Last Picture Show,” among other novels. Daugherty has also written biographies of Joseph Heller and Joan Didion, and his latest “reads a bit like one of McMurtry’s novels,” our critic Dwight Garner wrote in his review. “Elegy and humor bleed into each other.”

St. Martin’s Press

MEMOIR OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice , by Cristina Rivera Garza

In 1990, Rivera Garza’s 20-year-old sister was killed, and the case is a jumping-off point for this searching, personal examination of femicide in Mexico. The book is “one of the most effective resurrections of a murder victim I have ever read,” our reviewer, Katherine Dykstra, wrote. “Rivera Garza draws her sister, then complicates that drawing and then complicates the complication, creating layer upon layer of nuance.”

Memoir finalist: The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight , by Andrew Leland

The author, a longtime editor and podcaster, details his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that is gradually causing him to lose his vision. His writing is “jazzy and intelligent,” our critic Alexandra Jacobs said, “with licks of understated humor.” Yet Leland also “rigorously explores the disability’s most troubling corners,” resulting in an affecting study of vision and its limits.

Penguin Press

Memoir finalist: The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions , by Jonathan Rosen

In this account of his friendship with Michael Laudor, who came to prominence as a Yale student trying to publicly destigmatize mental illness and later was convicted of stabbing his pregnant girlfriend to death, Rosen offers a look at the boundaries between brilliance and insanity. Our critic Alexandra Jacobs called it “an act of tremendous compassion and a literary triumph.”

GENERAL NONFICTION

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy , by Nathan Thrall

This book tells the story of a deadly bus crash outside Jerusalem through the eyes of a Palestinian father whose 5-year-old died in the accident. The father’s agony is compounded by the physical and legal restrictions that shape the lives of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Thrall also examines the political, bureaucratic and personal decisions that contributed to the crash, and “vignettes of individual guilt come up against stark political realities,” our reviewer Rozina Ali wrote.

Metropolitan Books

General nonfiction finalist: Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World , by John Vaillant

In 2016, wildfires tore through Fort McMurray, in the Canadian province of Alberta. Vaillant details how the fire began, how it traveled and the wreckage it left behind, weaving a story of a warming climate, a massive oil reserve and the apocalyptic fallout. The heart of the story, of course, is the fire itself: “Vaillant anthropomorphizes fire,” our reviewer David Enrich wrote. “Not only does it grow and breathe and search for food; it strategizes. It hunts. It lays in wait for months, even years.”

General nonfiction finalist: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives , by Siddharth Kara

Cobalt is an essential mineral used in the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that power devices from smartphones to electric vehicle. This book, from an academic who has studied modern slavery, examines the horrors of cobalt mining, particularly the hazardous conditions and subsistence pay that workers face.

Tripas: Poems, by Brandon Som

In this collection, Som celebrates his multicultural heritage and family memories, writing about his grandmother, who was Chicana and worked nights on an assembly line at a Motorola factory, and his Chinese American father and grandparents, who ran a corner store.

Georgia Review Books

Poetry finalist: Information Desk: An Epic , by Robyn Schiff

Schiff chronicles her five years working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s information desk, where she answered mostly one question. As she writes in “Information Desk,” the “catechism/commences: Where’s the bathroom? / Where’s / the bathroom? Can you direct me to a / men’s room? ” Writing about the book for The Times, Maggie Lange called it “a searing yet reverent book-length poem, containing as many jokes as it does social critiques.”

Penguin Poets

Poetry finalist: To 2040, by Jorie Graham

Graham’s 15th poetry collection is narrated by a speaker looking toward the future while reflecting on her own mortality. The collection begins with questions stated as fact: “Are we / extinct yet. Who owns / the map.”

Copper Canyon Press

  More about Elizabeth A. Harris

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Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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Why Tom Selleck was asked to break up Princess Diana's dance with John Travolta: Memoir

"Magnum, P.I." star Tom Selleck pours out fond memories as thick as his famed mustache in " You Never Know: A Memoir " (Harper Collins, 339 pp., out now).

