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The Best Memoirs of 2023

These ten books explore what it means to be a person..

The beauty of memoir is its resistance to confinement: We contain multitudes, so our methods of introspection must, too. This year’s best memoirs perfectly showcase such variety. Some are sparse, slippery — whole lives pieced together through fragmented memories, letters to loved ones, recipes, mythology, scripture. Some tease the boundary between truth and fiction. Others elevate straightforward narratives by incorporating political theory, philosophy, and history. The authors of each understand that one’s life — and more significantly, one’s self — can’t be contained in facts. After all, the facts as we remember them aren’t really facts. It’s their openness and experimentation that allow, at once, intimacy and universality, provoking some of our biggest questions: How does a person become who they are? What makes up an identity? What are the stories we tell ourselves, and why do they matter? These books might not spell out the answers for you, but they’ll certainly push you toward them.

10. Hijab Butch Blues , by Lamya H

NYC-based organizer Lamya H (a pseudonym) has described her memoir as “unapologetically queer and unapologetically Muslim .” What this looks like is a book that isn’t so much grappling with or reconciling two conflicting identities, but rather lovingly examining the ways each has supported and strengthened the other. Lamya provides close, queer readings of the Quran, drawing connections between its stories and her own experiences of persecution as a brown girl growing up in an (unnamed) Arab country with strict colorist hierarchies. Beginning with her study of the prophet Maryam — whose virgin pregnancy and general rejection of men brings a confused 14-year-old Lamya real relief during Quran class — Lamya draws on various religious figures to track her political, spiritual, and sexual coming of age, jumping back and forth in time as she grows from a struggling child into a vital artist and activist.

9. Better Living Through Birding , by Christian Cooper

On May 25, 2020, birder Christian Cooper was walking the Central Park Ramble when he asked a white woman on the same path to leash her dog. She refused, he started recording, and after both he and his sister posted the video on social media , the whole world saw her call 911 and falsely claim that an African American man was threatening both her and her dog. Cooper quickly found himself at the center of an urgent conversation about weaponized whiteness and police brutality against Black men in the U.S., amplified by another devastating video circulating that same day: George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. Many will pick up Cooper’s memoir for his account of the interaction that captured international attention and forever changed his life — and it is a powerful, damning examination — but it is far from the main event. By the time it shows up, Cooper has already given us poignant recollections of growing up Black and gay (and in the closet) in 1970s Long Island, a loving analysis of science fiction, a behind-the-scenes look at the comic-book industry as it broke through to the mainstream, and most significantly, an impassioned ode to and accessible education on recreational birding. (The audiobook comes with interstitial birdsong!) Recalling his time at Harvard, Cooper turns repeatedly to his love of his English classes, and this background comes through in his masterful writing. An already prolific writer in the comic-book space, his memoir marks his first (and hopefully not last) foray into the long-form territory.

8. Love and Sex, Death and Money , by McKenzie Wark

McKenzie Wark is one of the sharpest, most exciting voices writing at the intersections of capitalism, community, gender, and sex — more broadly, everything in this title — and she is also criminally underread. In her epistolary memoir Love and Sex … , she looks at a lifetime of transitions — journeys not only through her gender, but also politics, art, relationships, and aging — and reflects on all the ways she has become the woman she is today, in letters to the people who helped shape her. Wark’s first letter is, fittingly, directed to her younger self. She acknowledges their infinite possible futures and that, in this way, this younger Wark on the brink of independence is the one most responsible for setting her on the path to this specific future. In theory, it’s a letter to offer clarity, even guidance, to this younger self, but really it’s a means of listening to and learning from her. Her letters to mothers, lovers, and others are as much, if not more, about Wark as they are about the recipients, but that self-reflection doubles as a testament to the recipients’ power. What comes across most strongly is Wark’s belief in ongoing evolution and education, and it’s hard not to leave inspired by that possibility.

7. A Man of Two Faces , by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen’s memoir maintains the singular voice of his fiction: audacious, poetic, self-aware. Written in nonlinear second-person stream of consciousness — its disjointedness represented on the page by paragraphs volleying from left to right alignment across the page — A Man of Two Faces recounts his life as a Vietnamese refugee in the U.S. When his family moves from wartime Vietnam to San Jose, California, 4-year-old Nguyen is placed in a different sponsor home than the rest of his family. The separation is brief, but it sets a tone of alienation that continues throughout his life — both from his parents, who left their home in pursuit of safety but landed in a place with its own brand of violence, and from his new home. As he describes his journey into adulthood and academia, Nguyen incorporates literary and cultural criticism, penetrating analyses of political history and propaganda, and poignant insights about memory and trauma.

6. Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere , by Maria Bamford

It’s safe to say alt-comedian Maria Bamford’s voice isn’t for everyone. Those who get her anti-stand-up stand-up get it and those who don’t, don’t. Her absurdist, meta series Lady Dynamite revealed the work of a woman learning to recognize and love her brilliant weirdness, and in Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult , she channels that weirdness into a disarmingly earnest, more accessible account of both fame and mental illness. Centered on Bamford’s desperate pursuit of belonging, and the many, often questionable places it’s led her — church, the comedy scene, self-actualization conferences, 12-step groups, each of which she puts under the umbrella of the titular “cults” — Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult is egoless, eye-opening, uncomfortable, and laugh-out-loud funny. These are among the best qualities — maybe even prerequisites — of an effective mental-illness memoir, and Bamford’s has earned its keep in the top tier. If you’re thinking of skipping it because you haven’t connected with Bamford’s work before: don’t.

5. In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation , by Isabel Zapata

In Isabel Zapata’s intimate, entrancing memoir In Vitro , the Mexican poet brazenly breaks what she calls “the first rule of in vitro fertilization”: never talk about it. Originally published in Spanish in 2021, and with original drawings woven throughout, In Vitro is a slim collection of short, discrete pieces. Its fragments not only describe the invasive process and its effects on her mind and body, but also contextualize its lineage, locating the deep-seated draw of motherhood and conception, analyzing the inheritances of womanhood, and speaking directly to her potential child. All together, it becomes something expansive — an insightful personal history but also a brilliant philosophical text about the very nature of sacrifice and autonomy.

4. The Night Parade , by Jami Nakamura Lin

When Jami Nakamura Lin was 17 years old, she checked herself into a psych ward and was diagnosed bipolar. After years experiencing disorienting periods of rage, the diagnosis offers validation — especially for her historically dismissive parents — but it doesn’t provide the closure that mainstream depictions of mental illness promise. In The Night Parade , intriguingly categorized as a speculative memoir, Lin explains that if a story is good, it “collapses time”; in other words, it has no beginning or end. Chasing this idea, Lin turns to the stories of her Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan heritage, using their demons, spirits, and monsters to challenge ideas of recovery and resituate her feelings of otherness. Intertwined in this pursuit is her grappling with the young death of her father and the birth of her daughter after a traumatic miscarriage. Extensively researched — citing not only folklore but also scholars of history, literary, and mythology — and elevated by her sister Cori Nakamura Lin’s lush illustrations, The Night Parade is both an entirely new perspective on bipolar disorder and a fascinating education in mythology by an expert who so clearly loves the material. It might be Lin’s first book, but it possesses the self-assurance, courage, and mastery of a seasoned writer.

3. Doppelganger , by Naomi Klein

After the onset of the COVID pandemic, as the U.S. devolved into frenzied factions, sociopolitical analyst Naomi Klein found herself in the middle of her own bewildering drama: A substantial population, especially online, began to either confuse or merge her with Naomi Wolf, a writer who’d gone from feminist intellectual to anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist. Klein’s initial bemusement becomes real concern verging on obsession as she fixates on her sort-of doppelgänger and starts questioning the stability of her identity. Klein becomes entangled in the world of her opposite, tracing the possible pipelines from leftism to alt-right and poking at the cracks in our convictions. Throughout, she nails the uncanniness of our digital existence, the ways constant performance of life both splinters and constrains the self. What happens when we sacrifice our humanity in the pursuit of a cohesive personal brand? And when we’re this far gone, is there any turning back?

2. The Woman in Me , by Britney Spears

Throughout the yearslong campaign to release Britney Spears from a predatory conservatorship , the lingering conspiracy theories questioning its success , and the ongoing cultural discourse about the ways public scrutiny has harmed her, what has largely been missing is Spears’s own voice. In her highly anticipated memoir, she lays it all out: her upbringing in a family grappling with multiple generations of abuse, the promise and betrayal of stardom, her exploitation and manipulation by loved ones, and the harrowing, dehumanizing realities of her conservatorship . These revelations are tempered by moments of genuine joy she’s found in love, motherhood, and singing, though it’s impossible to read these recollections without anticipating the loss — or at least the complication — of these joys. Most touching are her descriptions of her relationships with her sons; her tone is conversational, but it resonates with deep, undying devotion. It’s an intimate story, and one that forces questions about our treatment of mental illness, the ethics of psychiatric practices, the relationships between public figures and their fans, and the effects of fame — especially on young women. Justice for Britney, forever.

1. Pulling the Chariot of the Sun , by Shane McCrae

When Shane McCrae was 3 years old, his white maternal grandparents told his Black father they were taking Shane on a camping trip. It wasn’t the first time they’d done so, but this time, they never returned. What followed was a life full of instability, abuse, and manipulation, while his grandparents — including a grandfather who had, more than once, trawled cities for Black men to attack — convinced McCrae his father had abandoned him and that his Blackness was a handicap. It’s clear McCrae is first and foremost a poet; the rhythm of his prose and his hypnotic evocation of sensory memory reveals the way a lifetime of lies affected his grasp on his past. Maybe he can’t trust the facts of his past, but he certainly knows what it felt like, what it looked like. As he excavates and untangles muddied memories, contends with ambivalent feelings about his grandmother and mother, and ultimately comes to terms with their unforgivable robbery of a relationship with both his father and his true, full self, McCrae’s pain bleeds through his words — but so too does a gentle sense of acceptance. We are lucky to bear witness.