Selleck, 79, is working on his final "Blue Bloods" season. He writes about life lessons, his charmingly accidental Hollywood career, and the global superstar ride spurred on by his iconic 1980 "Magnum" role as the famed Hawaiian-shirt-loving private investigator.

"You Never Know" dishes nice, doesn't settle scores or talk politics, and the "Magnum"-heavy memoir doesn't dwell on Selleck's movies like 1987's "Three Men and a Baby" (or even discuss his long-running "Friends" role as Courteney Cox' s much older boyfriend).

Here are Selleck's best "You Never Know" revelations.

Tom Selleck Talks 'Blue Bloods,' 'Magnum P.I.'

Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

Selleck won despite being a double 'Dating Game' loser

A University of Southern California basketball player and underachieving student, Selleck got his Hollywood start on the blind date competition show "The Dating Game." Selleck's first TV appearance, pitted against two other bachelors, was a disaster with nervously bumbled responses to the female contestants' flirty questions.

"I had lame answers, and I lost. I wasn’t funny. I didn’t enjoy it," he writes. The producers called for a return appearance. "For some bizarre reason, I went back. I was still terrified. I still wasn’t funny, and I lost again."

The double loss somehow turned into key career moves. Selleck got a Pepsi commercial and was noticed by a casting director.

Selleck tipped his fedora to Harrison Ford after losing Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones role because of 'Magnum'

After shooting the promising "Magnum" pilot, Selleck was the unknown actor Steven Spielberg and George Lucas wanted to play Indiana Jones in 1981's " Raiders of the Lost Ark ." Selleck wasn't allowed to see the script before his first high-pressure reading. But "the hat and leather jacket helped me understand the period," Selleck writes.

Reading along with actress Sean Young as Marion Ravenwood (that part went to Karen Allen ), Selleck was called back for a second meeting.

“'We want you to play Indiana Jones.' I think it was Steven who told me," Selleck writes. "Look, I don’t have a clue how I responded. I hope at least I said 'Thank you.' This was a new franchise and they thought it needed a new face. I guess I was it."

But after "Magnum" was sold to CBS, the network president wouldn't release his star, fearing "that if he let me do 'Raiders,' I wouldn’t want to do 'Magnum,' and I would try and get out of it," Selleck writes. "I, of course, knew I would never do that."

Friends warned him not to watch "Raiders." Selleck bought a movie ticket and Jujyfruits. "Indiana Jones was Harrison Ford. The one errant thought that never entered my mind was 'That coulda been me,'" Selleck writes. "Somehow it didn’t bother me. It was such a good movie."

How much did Frank Sinatra bill for expenses for his six-day 'Magnum' shoot? It was still a bargain.

Frank Sinatra , a friend of "Magnum" star Larry Manetti (Rick Wright), had one condition about shooting a Season 7 guest appearance: "Just make sure I get to beat somebody up.”

The ailing Sinatra, then 70, committed to the part of an NYPD sergeant searching for the men who murdered his granddaughter. Even from his sickbed after being hospitalized for colitis, Sinatra assured: "Don't worry. I said I'll be there, I'll be there."

Sinatra's energy was limited in the shortened six-day shoot, making every moment count − especially for the final fight scene that Sinatra insisted on performing. Somehow a forbidden on-set camera flash ruined a key scene of a power Sinatra punch.

"Frank was not happy. We were not happy," Selleck says. "Our eyes landed on Larry, holding his Polaroid camera with a photo sticking out of it. 'I didn’t do it,' was Larry’s defense. The picture developed of Frank throwing a perfect punch."

The scene eventually worked. The landmark episode was the highest-rated "Magnum" in two years. It was a huge score even if production bosses were "shocked when they got the bill for Frank’s expenses," Selleck writes. "I don’t know the exact number, but it was in the six figures." Still a bargain.

A license flub nearly derailed Selleck's top-secret 'commando-like precision' Reno wedding

Selleck and his partner, British actress Jillie Mack, were intent on a secret family-only wedding. The clandestine event in Reno, Nevada, in August 1987, before shooting the final season of "Magnum," was a super-feat in paparazzi-fueled time. Mack hid her wedding dress in her handheld garment bag and Selleck flew in with only a carry-on to avoid suspicion. The star hid in the car as his father sized his wedding ring at a quickie Reno wedding store.