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Best Biographies of 2023

MAY 16, 2023

by Jonathan Eig

An extraordinary achievement and an essential life of the iconic warrior for social justice. Full review >

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by Tracy Daugherty

A definitive life of the novelist/bookseller/scriptwriter/curmudgeon of interest to any McMurtry fan. Full review >

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by Robert Greenfield

A masterful look at the wild life of an enigmatic artist that shows how captivating the truth can be. Full review >

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by Patti Hartigan

An authoritative portrait of a defiant champion of Black theater. Full review >

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by Will Hermes

An engrossing, fully dimensional portrait of an influential yet elusive performer. Full review >

by Walter Isaacson

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator. Full review >

by Sally H. Jacobs

An essential book about an incomparably authentic American pioneer and the times in which she lived. Full review >

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by Robert "Mack" McCormick ; edited by John W. Troutman

A worthwhile investigation into a true legend of the blues. Full review >

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by Jonny Steinberg

A magnificent portrait of two people joined in the throes of making South African history. Full review >

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by Judith Tick

As masterful and wonderful as its subject. Full review >

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The Best New Biographies of 2023

The best new biographies of 2023 explore full lives and historical events in ways that speak meaningfully to the present.

CJ Connor is a cozy mystery and romance writer whose main goal in life is to make their dog proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut mystery novel BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com

View All posts by CJ Connor

Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies.

The books included in this list have all been released as of writing, but biography lovers still have plenty to look forward to before the year is out. A few to keep your eye out for in the coming months:

• The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell (HarperOne, September 26)
• Einstein in Time and Space by Samuel Graydon (Scribner, November 14)
• Overlooked: A Celebration of Remarkable, Underappreciated People Who Broke the Rules and Changed the World by Amisha Padnani (Penguin Random House, November 14).

Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far!

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

Ellen and William Craft were a Black married couple who freed themselves from slavery in 1848 by disguising themselves as a traveling white man and an enslaved person. Author Ilyon Woo recounts their thousand-mile journey to seek safety in the North and their escape from the United States in the months following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel

Written over a period of 11 years with exclusive journalistic access to the subject, author Michael Finkel explores the motivations, heists, and repercussions faced by the notorious and prolific art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Of special focus is his relationship with his girlfriend and accomplice, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus.

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

While recently published, King: A Life is already considered to be the most well-researched biography of Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. published in decades. New York Times bestselling journalist Jonathan Eig explores the life and legacy of Dr. King through thousands of historical records, including recently declassified FBI documents.

Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters by Lynnée Denise

This biography is part of the Why Music Matters series from the University of Texas. It reflects on the legendary blues singer’s life through an essay collection in which the author (also an accomplished musician) seeks to recreate the feeling of browsing through a box of records.

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power by Leah Redmond Chang

Historian Leah Redmond Chang’s latest book release focuses on three aristocratic women in Renaissance Europe: Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. As a specific focus, she examines the juxtaposition between the immense power they wielded and yet the ways they remained vulnerable to the patriarchal, misogynistic societies in which they existed.

Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

Anna May Wong was a 20th-century actress who found great acclaim while still facing discrimination and typecasting as a Chinese woman. University of California professor Yunte Huang explores her life and impact on the American film industry and challenges racist depictions of her in accounts of Hollywood history in this thought-provoking biography.

Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown

Written by Rhodes Scholar and University of Pennsylvania medical student Jasmine Brown, this collective biography shares the experiences and accomplishments of nine Black women physicians in U.S. history — including Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black American woman to earn a medical degree in the 1860s, and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty

Two years after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s death, this biography presents a comprehensive history of Larry McMurtry’s life and legacy as one of the most acclaimed Western writers of all time.

The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by Leta McCollough Seletzky

Journalist Leta McCollough Seletzky examines her father, Marrell “Mac” McCollough’s complicated legacy as a Black undercover cop and later a member of the CIA. In particular, she shares his account as a witness of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel.

Are you a history buff looking for more recommendations? Try these.

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• Post author: Archie Black
• Post published: December 9, 2023
• Post category: Recommendations

As we bid farewell to another remarkable year in literature, it’s time to reflect on the profound stories that have woven the fabric of our shared human experience. Memoirs and autobiographies in 2023 have once again taken center stage, offering readers a kaleidoscope of narratives that range from tales of triumph to reflections on personal growth and societal change.

In this post, we look at the 30 best memoirs and autobiographies of 2023, each a testament to the power of storytelling. These narratives have not only entertained and enlightened us but have also provided a mirror to our own lives, allowing us to connect with the diverse experiences that make us who we are.

From the introspective to the extraordinary, these memoirs have offered us a glimpse into the lives of others, inspiring empathy, understanding, and a renewed appreciation for the beauty found in all people.

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Spare, by Prince Harry

Released on January 10, 2023 by Random House

This memoir details Harry’s life from his childhood to his decision to step back from his royal duties in 2020. It includes his experiences with grief, mental health, and the media. The book has been praised for its honesty and openness, and it has been a bestseller in many countries.

Love, Pamela, by Pamela Anderson

Released on January 31, 2023 by Dey Street Books

Love, Pamela is a captivating and inspiring memoir that offers a rare glimpse into the life of one of our most iconic figures. Anderson’s story is a testament to the power of resilience, the pursuit of self-acceptance, and the importance of finding one’s voice.

Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H.

Released on February 7, 2023 by The Dial Press

Lamya writes about her experiences as a queer, hijabi, Muslim immigrant in the United States. She explores her identity, her relationships, and her struggles with belonging. The memoir is written with honesty, humor, and intelligence, and it has been praised for its ability to capture the complexities of Lamya’s life.

Bad Mormon: A Memoir, by Heather Gay

Released on February 7, 2023 by Gallery Books

Bad Mormon: A Memoir is a captivating and insightful memoir that offers a unique perspective on faith, identity, and the pursuit of happiness. Heather Gay’s story is a reminder that it is never too late to reinvent oneself and embrace a life that aligns with one’s true values and aspirations.

All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir, by Beth Moore

Released on February 21, 2023 by Tyndale House Publishers

A candid and introspective look at Beth Moore’s personal life and ministry. Through relatable storytelling and insightful reflections, Moore explores her struggles with faith, family, and personal challenges. She delves into her difficult childhood, marked by abuse and neglect, and shares her journey toward healing and forgiveness. The book also offers a behind-the-scenes look at Moore’s ministry, highlighting the sacrifices and struggles she has faced while leading and inspiring women around the world.

Paris: The Memoir, by Paris Hilton

Released on March 14, 2023 by Dey Street Books

Paris Hilton takes readers on an intimate and revealing journey through her extraordinary life, from her privileged upbringing as a Hilton heiress to her rise as a global icon and entrepreneur. Hilton shares her experiences as a socialite, model, actress, businesswoman, and activist, shedding light on the challenges and triumphs that have shaped her remarkable story.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir, by Maggie Smith

Released on April 11, 2023 by Atria/One Signal Publishers

This book follows poet Maggie Smith’s life after discovering her husband’s infidelity and the subsequent unraveling of their marriage. Through intimate reflections and poetic prose, she navigates the emotional complexities of heartbreak, grief, and self-discovery. The memoir delves into themes of motherhood, loss, forgiveness, and ultimately, finding strength and beauty amid personal upheaval.

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir, by Lucinda Williams

Released on April 25, 2023 by Crown

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is a powerful and inspiring memoir that offers a rare glimpse into the life of one of America’s most beloved singer-songwriters. Williams’ candid and engaging storytelling will resonate with readers of all ages, offering valuable lessons about resilience, self-expression, and the pursuit of one’s dreams.

Tell Me Everything, by Minka Kelly

Released on May 2, 2023 by Henry Holt and Co.

In this deeply personal account, Kelly lays bare the story of her life, including her childhood, relationships, personal struggles, and eventual rise to fame.

The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up, by Andy Cohen

Released on May 9, 2023 by Henry Holt and Co.

The Year I Grew Up chronicles Cohen’s experiences as a single father in the first year after welcoming his daughter, Lucy, and raising his son, Ben. It is a heartwarming and relatable read for anyone interested in fatherhood, personal growth, or simply enjoying Andy Cohen’s witty humor.

Pageboy, by Elliot Page

Released on June 6, 2023 by Flatiron

Pageboy is a powerful and inspiring memoir that has resonated with readers around the world. It focuses on Elliot Page’s journey to self-discovery as a transgender man. The book became an instant bestseller upon its release in June 2023, topping The New York Times Best Seller List for Nonfiction. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the transgender experience or seeking a story of hope and courage.

Better Living Through Birding, by Christian Cooper

Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

Released on June 13, 2023 by Random House

Renowned birder and science writer Christian Cooper shares his experiences finding solace and connection in the natural world. Through engaging anecdotes and insightful reflections, Cooper explores the intersection of race, nature, and birding. He recounts his early fascination with birds, the challenges he faces as a Black birdwatcher in predominantly white spaces, and the joy and peace he finds in observing the natural world.

The In-Between, by Hadley Vlahos

Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments

Released on June 13, 2023 by Ballantine Books

A heartrending memoir by hospice nurse Hadley Vlahos, exploring the transformative power of end-of-life care, shedding light on the profound experiences with her patients, and offering wisdom and inspiration for both dealing with loss and embracing the present.

The Country of the Blind, by Andrew Leland

A Memoir at the End of Sight

Released on July 18, 2023 by Penguin Press

Andrew Leland’s vision began deteriorating when he was a teenager, and by the time he wrote this book, he was virtually blind. He describes his journey of coming to terms with his vision loss, learning to navigate the world in new ways, and discovering the unique culture and community of blind people.

The Many Lives of Mama Love, by Lara Love Hardin

A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

Released on August 1, 2023 by Simon & Schuster

A gripping memoir by New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin, recounting her descent from a suburban soccer mom turned opioid addict and credit card thief, leading to a prison sentence where she navigates the complex power dynamics, and ultimately transforming her life through forgiveness, redemption, and an unexpected career as a successful ghostwriter.

Abroad in Japan, by Chris Broad

Released on August 3, 2023 by Bantam Press

Chris Broad chronicles his decade-long experience living in Japan. This book is packed with hilarious and fascinating stories about his adventures, cultural encounters, and insights into Japanese life. It’s a fun and informative read for anyone interested in Japan.

While You Were Out, by Meg Kissinger

An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence

Released on September 5, 2023 by Celadon Books

While You Were Out is a powerful and moving memoir that sheds light on the often invisible world of mental illness. It tells the story of Meg Kissinger’s family’s struggles with mental illness, offering a poignant and intimate look at the impact of mental illness on individuals and families. It is a valuable resource for anyone affected by mental illness, whether personally or professionally, and a call for greater understanding and support for individuals and families facing these challenges.

Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult, by Maria Bamford

A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere

Released on September 5, 2023 by Gallery Books

Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult is a brutally honest and hilarious exploration of Maria Bamford’s lifelong search for belonging, set against the backdrop of various social groups and self-help communities she has tried over the years.

Counting the Cost, by Jill Duggar, Derick Dillard, Craig Borlase

Released on September 12, 2023, by Gallery Books

This is a tell-all memoir by Jill Duggar, one of the stars of the TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting” and its spin-off “Counting On.” Jill lifts the curtain on her life behind the cameras, providing an unfiltered account of her childhood, family, faith, and experiences on reality television.

XOXO, Cody, by Cody Rigsby

An Opinionated Homosexual’s Guide to Self-Love, Relationships, and Tactful Pettiness

Released on September 12, 2023 by Ballantine Books

XOXO, Cody is a refreshingly honest and unapologetic exploration of Cody Rigsby’s journey from a closeted gay kid in the South to achieving fame and self-acceptance. He encourages readers to embrace their individuality, flaws and all, and to live authentically.

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, by Naomi Klein

Released on September 12, 2023 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Doppelganger is a memoir and political analysis by Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker Naomi Klein. Detailing her personal experience of being mistaken for the feminist turned conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf, and using this as a springboard to explore the broader societal phenomenon of “online cults” and the blurring of truth and reality in the digital age.

Leslie F*cking Jones, by Leslie Jones

Released on September 19, 2023 by Grand Central Publishing

This book is a no-holds-barred look at Leslie Jones’ life, from her childhood in Memphis, Tennessee, to her rise to fame on Saturday Night Live and Ghostbusters. Jones is known for her frank and unapologetic style, and her memoir is no different. She writes about everything from her struggles with racism and sexism to her love of comedy and family.

Thicker than Water: A Memoir, by Kerry Washington

Released on September 26, 2023, by Little, Brown Spark

In Thicker Than Water , Kerry Washington shares an intimate look at her life, both on and off the screen. She writes about her childhood in New York City, her early career struggles, and her rise to fame as one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actresses. She also opens up about her personal life, including her marriage and motherhood.

How to Say Babylon: A Memoir, by Safiya Sinclair

Released on October 3, 2023 by 37 Ink

How to Say Babylon is Safiya Sinclair’s powerful memoir exploring her harrowing childhood in Jamaica and her escape to find her voice as a poet and woman. It delves into the complexities of navigating a strict Rastafarian household ruled by her father’s patriarchal control, exposing the trauma and resilience that shaped her journey. Sinclair’s writing is both raw and poetic, using language as a tool for healing and liberation. This book is a testament to the transformative power of words and the courage it takes to break free from oppression and find one’s own identity.

Making It So: A Memoir, by Patrick Stewart

Released on October 3, 2023 by Gallery Books

In his long-awaited memoir, Making It So , Sir Patrick Stewart chronicles his remarkable journey from humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England, to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim. With candor and wit, Stewart shares his experiences as a stage and screen actor, revealing the challenges, triumphs, and enduring friendships that have shaped his life.

A Man of Two Faces, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

A Memoir, a History, a Memorial

Released on October 3, 2023 by Atlantic Monthly Press

In his poignant and thought-provoking memoir, A Man of Two Faces , Viet Thanh Nguyen shares his experiences as a refugee and an immigrant. A powerful and moving memoir that challenges readers to confront the realities of war, displacement, and the ongoing struggle for belonging.

The Woman in Me, Britney Spears

Released on October 24, 2023 by Gallery Books

One of the best memoirs and autobiographies of 2023, taking home the Goodreads reader’s choice award for the category, Britney Spears’ highly anticipated memoir, The Woman in Me , offers a poignant and candid look into her life and career. The book explores her childhood dreams, meteoric rise to fame, struggles with the conservatorship, and journey toward personal freedom. Critics have praised the book for its honesty, vulnerability, and empowering message, while readers have found inspiration in Spears’ strength and resilience. This New York Times bestseller is a must-read for anyone interested in pop culture, personal growth, and the power of speaking one’s truth.

If You Would Have Told Me, by John Stamos

Released on October 24, 2023 by Henry Holt and Co.

In If You Would Have Told Me , Stamos offers an honest and introspective look at John Stamos’ life, both on and off the screen. He writes about his early life in California, his early successes in television and film, and his rise to superstardom as Uncle Jesse on Full House. Stamos also opens up about his struggles, including his battle with addiction and the death of his father.

Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond, by Henry Winkler

Released on October 31, 2023 by Celadon Books

Henry Winkler chronicles his remarkable journey from a struggling dyslexic child to an Emmy Award-winning actor, author, producer, and director. With humor and self-deprecating wit, Winkler shares his personal experiences, revealing the challenges, triumphs, and enduring friendships that have shaped his life.

My Name is Barbra, by Barbra Streisand

Released on November 1, 2023 by Penguin Publishing Group

Barbra Streisand embarks on a captivating and personal journey, chronicling her extraordinary life and career from her humble beginnings in Brooklyn, New York, to her ascent as a global icon. With candor, wit, and remarkable self-awareness, Streisand shares her experiences as a performer, producer, director, and philanthropist, revealing the challenges, triumphs, and enduring friendships that have shaped her life.

We hope this list of memoirs and autobiographies released in 2023 has sparked your interest, offering a glimpse into the lives of others and perhaps encouraging you to delve into these memoirs for yourself. Happy reading!

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Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies

The best biographies of 2023: the national book critics circle shortlist, recommended by elizabeth taylor.

Winner of the 2023 NBCC biography prize

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman

Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

1 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

2 the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, 3 mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, 4 metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, 5 up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.

I t’s a pleasure to have you back , Elizabeth—this time to discuss the National Book Critics Circle’s 2023 biography shortlist. You’ve been chair of the judging panel for a while, so you’re in a great position to tell us whether it has been a good year for biography.

That comes through in the shortlist, I think. There’s a real range here. I think any reader is bound to find something to appeal to their tastes.

Shaping a shortlist seems quite like arranging a bouquet. A clutch of peony, begonia, or orchid stems…each may be lovely, an exemplar in its own way. We aspire to assemble a glorious arrangement—a quintet of blooms that reflect the wildly varied human experiences represented in the verdant garden of biography.

Let’s talk about G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century first, then, shall we? It is your 2023 winner of the NBCC’s prize for best biography; it also won a Pulitzer Prize . It’s also, and correct me if I’m wrong, the most traditional of the biographies that made the list.

G-Man is traditional in as much as Beverly Gage captures the full sweep of Hoover’s life, cradle to grave: 1895 to 1972. In that way, structurally G-Man sits aside the epics of David McCullough ( Truman , John Adams ) and Ron Chernow ( Grant , Alexander Hamilton ).

Unlike those valorized national leaders, Hoover answered to no voters. The quintessential ‘Government Man,’ a counselor and advisor to eight U.S. presidents , of both political parties, he was one of the most powerful, unelected government officials in history. He reigned over the Federal Bureau of Investigations from 1924 to 1972. Hoover began as a young reformer and—as he accrued power—was simultaneously loathed and admired. Through Hoover, Gage skilfully guides readers through the full arc of 20th-century America, and contends: “We cannot know our own story without understanding his.”

In G-Man , Yale University professor Gage untangles the contradictions in Hoover’s aspirations and cruelty, and locates the paradoxical American story of tensions and anxieties over security, masculinity, and race.

“This year, many biographies were deeply rooted in American soil that required years of research to till”

Hoover lived his entire life in Washington D.C., and Gage entwines his story in the city’s evolution into a global power center and delves deeply into the dark childhood that led him to remain there for college. Critical to understanding Hoover, Gage demonstrates, was his embrace of the Kappa Alpha fraternity; its worldview was informed by Robert E. Lee and the ‘Lost Cause’ of the South , in which racial equality was unacceptable. He shaped the F.B.I. in his image and recruited Kappa Alpha men to the Bureau.

For Hoover, Gage writes, Kappa Alpha was a way to measure character, political sympathies, and, of course, loyalty. One of those men was Clyde Tolson, and Gage documents their trips to nightclubs, the racetrack, vacations, and White House receptions. Hoover did not acknowledge that he and Tolson were a couple, but in the end their separate burial plots were a few yards from one another.

While Hoover feels very much alive on the page, Gage captures the full sweep of American history, chronicling events from the hyper-nationalism of the early part of the century, moving into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., making use of newly unclassified documents. When Hoover’s F.B.I. targeted Nazis and gangsters, there was clarity about good guys and bad guys. But by the mid-century, as the nation began to fracture, he regarded calls for peace and justice as threats to national security. Among the abuses of power committed by Hoover’s F.B.I., for instance, was the wiretapping and harassment of King.

Beyond Hoover’s malfeasance, Gage emphasizes that Hoover was no maverick. He tapped into a dark part of the national psyche and had public opinion on his side. Through Hoover, Americans could see themselves, and, as Gage argues, “what we valued and refused to see.”

A biography like this does make you realize how deeply world events might be impacted or even partially predicted by the family background or the personalities of a small number of key individuals.

We should step through the rest of the books on your 2023 biography shortlist. Let’s start with Kerri K. Greenidge’s The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family , which is the story not only of the Grimké Sisters Sarah and Angelina, two well-known abolitionists, but Black members of their family as well.

I was eager to read The Grimkés as I had admired Greenidge’s earlier biography, Black Radical , about Boston civil rights leader and abolitionist newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter. Greenidge, a professor at Tufts University, brings her unique, perceptive eye to African American civil rights in the North.

Now Greenidge’s The Grimkés sits on my bookshelf next to The Hemingses of Monticello , the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Annette Gordon-Reed who exposed the contradictions of one of the most venerated figures in American history, Thomas Jefferson. In the Grimke family, Greenidge has found a gnarled family tree, deeply rooted in generations of trauma.

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke have been exalted as brave heroines who defied antebellum Southern piety and headed northward to embrace abolition. Greenridge makes the powerful case that, in clinging to this mythology, a more troubling story is obscured. In the North, as the Grimké sisters lived comfortably and agitated for change, they enjoyed the financial benefits of their slaveholding family in South Carolina.

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After the Civil War, they learned that their brute of a brother had fathered at least two sons with a woman whom he had enslaved. The sisters provided some financial assistance in the education of these two young men, one attended Harvard Law School and the other Princeton Divinity School—and did not let their nephews forget it.