Selleck eventually had to exit his car and take off his sunglasses-and-baseball-hat disguise to identify himself to the shocked county clerk for the wedding license. But the operation to Reverend Dave's wedding chapel on the second floor of a strip mall was conducted with "commando-like precision." The "Magnum" fan organist was even ready with her surprise wedding music, taken from TV's nighttime soap opera "Dynasty."

"I didn't have the heart to tell her that 'Dynasty' was our Wednesday night competition," Selleck writes.

There was a major problem. A frantic search revealed the wedding license was left behind in the rush of leaving the clerk's office. "None of us knew what to say. We were stuck," Selleck writes.

Rev. Dave agreed to perform the wedding and pick up a new license himself as the family celebrated. The "Magnum" superstar's marriage to Mack was not reported until late the next month and has lasted 36 years.

"In Celebrityland, keeping our secret for a month might be a record," Selleck writes.

Selleck put his (left) foot down, refused to 'cut in' on John Travolta's dance with Princess Diana

John Travolta is a tough act to follow on the dance floor. So Selleck and Clint Eastwood steered clear as Travolta famously danced with Princess Diana at a White House state dinner thrown by President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan in November 1985.

"We slipped away from all the dancers and moved to a spot slightly around the corner. By now John and Princess Di were dancing to an up-tempo number and rocking out. Everybody else stopped dancing and formed a circle around them, clapping their hands," Selleck writes. "Clint and I stood our ground."

A British woman urged action from the two stars as Travolta's second dance could "start rumors."

"Clint and I said nothing.'Mr. Selleck, you must step in and replace him.” Selleck recalls the women saying. “I’M NOT CUTTING IN ON JOHN TRAVOLTA!” was my reply, probably in too loud a voice. She was not pleased."

Selleck gallantly stepped in for a third dance, working his way through a thankfully slow song.

"Princess Diana was lovely, and there was a very shy quality about her in spite of her being well-schooled in the art of conversation," Selleck writes.

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All Nominees • 307,896 votes total

2020 Rules & Eligibility

The 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards have three rounds of voting open to all registered Goodreads members. Winners will be announced December 08, 2020.

Opening Round: Oct 27 - Nov 08

Voting opens to 15 official nominees, and write-in votes can be placed for any eligible book (see eligibility below).

Semifinal Round: Nov 10 - 15

The top five write-in votes in each of the categories become official nominees. Additional write-ins no longer accepted.

Final Round: Nov 17 - 30

The field narrows to the top 10 books in each category, and members have one last chance to vote!

2020 Eligibility

Books published in the United States in English, including works in translation and other significant rereleases, between November 16, 2019, and November 17, 2020, are eligible for the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards. Books published between November 18, 2020, and November 17, 2021, will be eligible for the 2021 awards.

We analyze statistics from the millions of books added, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads to nominate 15 books in each category. Opening round official nominees must have an average rating of 3.50 or higher at the time of launch. Write-in votes may be cast for eligible books with any average rating, and write-in votes will be weighted by the book's Goodreads statistics to determine the top five books to be added as official nominees in the Semifinal Round. A book may be nominated in no more than one genre category, but can also be nominated in the Debut Novel category. Only one book in a series may be nominated per category. An author may receive multiple nominations within a single category if he or she has more than one eligible series or more than one eligible stand-alone book. Learn more

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Judy Oppenheimer, early biographer of Shirley Jackson, dies at 82

Her 1988 book, “Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson,” explored the brief, tortured life of the author best known for her short story “The Lottery.”

Judy Oppenheimer, a writer and journalist best known for a biography exploring the brief, tortured life of author Shirley Jackson, whose short story “The Lottery” became one of the most widely read works in 20th-century American fiction, died May 1 in Baltimore. She was 82.

She had Parkinson’s disease and bone cancer, said her son Toby Oppenheimer. She died at an assisted-living community.

Ms. Oppenheimer began her career at The Washington Post, her hometown newspaper, where she was promoted from “copy girl” to reporter in the 1960s. She later worked for the Philadelphia Daily News before returning to the Washington area and freelancing while raising her two sons.