Not only does Greenidge provide a revisionist history of the Grimke sisters, but she also takes account of the full Grimké family and extends their story beyond the 19th century. She delves into the dynamics of racial subordination and how free white men who conceive children — whether from rape or a relationship spanning decades with enslaved women—destroy families. Generations of children are haunted by this history.  Poignantly, Greenidge evokes the life and work of the sisters’ grandniece Angelina (‘Nana’) Weld Grimké , a talented—and troubled—queer playwright and poet, who carried the heavy weight of the generational trauma she inherited.

This sounds like a family saga of the kind you might be more likely to find in fiction.

Let’s turn to Mr B . : George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans, the story of the noted choreographer. Why did this make your shortlist of the best biographies of 2023?

The perfect match of biographer and subject! A dancer who trained with Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York and is now dance critic for The New Yorker, Homans has written a biography of the man known as ‘the Shakespeare of Dance.’ In felicitous prose, Homans channels the dancer’s experience onto the page, from the body movements that can produce such beauty to the aching tendons and ligaments. Training is transformation, Homan writes, and working with Balanchine was a kind of metamorphosis tangled with pain. She evokes the dances so vividly that one can almost hear the music.

“At the heart of biography is the quest to understand the interplay between individual and social forces”

Homans captures Balanchine in a constant state of reinvention, tracing his life from Czarist Russia to Weimar Berlin , finally making his way to post-war New York where he revitalized the world of ballet by embracing modernish, founding New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine was genius whose personal history shape-shifted over the years. Homans grounds Mr. B in more than a hundred interviews, and draws from archives around the world.

Homans captures Balanchine’s charisma and cultural importance, but Mr. B. is no hagiography. Homans grasps the knot of sex and power over women used in his work. He married four times, always to dancers. They were all the same kind of swan-necked, long-waisted, long-limbed women, and although Homans does not write this, his company often sounds more like a cult than art.

And, of course, there is the matter of weight, which Homans dealt with directly, as did Balanchine. He posted a sign: ‘BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PAY—YOU MUST WEIGH.’

I don’t think I’ve ever considered reading a ballet biography before, but it sounds fascinating.

The next book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist brings us to Oxford, England. This is Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman.

At the outset of World War II , a quartet of young women, Oxford students—Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley—were “bored of listening to men talk about books by men about men,” as Mac Cumhaill, a Durham University professor, and Wiseman, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, write. In their marvelous group biography, MacCumhaill and Wiseman vivify how the friendships of these women congealed to bring “philosophy back to life.”

As their male counterparts departed for the front lines, this brilliant group of women came together in their dining halls and shared lodging quarters to challenge the thinking of their male colleagues. In the shadows of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, these friends rejected the logical positivists who favoured empirical scientific questions. They didn’t really create a distinct philosophical approach as much as they shared an interest in the metaphysics of morals.

Brilliant. A book that is ostensibly ‘improving’ but which turns out to be absolutely chock-full of gossip sounds perfect to me. Let’s move on to the fourth book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist, which is Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs.

A biography about writing biography ! Very meta, and very much in the interdisciplinary tradition of American Studies. In his gorgeous braid of cultural history, Cornell University professor Sachs   entwines the lives and work of poet and fiction writer Herman Melville (1819-1891) and the philosopher and literary critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), illuminating their coextending concerns about their worlds in crisis.

While Melville is now firmly ensconced in the American canon, most appreciation and respect for him was posthumous. The 20th-century Melville revival was largely sparked by a now overlooked Mumford, once so prominent that he appeared on a 1936 Time  magazine cover.

Sachs brilliantly provides the connective tissue between Melville and his biographer Mumford so that these writers seem to be in conversation with one another, both deeply affected by their dark times.

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As Mumford grappled with tragedies wrought by World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic and urban decay, Melville had dealt with the bloody Civil War , slavery , and industrialization. In a certain way, this book is about the art of biography itself, two writers wrestling with modernity in a bleak world. In delving into Melville’s angst, Mumford was thrust into great turmoil. Sachs evokes so clearly and painfully this bond that almost did Mumford in, and writes that “Melville, it turns out, was Mumford’s white whale.”

There’s a real sense of range in this shortlist. But do you get a sense of there being certain trends in biography as a genre in 2023?

In many ways, this is a golden era for biography. There are fewer dull but worthy books, more capacious and improvisational ones. More series of short biographies that pack a big punch. We see more group biographies and illustrated biographies. But just as figures and groups once considered marginal are being centered, records that document those lives are vanishing.

The crisis in local news and the homogenization of national and international news will soon be a crisis for biographers and historians. Where would historians be without the ‘slave narratives’ from the Federal Writers Project , or the Federal Theatre Project ? Reconstruction of public events—federal elections, national tragedies, and so on—may be possible, but we lose that wide spectrum of human experience. We need to preserve these artifacts and responses to events as they happen. Biographies are time-consuming labors of love and passion, and are often expensive to produce. We need to ensure that we are generating and saving the emails, the records, the to-do lists of ordinary life.

The affluent among us will always be able to commission histories of their companies or families, but are those the only ones that will endure?

June 30, 2023

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is a co-author of American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation with Adam Cohen, with whom she also cofounded The National Book Review. She has chaired four Pulitzer Prize juries, served as president of the National Book Critics Circle, and presided over the Harold Washington Literary Award selection committee three times. Former Time magazine correspondent in New York and Chicago and long-time literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, she is working on a biography of women in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras for Liveright/W.W. Norton.

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The 18 best bios & memoirs of 2023

In turns heartrending and quick-witted, these candid listens are exemplars of the genre.

With the arrival of each new year comes a fresh array of bios and memoirs, each holding a uniquely intimate take on what it means to be human. These 18 listens represent just a few of the very best released in 2023—living, breathing records of all the complexities of identity, culture, family, and coming of age. From lyrical reflections on trauma and healing to examinations of life with chronic illness to introspective studies of art and literature, these vivid accounts lay bare the life of one person while extending a universality to anyone who presses play.

Save this list to your Library Collections now.

King: A Life

This landmark biography deserves its instant status as essential listening. If the culture has crystallized MLK into monuments and sound bites, Jonathan Eig’s intimate portrait reveals his full humanity, a thrilling feat that only enhances the civil rights leader’s legacy. Meet King, the preacher’s son, natty dresser, and ladies’ man. The FBI target who foresaw his own martyrdom. And the incomparable orator who drew from poetry, sermons, and scholarship to rouse the largest movement of Black Americans the world had ever seen. Decorated narrator Dion Graham channels King to perfection in an unforgettable performance. — Kat J.

A Man of Two Faces

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer expands his investigation of the double consciousness of the model minority in this blistering, uncoventional memoir. While it's common to present an inspiring struggle from hardship to success, Viet Thanh Nguyen is skeptical of any narrative that easily romanticizes individual uplift. Beautifully read by the author, whose trademark sardonic wit shines through as he shares stories of refugeehood, colonization, and fatherhood, this meditation on memory and forgetting also details the sacrifices of his parents, born into rural poverty in Vietnam. — Jerry P.

While You Were Out

Meg Kissinger’s acclaimed reporting on systemic failures to address the mental health crisis sought to shatter the stigma pervading conversations on illness and care. In her memoir, she furthers that dialogue with a tremendous turn inward. With an investigative journalist’s keen eye, Kissinger examines her own family’s history with mental illness, which afflicted both of her parents and several of her seven siblings, two of whom would die by suicide. Shimmering with hope and pulsating with heartache, this exceptional listen is as much an exquisitely personal work as it is a fervent call to action. Kissinger’s narration, like her writing, is as incisive as it is boundlessly compassionate. — Alanna M.

Better Living Through Birding

Christian Cooper soars above and beyond his viral encounter in New York City's Central Park in this heartfelt—and strikingly humorous—memoir that offers a healing reminder that no story ever begins or ends in a single moment. Infused with insights on queer sexuality and nerd culture, and featuring a natural abundance of birdcalls, this dynamic listen is made all the more memorable by Cooper’s charming narration. — Haley H.

Hijab Butch Blues

As soon as I registered that the title of Lamya H.’s memoir was a nod to the iconic novel Stone Butch Blues , I was sold. But it wasn’t until I finished the listen that I felt a deep appreciation for Lamya’s unique journey coming into her own as a queer and devout Muslim immigrant. Both breathtakingly intimate and utterly hopeful, this story refuses to fit neatly into any box. Through the clarity of her deft self-examination, Lamya teaches us that critical thinking is vital and that there is more than one way to be queer—just as there is more than one way to be Muslim. — Madeline A.

Life on Delay

As a magazine writer and editor, John Hendrickson is an expert at using and manipulating words, but as a lifelong stutterer, the spoken word often fails him. In his poignant memoir, he details the anguish and embarrassment, and George Newbern narrates with sensitivity, navigating tricky moments without crossing the line into caricature. A lesson for everyone comes in the chapter where Hendrickson details “The Look”—“It’s primal, this reaction: another body literally retreating from you, the problem.” Stuttering, like any challenge, is ultimately not about casting blame or feeling shame. As the author clearly explains, with empathy, it's about being transparent and finding understanding. — J.P.

A Dangerously High Threshold for Pain

Millions of Americans, including National Book Award-winning scholar Imani Perry, face each day through the lens of chronic illness. In her absolute stunner of a memoir, Perry details her experience living with systemic lupus and the agonies of navigating a culture often incompatible with invisible disabilities. Her brilliant grasp of language coupled with her gentle, measured performance lay bare the frustrating reality of sickness. “In living with disease,” Perry writes, “we bear witness to something important about the human condition, something that is worth the world’s attention.” Now, it’s up to us to listen. — A.M.

All the Beauty in the World

Not even the most pedigreed art historian has cultivated such an awe-inspiring perspective on the Metropolitan Museum of Art as this jewel of a memoir by a former New Yorker staffer-turned-museum guard. After the death of his brother, Patrick Bringley traded the literary job of a lifetime for the Met’s hallowed halls, and the result is this beautifully narrated and profound meditation on art, grief, and solace. So while he’s no longer a New Yorker writer, Bringley is a New York writer of the highest order with this paean to the city’s beloved institution. — K.J.

They Called Us Exceptional

In this exceptionally brave and honest memoir, author Prachi Gupta digs into the realities of growing up as a first-generation Indian American child of high-achieving immigrant parents. By all outward accounts, Gupta’s family seemed deceptively perfect. In reality, her home was a hotbed of unresolved grief and generational trauma, compounded by a controlling father who never wavered from his belief that the family should act as a model minority. As Gupta says in her powerful self-narrated memoir, “Now I see that my job was to allow those who come next the freedom to be ordinary. They called us exceptional, and it destroyed us.” — M.A.

Counting the Cost

Slow-rolling scandals have rocked the Duggar family since they first appeared on reality TV. But it's Jill’s account of her childhood and her more recent “deconstruction” (a term for the process of questioning one’s evangelical upbringing) that truly shed new light on the situation. At its heart, this is a story about agency, and the right to reclaim it if it’s been denied. (Editor's note: We chose not to categorize this as Celebrity Memoir because a central concern of Jill's story is how much choice she had in her status as a notable person.) Jill's narration is steeped in honesty and tinged with regret, but there is also so much well-earned hope and pride for the life she has created. — Emily C.

To call Sink “honest” or “vulnerable” feels like an understatement—it is a narrative that never once flinches. And though it may not be the easiest listen, it is one that demonstrates just how truly human a memoir can be. From a third-person perspective, Joseph Earl Thomas bares his adolescent self, detailing both the cruelties of his upbringing and the escapism that geek culture provided. As he unspools his story, in a voice strikingly soft, Thomas crafts a wholly unique tale, a standout as unvarnished as it is profoundly empathetic. — A.M.

Good for a Girl

One of the most-decorated American distance runners of all time, Lauren Fleshman is arrestingly talented by anyone’s athletic standards. Unfortunately, that’s not always what she was told. Full of fresh insights, this timely listen goes beyond the story of Fleshman’s life as she made it pro against all the odds. Good for a Girl is a well-researched call-to-action that mixes the author's own testimony with hard facts and social commentary—all pointing toward a broken system that's failing young women. As she narrates her own story, Fleshman’s passion is palpable, leaving listeners informed and inspired. — M.A.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

Listening to Jane Wong's gentle voice as she jumps between events and memories, rearranging anecdotes of her life growing up along the Jersey Shore as a Chinese American, one soon feels soothed by the poetic descriptions that shape her recollections. While the trauma of having an absentee father stings, it's her stories of her supportive mother that bring the most joy—possibly causing many others to wish, as the author suggests, they could have a Wongmom.com of their own to dispense much-needed assurances and humorous advice. — J.P.

Losing Music

With the sense of isolation so many encounter after a disability diagnosis, narratives on navigating the labyrinthine health care landscape and rebuilding a life after facing the unfathomable are essential. John Cotter’s staggering testament exemplifies such significant storytelling while offering heart and soul all its own. Both a gutting, intimate reflection on the reality of life with a chronic illness (in Cotter’s case, what’s diagnosed as Ménière’s disease) and an exceptional account of the human capacity for resilience, Cotter’s melodious author-narrated memoir is as much about gradually losing one sensorial experience as it is finding a better understanding of the self. — A.M.

Life on Other Planets

Try not to be too envious of astrobiologist Aomawa Shields. Her idiosyncratic journey, which begins with her love of astronomy as a preteen, takes a detour to following her passion and pursuit of acting and the arts, and eventually returns to science (she's currently a tenured professor of astronomy and physics at UC Irvine) is as stunning to behold as peering into the cosmos. But Shields's narration of her inspiring story is immediate and often poetic, whether she's unpacking complicated concepts about stars and planets or her anxieties about not feeling “Black enough” in certain settings. — J.P.

Women We Buried, Women We Burned

Narrated by the courageous author herself, this memoir of a fierce reporter who was kicked out of her rigidly evangelical and violent home at the age of 16 is a meditation on resilience. Rachel Louise Snyder doesn’t paint an easy-to-digest Cinderella story of rags to riches, nor does she claim that suffering makes a person stronger. What she does is powerfully show how through remaining open to possibilities, she managed to carve out a vibrant life of her own—finding romantic love, giving birth to her daughter, and surrounding herself with a chosen family all while working as an international journalist. — M.A.

How to Say Babylon

Put simply, Safiya Sinclair’s stunning memoir demands to be heard. A celebrated poet, Sinclair wields a delicate, evocative writing style rich with lush detail and fluidity, and her narration mirrors that flow exquisitely. In a nearly musical cadence, Sinclair recounts a turbulent upbringing in a patriarchal Rastafari household that denied her independence and self-expression, instead demanding unquestioned obedience. As she comes of age and courageously comes into her own through the outlets of education and art, Sinclair finds herself on the long road to healing, balancing reflection with redemption. The result is nothing short of superb. — A.M.

Think You'll Be Happy

When Nicole Avant learned her mom had been shot during the night, she did something her mother taught her—set the tone for the day by doing the right thing. In this moment, the right thing was to care, by feeding the dogs before she went to the hospital where her mother would later die. This touching, inspiring memoir is about growing up in an extraordinary household with her brother and their parents, entertainment mogul Clarence and big-hearted mother Jacqueline. Nicole pays homage to them as their lessons live on in her heart and soul—every single day. — Yvonne D.

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• Best of the Year

The Best Memoirs of 2023 (So Far)

The most touching, gripping, moving, and funny personal stories you need to read.

Every item on this page was chosen by an ELLE editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

With vacation season looming, here are a few ideas for your summer reading list. This year has been full of funny, fascinating, and evocative memoirs written by both household names and people just introducing themselves to the world. From Geena Rocero’s story of becoming a trans activist in Horse Barbie to Minka Kelly’s account of surviving her childhood in Tell Me Everything , each gives us a deep look into a fascinating life and provides a better understanding of who we are.

Irma: The Education of a Mother's Son

Well before Terry McDonnell edited Sports Illustrated or Esquire , he was Irma’s son. He traces the way that each step of his life, which he also explored in his earlier memoir The Accidental Life , was shaped by the strength of his mother, a young World War II widow who raised him alone in California. In looking back at clashes with a violent stepfather, an unexpected pregnancy, his early years in journalism, and divorce, McDonnell gains a new understanding of just how much Irma gave him.

Pageboy: A Memoir

Pageboy is generating headlines but there’s so much more to it. (Not that the Hollywood intel isn’t appreciated.) Since coming out in 2020, Page has been one of the few high profile people speaking about life as a trans man. After over 15 years in the spotlight, Page excavates his memories to introduce himself properly for the first time.

Tell Me Everything: A Memoir

In both celebrity gossip and her star-making role on Friday Night Lights , Kelly has always been the girlfriend. Tell Me Everything gives her the microphone and makes us regret not fully knowing her before. Kelly’s early years were defined by tumult. Her single mother worked as a stripper and led a chaotic life that found them in countless precarious living situations. In a childhood devoid of security, Kelly searched for ways to cope and speaks honestly now about everything from an on-set romance to the pain of pregnancy loss. Tell Me Everything is a gorgeous debut that transcends the celebrity category.

Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation

In healing from a very painful breakup, Felix, a celebrated poet and political speechwriter, revisits her experiences with abuse, learning difficulties, and mental health crises through the heartbreaking process of learning how to untangle the threads of pain accrued throughout life. Dyscalculia brilliantly explores the way we understand and deal with pain and how we rate heartbreak on a hierarchy of grief.

Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter

It’s uniquely difficult to explain the maddening frustration and alienation of stuttering and Hendrickson does it beautifully. The stutter he has dealt with since childhood has become an accepted part of his life and his career in journalism. It’s one that enabled him to connect on a deep level with Joe Biden in a 2020 Atlantic piece that marked one of the few times the President has spoken about the way his stutter impacts him as an adult. Life on Delay has powerful resonance for anyone who has ever stuttered and offers others an insight into a remarkably common but under discussed phenomenon.

Horse Barbie: A Memoir

Growing up in the Philippines, Rocero found national fame in the world of beauty pageants. Relocating to the U.S. as a teen meant starting over, building a career as a model while hiding the fact that she was trans. Rocero forged a path for herself where one hadn’t previously existed and in Horse Barbie gives us such a warm and relatable story of strength and spirit.

Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth

There’s so much we never knew about Anderson and Love, Pamela provides a deep look into a woman who is much smarter, kinder, and more creative than she’s ever been given credit for. Those who have followed her for years will love seeing her full story told for the first time while others will benefit from understanding the way the media misrepresented her.

The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival

Those who recognize Saint John as a superstar executive at Netflix, Apple Music, and PepsiCo will be amazed by the level of candor and emotion she brings to her very personal story. While she was building a career as one of the most prominent Black women in business, Saint John quietly dealt with the loss of a child, a separation from her husband, and his death from cancer. Her ability to persevere is incredible and The Urgent Life is a heartbreaking example of how much invisible grief those around us can be carrying.

Stash: My Life in Hiding

We know addiction defines class but do we really? At the peak of her pill use, Cathcart Robbins, now the host of the podcast The Only One in the Room , was a full-time mom married to an entertainment executive and living a high-end Los Angeles lifestyle. She was also dealing with the challenges of being a Black woman in an exceedingly white world. As a recovery story, Stash is both distinct and universal.

Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming

Chin grew up knowing very little about her family’s history or the long path her relatives took from China to New York City. Mott Street came from years of research into her roots that covered the Chinese Exclusion Act and the transcontinental railroad labor and mirrors the history of so many families.

All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

Bringley has had an unusual view into the art world. In 2008 he left his job at The New Yorker to become a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All the Beauty in the World is his account of over a decade spent working at one of world’s most famous institutions filled with his simple appreciation for wondrous things.

Adrienne Gaffney is a features editor at ELLE and previously worked at WSJ Magazine and Vanity Fair .

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• Home & garden

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

The 25 Best New Celebrity Memoirs of 2023

From Prince Harry to Kerry Washington to Barbra Streisand, it's been quite the year for famous stars telling their stories.

Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

When Prince Harry announced his highly-anticipated memoir would publish on January 10, 2023, it quickly set the tone for 2023: This would be a year of celebrity memoirs. In the weeks and months that followed, Pamela Anderson, Kerry Washington, Britney Spears, and Barbra Streisand all released their memoirs, among many other stars. Without further ado, the best celebrity memoirs of 2023 so far:

Prince Harry's Spare was full of jaw-dropping revelations , weird tales , and a peek behind the curtain of what life is like in the British royal family . Ghostwritten by J.R. Moehringer , Spare was Harry's side of his life story, and how he dealt with grief and healing. "I don’t think my father or brother will read the book. I really hope they do. But I don’t think they will," Prince Harry said in an interview around publication. While the British royal family may not have read it, one thing's for sure: The world certainly did.