She attracted broad notice in 1988 with her debut book , “ Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson .” It was the first biography of the author most famous for “The Lottery,” which sparked a furor when it appeared in the New Yorker magazine in 1948.

Set in an unnamed present-day New England town, the story depicts an annual ritual in which the townspeople gather to stone one of their members to death. Early readers reacted in horror and in anger — as though Jackson had accused them of conforming in some way to the banal evil on display.

Jackson generally answered queries about the story obliquely, though she once wrote that she had “hoped, by setting a particularly brutal rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity of their own lives.”

In the decades that followed, “The Lottery” became a mainstay of literary anthologies and high school and college reading lists.

In its fame, the story came to overshadow the rest of Jackson’s literary output, which included, most notably, “The Haunting of Hill House” (1959), a Gothic thriller about a woman on the edge of madness that was adapted into a 1963 movie, “The Haunting,” starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom. Jackson also wrote the novels “The Bird’s Nest” (1954) and “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” (1962).

She diverged from the darkness of her fiction to write “Life Among the Savages” (1953) and “Raising Demons” (1957), both witty portrayals of domestic life drawn from her experience as the mother of four children. After struggles with substance abuse, Jackson died in 1965, at age 48, of cardiac arrest.

In interviews with the author’s children, other relatives, friends and acquaintances, Ms. Oppenheimer explored Jackson’s life, starting with her rearing by an often critical mother who neither understood nor appreciated her daughter’s psychological depths.

“She was not the daughter her mother wanted; that much was clear from the start,” Ms. Oppenheimer wrote in the biography’s opening passage. “Shirley Jackson was born … into comfort, pleasant surroundings, and social position, but to parents who never truly knew what to make of her, not in childhood and not throughout her entire forty-eight years.”

Ms. Oppenheimer examined the possibility that Jackson had been sexually abused as a child and documented her strained marriage to the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. She delved into Jackson’s imaginative powers and what Ms. Oppenheimer characterized as her “clairvoyance,” into her fears and anxieties and her sensitivity to the condition of mental frailty.

The result, book critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in the New York Times , was a “lively but harrowing biography.” In Ms. Oppenheimer’s telling, he wrote, “right to the end, the story of Shirley Jackson’s life retains its urgency, and we read even the happy passages with a sense of impending disaster.”

In 2016, another biographer, literary critic Ruth Franklin, expanded on existing scholarship with the book “Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.”

Judith Altman, one of three daughters, was born in Washington on Jan. 20, 1942. Her mother was a math teacher, and her father worked for the Labor Department.

When Judy was 9, her family moved to Arlington, Va., where she graduated from what was then Washington-Lee High School in 1959 . She received a bachelor’s degree in American thought and civilization from George Washington University in 1963.

She and her husband, Jerry Oppenheimer, worked together at the Philadelphia Daily News — he as an investigative journalist, she as a movie critic — before their first son was born and they moved back to the Washington area. The marriage ended in divorce.

Ms. Oppenheimer freelanced for publications including The Post , Washingtonian magazine , the Village Voice, Ms. magazine, Salon , Slate and the Forward . She also worked on the staff of the Baltimore Jewish Times.

Survivors include her two sons, Jesse Oppenheimer of Los Angeles and Toby Oppenheimer of Brooklyn; a sister; and three grandchildren.

Toby Oppenheimer inspired his mother’s second book , “ Dreams of Glory: A Mother’s Season With Her Son’s High School Football Team ” (1991), chronicling a year of football at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland.

Ms. Oppenheimer had harbored no interest whatsoever in a sport that she regarded — until her son began to play — as little more than an exercise in brutality. To her surprise, she discovered that she “purely adored the entire wild, maddened, electric, power-pumping totality of this game.”

“A coach would later tell me at length about the need to unearth the buried animal when training players, the animal that lies dormant in our soul,” Ms. Oppenheimer continued. “Well, football released my animal, too.”

In writing the book, Ms. Oppenheimer pursued her reporting with classic shoe-leather rigor, with one exception: In deference to her son’s wishes, she never entered the inner sanctum of the locker room.

10 Things We Learned From ‘Marky Mark,’ Mark Wahlberg’s 1992 Autobiography

By jake rossen | may 9, 2024.