Thicker than Water: A Memoir

Kerry Washington's Thicker than Water recounts her upbringing and career as an actress and activist. "Writing a memoir is, by far, the most deeply personal project I have ever taken on," she said . "I hope that readers will receive it with open hearts and I pray that it offers new insights and perspectives, and invites people into deeper compassion — for themselves and others."

My Name Is Barbra

Barbra Streisand's long-anticipated memoir finally hit the shelves this November, featuring a revealing look into her life and career, and charming anecdotes about everything from Yentl to Princess Diana .

A Pocketful of Happiness: A Memoir

Richard E. Grant arrived in London from Swaziland in 1982 to pursue his dreams as an actor. Along the way, he fell in love with the renowned dialect coach, Joan Washington. For forty years, the two embarked on life together–highs and lows of Hollywood, parenting, and all. When Washington passed away in 2021, she left him with a challenge: find a "pocketful of happiness in every day.” Written like diary entries, this memoir is written in honor of that challenge. Grant shares the details of his life's experiences from the pain of losing his beloved wife, to their memories spent together, from his roles in Withnail and I to his thrilling Oscar Award nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Paris: The Memoir

"I just feel for so long I've been misunderstood and underestimated," Paris Hilton told NPR about writing Paris: The Memoir . "And I feel that the past over two decades in this industry, my story has been told by other people. And I was just ready to get real and tell my truth." In a wide-ranging book, the biggest truths lay in Hilton's teenage years, and the her experiences with the so-called troubled teen industry.

Pageboy: A Memoir

Elliot Page shot to fame as a pregnant teen in Juno , but his public experience as a young starlet did not line up who he truly was: A queer, trans person. "I didn’t think I could write a book. Books, particularly memoirs, have really shifted my life, offered me inspiration, comfort, been humbling, all of those things," Page said . "And I think this period of not just hate, about our healthcare, it felt like the right time. Trans and queer stories are so often picked apart, or worse, universalized." What resulted was an intimate, resonant look at Page's journey from child star to today.

The Woman in Me

Britney Spears gets honest in her memoir, a moving and brave tale of "freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope."

Making It So: A Memoir

Sir Patrick Stewart's memoir, Making It So , like many of the other revealing celebrity books on this list, details his childhood through his journey to acclaim on stage and screen. "I never had the time to do it. But then my agent, early in 2020, said, 'Look, Patrick, there is no work. It’s going to be a shut down everywhere, and it could last for months. This is the only window, so why not give it a go? If it doesn’t work out, we’ll just return the advance, and you can go back to doing jigsaw puzzles,'" he recounted .

Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir

American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, now 70, reflects on her childhood in the Deep South, and the experiences that shaped her unforgettable music. "I’ve held back from talking about my childhood over the decades of my life," Williams writes. "I’ve written songs about it instead." Now, she finally takes pen to paper to share her stories.

Chita: A Memoir

Chita Rivera, born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero, turned 90 earlier this year—and wow has the legendary actress lived a full life. In this wide-ranging, entertaining memoir written with journalist Patrick Pacheco, the three-time Tony Award winner reflects on her nine decades, and writes about her life on stage and screen. "It was the next stage for me to write it down. And it was God’s way of reminding me this is the life I had or have. I got so busy that I didn’t remember that I had a wonderful, wonderful life," she tells the AP . And yes, Chita is as wonderful as she is.

Jada Pinkett Smith dives deep into her life—from her childhood in Baltimore to her marriage with Will Smith. As her husband (or are they even married) wrote in the blurb, "I went through so many emotions reading this book. Reconnecting to one's ancestors and truly feeling, not only hearing, their stories are fertile ground for true ecstatic embodiment of the self. We have to know where we've been to see where we're going."

Tell Me Everything: A Memoir

Minka Kelly shot to fame as Lyla on Friday Night Lights , but never shared her personal story. Now, as the title promises, she's telling her readers everything—including her childhood traumas. "I decided to tell my story because the media has written a narrative of me, based on the men they have seen me with, whether I’ve dated them or not," she told The Cut . An unflinching, no-holds-barred look at her life and career.

Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond

Henry Winkler is more than "The Fonz," his character from Happy Days . His memoir covers his big break and career, but also his mental health journey and therapy.

Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth

Pamela Anderson sets the record straight in Love, Pamela , aptly subtitled "a memoir of prose, poetry, and truth." In the pages of her memoir, she recounts everything from her childhood in Vancouver to the abuse she faced throughout her career . The book came out around the same time as Pamela, a Love Story dropped on Netflix —making 2023 Anderson's year to reclaim her narrative.

Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding)

Not quite a memoir, but a book written by two celebrities that we felt was worthy of inclusion: Laura Dern and her mom, Diane Ladd, co-wrote Honey, Baby, Mine. The book stemmed from conversations about love, death, marriage, art, and legacy the two had on long walks following a scary health diagnosis for Ladd. As the publisher notes, "The result is a celebration of the power of leaving nothing unsaid that will make you want to call the people you love the most and start talking."

Wildflower: A Memoir

Aurora James—activist, fashion designer, and founder of the Fifteen Percent Pledge —tells her story of how she got to where she is today in Wildflower . As T&C noted in our favorite books of spring 2023 , "James recounts a peripatetic childhood, brushes with the law, and disenchantment with the fashion industry, but also her inspiring ability to find a path that combined her creative genius and desire to give back. Wildflower is true to its name, sharing a story of someone who bloomed despite obstacles and dedicated herself to beauty inside and out even when doing so wasn't so simple."

Energy Follows Thought: The Stories Behind My Songs

To mark his 90th birthday, Willie Nelson goes behind the lyrics of 160 of his favorite songs. Energy Follows Throughout is not just a classic memoir—it's full of never-before-seen photos and various ephemera of Nelson's. As the publisher notes, "Willie is disarmingly honest—what do you have to lose when you’re about to turn 90? —meditating on the nature of songwriting and finding his voice, and the themes he’s explored his whole life."

Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain

Andrew McCarthy, member of the Brat Pack, is now a dad. In this follow up to his memoir Brat: An '80s Story (and in his second career as a travel writer) , he sets out on the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile walk across Spain, with his son Sam (also an actor now). In this funny, moving memoir, McCarthy writes about his first time walking the Camino de Santiago, and the second time with his son. Part father-son bonding, part travelogue, all very emotional.

Leslie F*cking Jones

In Saturday Night Live star Leslie Jones's new memoir, aptly titled Leslie F*cking Jones , the comedian doesn't hold back in recounting her experiences with racism and misogyny in the comedy world. "It’s not easy being a woman in comedy, especially when you’re a tall-ass Black woman with a trumpet voice. I have to fight so that no one takes me for granted, and no one takes advantage. These are the stories that explain why," she explains.

My Effin' Life

Geddy Lee, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Rush bassist, opens up in his memoir My Effin' Life . In the pages, he lets readers in on his childhood—he was born Gershon Eliezer Weinrib, named for his grandfather who was murdered in the Holocaust—and on the rise of Rush.

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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As the late, great James Baldwin reminds us, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” While many of these memoirs tell of extraordinary circumstances—surviving a childhood in a cult, reckoning with unspeakable family tragedy, or adjusting to a world without sound—each also contains the kind of universal truths anyone can relate to.

Through the Groves, by Anne Hull

In her nearly two decades as a national reporter for The Washington Post, Anne Hull earned a reputation (and a Pulitzer!) for rigor and artistry in capturing some of the most urgent stories of our time. In her debut book, she directs her characteristically incisive gaze at her own history, weaving an atmospheric and aching account of her childhood in the sweltering heat of Central Florida and the tumult of the ’60s. Hull grew up riding shotgun in her father’s Ford truck through orange groves her family had worked—without competition or disturbance—for generations. But in 1967, change was in the air; Walt Disney had just broken ground on a new park, Californian “seedless clementines” had recently hit the market, and her father’s drinking was destabilizing her home. Hull captures a richly ambivalent portrait of a world on the brink of disappearing and a family in the midst of radical transformation: afternoons spent chasing the “marshmallow fluff of DDT,” springtime orange blossoms so pungent they burned their scent into clothes, men’s bodies ravaged by pesticide inhalation, and women bucking convention. Hypnotic and tender, this book reminds us that even if we leave our homes, our homes never leave us.

The Wreck, by Cassandra Jackson

Long before Cassandra Jackson was born, her name was already on a tombstone. In the 1960s, a car accident took the lives of her father’s first wife, his mother, his brother-in-law, his sister, and his three-year-old niece, after whom she was named. Growing up, Jackson was taught to never ask questions about “the wreck” or about the dead family her father only spoke about in his sleep. Only as an adult, facing the possibility of her own infertility, does Jackson finally go in search of definitive answers. In archives and fertility clinics alike, she encounters the specter of generational trauma and medical racism, wondering if her body, like her name, is a “haunted thing.” With mesmerizing lyricism and cutting insight, the author of The Toni Morrison Book Club teaches us that any hope for the future requires an honest confrontation with the past.

Losing Music, by John Cotter

At age 30, John Cotter began to notice a ringing noise, over time, escalated to a deafening roar and a daunting diagnosis: Ménière’s disease, an inner ear disorder for which there is “no reliable treatment and no consensus on its cause.” Over time, Cotter will lose the crisp edges of music, the sound of the ocean, his ability to fully communicate, his sense of balance, and his job as an adjunct professor. Like Anne Boyer’s The Undying and Meghan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom, Losing Music explodes an individual experience of illness into a cultural and medical reckoning; with a sociologist’s rigor and a poet’s lyricism, Cotter takes readers on an odyssey through the social history of disability, the brutal bureaucracy of the American healthcare system, and the intimate violence of living in a volatile body. But this memoir is just as much a love letter to sound itself as it is a chronicle of loss; your world will sound different after reading it.

Lesbian Love Story, by Amelia Possanza

“Are you a lesbian or something?” a male teammate asked Amelia Possanza on her explicitly queer adult recreational swim team. She was furious at his lack of recognition, but couldn’t really blame him: “If I had yet to find role models who could show me how to live, where would he have seen a lesbian?” Thus began Possanza’s rabid quest to uncover and animate lesbian stories; lesbians, she suspected, “would have something to teach us all about love.” Drawing from intensive archival research, interviews, and her own whimsical imagination, Possanza brings seven lesbians to life on the page; there are the historical heavy-hitters (hello, Sappho!) and the hidden heroes like Rusty Brown, the World War II hero and drag king renegade. At once a yearning search for a mirror in the fogged glass of history and an uproariously funny skewering of modern queer stereotypes, Lesbian Love Story will radically expand your understanding of lesbianism—and of love itself.

Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder

Today, Rachel Louise Snyder is an award-winning journalist, author, professor, and Guggenheim fellow best known for No Visible Bruises , her groundbreaking exploration of the domestic violence epidemic. But in 1985, she was a homeless high school dropout, surviving off of the scraps of food left by customers, and partying recklessly to keep the ghosts of her past and the gloom of her future at bay. With startling nuance and unexpected bursts of humor, Snyder lays bare the brutalities of her childhood: her mother’s death when she was 8, her father’s turn toward tyrannical evangelisms and abuse, her experimentations with drugs, and her emerging sense of herself as a woman in a violently patriarchal world. As an adult, survival becomes an international investigation rather than a personal struggle as she travels the globe reporting on child marriage, genocide, and gendered violence. For fans of Tara Westover’s Educated , Snyder provides a triumphant story of beating the odds and of radical self-definition—with a punk rock backdrop to boot!

Guinevere Turner When the World Didn’t End, by Guinevere Turner

On January 5, 1975, Guinevere Turner was 6 and the world was going to end. “All of us had been told to choose our favorite toy and put on our favorite clothes and then wait for the spaceship to come,” she writes. The “World People” were to be wiped off the earth, and Melvin Lyman’s loyal followers would be transported to Venus. When that spaceship didn’t come, the explanation was simple and the repercussions, immediate; some of the members’ souls weren’t ready, and daylight saving time must be abolished. Such was life in the Lyman family. Change was constant and arbitrary. Unworthiness was a given. Drawing from years of meticulously kept diaries, Turner resists the urge to let her “adult hindsight interfere or comment,” and allows us to see life inside the cult as she saw it: through the devastatingly innocent eyes of a child. The result is gripping, raw, and deeply human. It will leave you haunted.

Irma, by Terry McDonell

“After Bob goes down, it is just Irma and me.” So begins Terry McDonell’s tender account of his 1950s boyhood as the only son of a single mother. McDonell’s father, Bob, died serving as a fighter pilot in 1945 — before his son could know him. In his father’s absence, McDonell attempts to define his own manhood in opposition to the narrow example presented by his mother’s second husband: “A son hating his stepfather, searching for the character of his true father, is an old story. The center of the story, though, is not one of the fathers or even the son. It is the mother, Irma.” Through compulsively readable vignettes, McDonell assembles a kaleidoscopic view of his mother, his childhood, and his own reckoning with American masculinity.

Charley Burlock is the Associate Books Editor at Oprah Daily where she writes, edits, and assigns stories on all things literary. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from NYU, where she also taught undergraduate creative writing. Her work has been featured in the Atlanti c , the Los Angeles Review , Agni , the Apple News Today podcast, and elsewhere . She is currently working on a book about collective grief (but she promises she's really fun at parties). 

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10 Best Biographies/Memoirs of 2023

10 best biographies of 2023.

It’s been a big year for biographies, with everything from Prince Harry to Britney Spear delivering their own books. There have been a lot of excellent books in this category this year .

In this curated list, we delve into the best biographies that captivated us this year. As usual, the books below are listed in no particular order but of course, do let us know your favourites in the comments below!

So join us as we celebrate the narratives that have defined 2023, each a unique testament to the enduring power of storytelling.

The Woman in Me – Britney Spears

The Woman in Me is an intimate and courageous memoir that chronicles the remarkable journey for one of pop music’s most iconic figures, Britney Spears. This deeply personal narrative unfolds against the backdrop of her historic June 2021 court testimony, a moment that not only altered Britney’s trajectory in life, but also resonated with people around the globe. Spears’s story is one of resilience and transformation, capturing the essence of freedom, motherhood, and survival.

Spears opens up about her life in this book with honesty and humor that is both refreshing and profound. She shares her experiences in the limelight, detailing the struggles and triumphs that have defined her career and personal life. Her account goes beyond the sensational headlines, offering readers a glimpse into the heart and soul of an artist who has captivated millions.

Spears’s narrative is more than a memoir; it’s a powerful testament to the strength and resilience inherent in her character. “The Woman in Me” is a celebration of the healing power of music and love, and the vital importance of autonomy in storytelling. Britney’s voice—clear, unfiltered, and unapologetic—echoes throughout the pages, emphasizing the significance of a woman taking control of her narrative and speaking her truth.

This book is not only a milestone in Spears’s life but also an inspiring tale of hope and empowerment, making it a must-read for her fans and supporters of women’s rights alike.

A Memoir of My Former Self – Hilary Mantel

A Memoir of My Former Self is a rich collection of Hilary Mantel’s finest journalistic and personal writings, spanning four decades. Known for her distinguished career as a novelist, Mantel brings her keen insight and eloquent prose to a variety of subjects, offering readers a glimpse into both her life and the broader world as she sees it. Embracing her belief that “ink is a generative fluid,” she crafts essays that resonate with intention and depth.

Mantel’s work traverses a wide array of themes. She reflects on nationalism and her own sense of identity, delves into the interplay between our dreams and waking life, and revisits the enduring mythos of Princess Diana.

From her unique childhood to her obsession with Thomas Cromwell, which culminated in the acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy, this memoir presents the evolution of Hilary Mantel’s life and thoughts. A Memoir of My Former Self is a wonderful book and certainly one of the best released this year.

The Forgotten Girls – Monica Potts

In this poignant and revealing book, an accomplished journalist revisits her roots in a small Arkansas town to unravel the stark contrast between her life and that of her childhood best friend, Darci.

Growing up in the economically declining Ozarks, both Monica and Darci were bright, working-class girls with dreams that stretched far beyond the confines of their troubled community. United by their love for reading and learning, they faced the harsh realities of their town: broken homes, alcoholism, and the gradual decay of local businesses and factories.

While Monica managed to break free, attending college and pursuing her dreams, Darci’s story took a tragically different turn. Years later, as Monica covers poverty and its impacts, she learns of the alarming decrease in life expectancy among women in rural areas like her hometown. 

Darci represents a harrowing statistic: a single mother battling meth and prescription drug addiction, struggling with unemployment and near homelessness. Through her narrative, she sheds light on the critical issues affecting poor, rural white women in America, offering an intimate and eye-opening look at the realities often overlooked in national discourse.

Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad

In Abroad in Japan, Chris Broad shares his adventurous journey into Japan in his often humorous journey of adapting to life in rural northern Japan. Arriving with no experience in teaching and little command of the Japanese language, Chris wonders if his stint as an English teacher might be short-lived. Instead, what unfolds is a decade of rich experiences in one of the world’s most intriguing and complex cultures.

This is a captivating narrative that spans all forty-seven prefectures of Japan, from tranquil rice fields to the vibrant streets of Tokyo. Chris recounts a variety of extraordinary experiences, including a nerve-wracking North Korean missile scare, an embarrassing encounter in a love hotel, and an unforgettable week with Japan’s biggest movie star. His stories are not just entertaining; they offer a deep dive into the heart of Japanese culture.

Chris’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of travel and the value of embracing the unknown with an open mind and heart.

Strong Female Character – Fern Brady

Strong Female Character is a ground-breaking memoir by Fern Brady that confronts the intersection of sexism and neurodiversity. Brady, a neurodivergent, working-class woman from Scotland, offers an eye-opening exploration of how societal expectations clash with the realities of being an autistic woman. The book challenges the preconceived notions of both autism and femininity, highlighting the unique struggles and triumphs that come with navigating these identities.

Brady’s narrative is unflinchingly honest, delving into deeply personal experiences such as sex work, abusive relationships, and her time in teenage mental health units. She critically examines the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype, a trope often misleadingly associated with neurodiverse women, and dismantles it with the force of her lived experience.

This memoir is not just a personal account; it’s a powerful statement on the complexities of being a neurodivergent woman in a world that often misunderstands and overlooks such experiences.

Friendaholic – Elizabeth Day

In Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, Elizabeth Day delves into the oft-overlooked yet vital world of friendships, challenging the societal emphasis on romantic love.

Growing up with few friends, Elizabeth equated the number of friendships with being loved and secure. As an adult, she prides herself on being a Good Friend, only to realize that this pursuit sometimes comes at the cost of her own boundaries and mental health.

The onset of the global pandemic in 2020 sees Elizabeth re-evaluate her understanding of friendship. Confronted with the reality that her closest friends weren’t necessarily those she spent the most time with, she begins to question the nature of these relationships. This introspection leads to broader inquiries: Is there such a thing as having too many friends? How well does one truly understand the role they play as a friend?

The Strength of Love – Kate Garraway

Kate Garraway’s The Strength of Love offers a profound and moving account of resilience and hope amidst life’s most challenging circumstances. This deeply personal narrative unfolds in the wake of her husband Derek’s battle with the severe impacts of Covid, a struggle that has dramatically altered their family life, requiring 24-hour care and frequent hospitalizations.

Kate’s journey is one of constant uncertainty and daily challenges, testing her strength and that of her family at every turn.

Garraway’s book delves into universal themes that resonate with many: the nature of trauma, the critical role of resilience and adaptability, and the power of staying curious and positive in the face of adversity. She candidly discusses the concepts of identity and purpose, offering insights into how to embrace uncertainty and regain control in times of turmoil. Her experiences and reflections provide solace and wisdom to those grappling with loneliness, loss, or fear of the unknown.

Spare – Prince Harry

Much has been made of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, with opinion swinging like a pendulum between outright hatred to incredulous disbelief. Following their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey and the subsequent fall-out with the Royal Family, Harry and Meghan have attempted to lift the curtain and explain exactly what’s happened and what’s led them to where we are today.

Spare is a revealing and deeply personal memoir in that respect, ghost-written by J.R. Moehringer but written in first-person perspective to authenticate the feel of what’s in here. Prince Harry’s book is split across three parts in this 410 page book. After a brief prologue starting at Prince Philip’s death, we cut back to just before Princess Diana’s death, leading through Harry’s years growing up as the “Spare” to Prince William (the “heir”) along with his time in the military and up to the Queen’s death.