Before Mark Wahlberg was a respected actor collaborating with Paul Thomas Anderson ( Boogie Nights ) and Martin Scorsese ( The Departed ), he was the rapper and Calvin Klein underwear model known as Marky Mark. The singer toured and performed with his band, the Funky Bunch, and released the hit single “Good Vibrations.”

Like many 1990s luminaries, Wahlberg also issued his own memoir. With photographer Lynn Goldsmith, he published 1992’s Marky Mark , a photo-heavy stroll through his then-21-year-old psyche, which was heavily preoccupied with women, fitness, and music . Here’s what we gleaned.

1. Marky Mark dedicated the book to his penis.

Books are generally dedicated to an author’s loved ones, like spouses or children, or perhaps their work colleagues or contemporaries. Marky Mark dedicated his to his male organ . “I wanna dedicate this book to my dick,” he wrote.

2. The Funky Bunch existed before Marky Mark.

According to Mark’s brother Donnie Wahlberg, who was a member of New Kids on the Block prior to his younger brother’s entry into music, he came up with the Funky Bunch rap squad before Mark was performing. “I already had that name for a group,” Donnie said. “I didn’t want him to be by himself on stage as a white dude rapping. I wanted to fill it up with a lot of activity. And I didn’t want it to look like anybody else.”

One Funky member postulated that Donnie could have adopted the group for himself. “It could have easily been Donnie Don and the Funky Bunch,” he said.

3. The Funky Bunch (correctly) believed their audience was mostly there for Marky Mark’s body.

Marky Mark quotes one member of the Funky Bunch, Hector Barros, as saying the crowd may not necessarily be into the music. “We started putting a good show on but I think a lot of the young girls out there just have an infatuation with Mark looking good and are not really into his lyrics or what he’s saying or what we’re doing," he said. "It’s a lot of that.” (Hector was better known by his stage name Hector the Booty Inspector.)

4. Marky Mark did not need to compete with his brother for women.

“Donnie used to get all the girls cuz he had the money,” Marky Mark said. “We got a lot of karma with girls. We generally like the same girls, but we never chase the same ones.”

5. Mark and Donnie disagreed about who gave Mark his stage name.

“I know he says he did,” Marky Mark said. “Well … it’s up in the air [but] I’m the only motherfucker who answers to it. The only motherfucker gettin’ paid from that name.”

6. Marky Mark regretted his Sylvester and Tweety tattoo.

Marky Mark was quizzed about his lower leg tattoo of Sylvester the Cat and Tweety, the rivals from Looney Tunes . “I only picked it because I wanted to cover up what was there before.” (A playing card he did himself.) Mark added that it was “corny” and “I regret getting it because it marks up my body for life. And if I ever do anything bad they can identify me by it.”

7. Marky Mark has a third nipple.

Though he’s often gone shirtless on stage and in film, it might be difficult to notice that Marky Mark sports a third nipple. “It’s cool,” he said. “It’s unique … it’s dope.”

8. Marky Mark knew the value of education.

Marky Mark dropped out of high school, but one could infer he regretted it. “You can motherfuckin snake and connive any shit you want in life if you got education," he said. "Then you know how to use that shit to your advantage and trick motherfuckers and shit.” (He later went back to earn his diploma at the age of 42.)

9. Marky Mark’s signature move of dropping his pants upset his mom.

Marky Mark’s trademark stage move of performing in his underwear displeased his mother, Alma. “When I first heard he dropped his pants, I asked, ‘Why do you have to do that?’” she said. “I offered him suspenders and belts and whatever it would take to hold them up. But I knew that when he did it he had running shorts on under the underwear. So it wasn’t too, too upsetting to me.”

10. Marky Mark was unsure what would come next.

“I’m still unsure about what I want to do with the rest of my life,” Mark said. Just two years later, he would make his film debut in 1994’s Renaissance Man . By 1995, he was co-starring with Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries . By 1998, he had retired from music completely.

While Wahlberg would later say he felt “embarrassed” by his musical stint, it did little to affect his acting career. His films have grossed well over $5 billion at the worldwide box office.

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