The writing itself is mostly reserved to short and snappy sub-chapters, which are split into three parts, the first focusing on the past and growing up, the second on Harry’s time in the military and the third on Harry’s love life and meeting Meghan Markle.

It’s a book that reveals far more about the underbelly of the Royal Family than you’re likely to see anywhere else. Quite how this story will eventually end is anyone’s guess but for anyone remotely interested in the Royal Family, this is an absolute must-read.

Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson

In his latest biography, the acclaimed author of “Steve Jobs” presents an intimate and compelling portrait of Elon Musk, one of the most enigmatic and influential figures of our time. This book delves deep into Musk’s journey from a bullied child in South Africa to a visionary entrepreneur reshaping the future with electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. It also explores his dramatic takeover of Twitter, a platform that symbolizes both a personal and professional battleground for him.

Author Isaacson provides an unprecedented look into Musk’s world, having shadowed him for two years, witnessing first-hand the workings of his mind and operations. Through extensive interviews with Musk, as well as those who know him best—family, friends, co-workers, and rivals—the biography paints a vivid picture of a man who is as complex as he is visionary. It raises probing questions: Are the very traits that make Musk a relentless innovator also the sources of his deepest struggles? This biography offers a fascinating exploration of Musk’s life, achievements, and the inner demons that drive him, making it a standout addition to the best biographies of 2023.

Seventeen – Joe Gibson

Seventeen is a shocking and eye-opening memoir, written by Joe Gibson. In this revealing book, we’re whisked back to 1992. Like every other seventeen-year-old boy, Joe has one eye on his studies, the other on his social life. He’s looking ahead to a gap year full of travel and adventure before university. Only, there’s a problem. When Joe’s teacher – attractive, mid-thirties – takes an interest in him, it seems like a fantasy come true.  

For his final two years at school, Joe is bound to her, a woman twice his age, in an increasingly tangled web of coercion, sex and lies. Their affair, a product of complex grooming and a shocking abuse of authority, is played out in the corridors of one of Britain’s major private schools, under the noses of people who suspected, even knew, but said nothing. 

With a heady dose of nostalgia for the 90’s, and the perfectly captured mood of those final months at school, Joe charts the legacy of deceit and indelibility of decisions made at seventeen. 

Closing Thoughts

2023 has been a big year for biography fans. There have been some great selections this year and above our just our favourite picks!

What will 2024 have in store for us? Hopefully more of the same!

So, there we have it, our picks for the best biographies of 2023! Let us know what you think of our choices in the comments below and remind us of any others you enjoyed this year above all others!

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The Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies of 2022

Featuring buster keaton, jean rhys, bernardine evaristo, kate beaton, and more.

We’ve come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing: basic math, and lots of it.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction ; Nonfiction ; Memoir and Biography; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror; Short Story Collections; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature ; and Literature in Translation .

Today’s installment: Memoir and Biography .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole (Liveright) 17 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan

“One of the many triumphs of Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves is that he manages to find a form that accommodates the spectacular changes that have occurred in Ireland over the past six decades, which happens to be his life span … it is not a memoir, nor is it an absolute history, nor is it entirely a personal reflection or a crepuscular credo. It is, in fact, all of these things helixed together: his life, his country, his thoughts, his misgivings, his anger, his pride, his doubt, all of them belonging, eventually, to us … O’Toole, an agile cultural commentator, considers himself to be a representative of the blank slate on which the experiment of change was undertaken, but it’s a tribute to him that he maintains his humility, his sharpness and his enlightened distrust …

O’Toole writes brilliantly and compellingly of the dark times, but he is graceful enough to know that there is humor and light in the cracks. There is a touch of Eduardo Galeano in the way he can settle on a telling phrase … But the real accomplishment of this book is that it achieves a conscious form of history-telling, a personal hybrid that feels distinctly honest and humble at the same time. O’Toole has not invented the form, but he comes close to perfecting it. He embraces the contradictions and the confusion. In the process, he weaves the flag rather than waving it.”

–Colum McCann ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Thin Places: A Natural History of Healing and Home by Kerri Ní Dochartaigh (Milkweed)

12 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Assured and affecting … A powerful and bracing memoir … This is a book that will make you see the world differently: it asks you to reconsider the animals and insects we often view as pests – the rat, for example, and the moth. It asks you to look at the sea and the sky and the trees anew; to wonder, when you are somewhere beautiful, whether you might be in a thin place, and what your responsibilities are to your location.It asks you to show compassion for people you think are difficult, to cultivate empathy, to try to understand the trauma that made them the way they are.”

–Lynn Enright ( The Irish Times )

3. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)

14 Rave • 4 Positive

“It could hardly be more different in tone from [Beaton’s] popular larky strip Hark! A Vagrant … Yes, it’s funny at moments; Beaton’s low-key wryness is present and correct, and her drawings of people are as charming and as expressive as ever. But its mood overall is deeply melancholic. Her story, which runs to more than 400 pages, encompasses not only such thorny matters as social class and environmental destruction; it may be the best book I have ever read about sexual harassment …

There are some gorgeous drawings in Ducks of the snow and the starry sky at night. But the human terrain, in her hands, is never only black and white … And it’s this that gives her story not only its richness and depth, but also its astonishing grace. Life is complex, she tell us, quietly, and we are all in it together; each one of us is only trying to survive. What a difficult, gorgeous and abidingly humane book. It really does deserve to win all the prizes.”

–Rachel Cooke ( The Guardian )

4. Stay True by Hua Hsu (Doubleday)

14 Rave • 3 Positive

“… quietly wrenching … To say that this book is about grief or coming-of-age doesn’t quite do it justice; nor is it mainly about being Asian American, even though there are glimmers of that too. Hsu captures the past by conveying both its mood and specificity … This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion—all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life … Hsu is a subtle writer, not a showy one; the joy of Stay True sneaks up on you, and the wry jokes are threaded seamlessly throughout.”

–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )

5.  Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Grove)

13 Rave • 4 Positive

“Part coming-of-age story and part how-to manual, the book is, above all, one of the most down-to-earth and least self-aggrandizing works of self-reflection you could hope to read. Evaristo’s guilelessness is refreshing, even unsettling … With ribald humour and admirable candour, Evaristo takes us on a tour of her sexual history … Characterized by the resilience of its author, it is replete with stories about the communities and connections Evaristo has cultivated over forty years … Invigoratingly disruptive as an artist, Evaristo is a bridge-builder as a human being.”

–Emily Bernard ( The Times Literary Supplement )

1. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

14 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Rundell is right that Donne…must never be forgotten, and she is the ideal person to evangelise him for our age. She shares his linguistic dexterity, his pleasure in what TS Eliot called ‘felt thought’, his ability to bestow physicality on the abstract … It’s a biography filled with gaps and Rundell brings a zest for imaginative speculation to these. We know so little about Donne’s wife, but Rundell brings her alive as never before … Rundell confronts the difficult issue of Donne’s misogyny head-on … This is a determinedly deft book, and I would have liked it to billow a little more, making room for more extensive readings of the poems and larger arguments about the Renaissance. But if there is an overarching argument, then it’s about Donne as an ‘infinity merchant’ … To read Donne is to grapple with a vision of the eternal that is startlingly reinvented in the here and now, and Rundell captures this vision alive in all its power, eloquence and strangeness”

–Laura Feigel ( The Guardian )

2. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland (Harper)

12 Rave • 3 Positive

“Compelling … We know about Auschwitz. We know what happened there. But Freedland, with his strong, clear prose and vivid details, makes us feel it, and the first half of this book is not an easy read. The chillingly efficient mass murder of thousands of people is harrowing enough, but Freedland tells us stories of individual evils as well that are almost harder to take … His matter-of-fact tone makes it bearable for us to continue to read … The Escape Artist is riveting history, eloquently written and scrupulously researched. Rosenberg’s brilliance, courage and fortitude are nothing short of amazing.”

–Laurie Hertzel ( The Star Tribune )

3. I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys by Miranda Seymour (W. W. Norton & Company)

11 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Pan

“…illuminating and meticulously researched … paints a deft portrait of a flawed, complex, yet endlessly fascinating woman who, though repeatedly bowed, refused to be broken … Following dismal reviews of her fourth novel, Rhys drifted into obscurity. Ms. Seymour’s book could have lost momentum here. Instead, it compellingly charts turbulent, drink-fueled years of wild moods and reckless acts before building to a cathartic climax with Rhys’s rescue, renewed lease on life and late-career triumph … is at its most powerful when Ms. Seymour, clear-eyed but also with empathy, elaborates on Rhys’s woes …

Ms. Seymour is less convincing with her bold claim that Rhys was ‘perhaps the finest English woman novelist of the twentieth century.’ However, she does expertly demonstrate that Rhys led a challenging yet remarkable life and that her slim but substantial novels about beleaguered women were ahead of their time … This insightful biography brilliantly shows how her many battles were lost and won.”

–Malcolm Forbes ( The Wall Street Journal )

4. The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

9 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Grisly yet inspiring … Fitzharris depicts her hero as irrepressibly dedicated and unfailingly likable. The suspense of her narrative comes not from any interpersonal drama but from the formidable challenges posed by the physical world … The Facemaker is mostly a story of medical progress and extraordinary achievement, but as Gillies himself well knew—grappling daily with the unbearable suffering that people willingly inflicted on one another—failure was never far behind.”

5. Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life by James Curtis (Knopf)

8 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Keaton fans have often complained that nearly all biographies of him suffer from a questionable slant or a cursory treatment of key events. With Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life —at more than 800 pages dense with research and facts—Mr. Curtis rectifies that situation, and how. He digs deep into Keaton’s process and shows how something like the brilliant two-reeler Cops went from a storyline conceived from necessity—construction on the movie lot encouraged shooting outdoors—to a masterpiece … This will doubtless be the primary reference on Keaton’s life for a long time to come … the worse Keaton’s life gets, the more engrossing Mr. Curtis’s book becomes.”

–Farran Smith Nehme ( The Wall Street Journal )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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A look at some of the most anticipated nonfiction titles coming out soon

Andrew Limbong

Leila Fadel

Fall is a huge season for books, leading up to the holidays. We take a look at some of the most anticipated nonfiction titles coming out in the next few months.

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