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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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The best memoirs and biographies of 2022

Heartfelt memoirs from Richard E Grant and Viola Davis, childhood tales of religious dogma, and vivid insights into Agatha Christie and John Donne

The best books of 2022

C elebrity memoirs often follow the same trajectory: a difficult childhood followed by early professional failure, then dazzling success and redemption. But this year has yielded a handful of autobiographies from famous types determined to mix things up. Richard E Grant’s vivacious and heartfelt A Pocketful of Happiness (Gallery) recounts a year spent caring for his late wife, Joan Washington, who was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly before Christmas in 2020, and the “head-and-heart-exploding overwhelm” that followed. The book interweaves hospital appointments with memories of the couple’s courtship plus showbiz stories of Grant at the Golden Globes, or hijinks on the set of Star Wars. This juxtaposition of glamour and grief shouldn’t work, but it does.

Minnie Driver’s Managing Expectations (Manila) comprises spry and amusing autobiographical essays that detail pivotal moments in the actor’s life. These include her experience of becoming a mother, cutting off all her hair on a family holiday in France and the time her father sent her home to England from Barbados alone, aged 11, including a stopover at a Miami hotel, as punishment for being rude to his girlfriend (Driver got her revenge by buying up half the gift shop on her dad’s credit card). She also recalls the disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein bemoaning her lack of sex appeal, which she notes was rich from a man “whose shirts were always aggressively encrusted with egg/tuna fish/mayo”.

Alan Rickman’s Madly, Deeply (Canongate) diaries provide insight into the inner life of the late actor who, despite his many successes, frets over roles turned down and rails at the perceived ineptitude of script writers, directors and co-stars. He nonetheless keeps glittering company, hobnobbing with musicians, prime ministers and Hollywood megastars, and almost single-handedly keeps the tills ringing at the Ivy. And while he seethes at critics’ reviews of his own work, his assessments of less-than-perfect films and plays are so deliciously scathing, they deserve a book of their own.

In Finding Me (Coronet), the actor Viola Davis gives a clear-eyed account of her deprived childhood and her rise to fame, along with the violence, abuse and racism she endured along the way. The book is not so much a triumphant tale of overcoming adversity as a howl of fury at the injustice of it all. Davis may now be able to survey her career from a place of Oscar-winning privilege, but she doesn’t hesitate in calling out her industry and its ingrained racial bias, which leads to white actors landing plum roles and “relegates [Black actors] to best friends, to strong, loudmouth, sassy lawyers and doctors”. In The Light We Carry (Viking), the follow-up to her bestselling memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama also touches on the impossible-to-meet expectations that dog anyone trying to make it in a world that sees them as different, or deficient. “I happen to be well acquainted with the burdens of representation and the double standards for excellence that steepen the hills so many of us are trying to climb,” she writes. “It remains a damning fact of life that we ask too much of those who are marginalised and too little of those who are not.”

Away from the world of global fame and its attendant scrutiny, the journalist Chitra Ramaswamy’s touching memoir Homelands (Canongate) documents the author’s friendship with 97-year-old Henry Wuga, who escaped Nazi persecution as a teenager and began a new life in Glasgow. Interwoven with Wuga’s recollections is Ramaswamy’s own family story – she is the daughter of Indian immigrant parents – through which she digs deep into matters of identity, belonging and the meaning of home. Similar themes are explored in Ira Mathur’s multilayered Love the Dark Days (Peepal Tree), which, set in India, Britain and the Caribbean, reads like a fictional family saga as it leaps back and forth in time. The book charts the lives of the author’s wealthy, dysfunctional forebears against a backdrop of patriarchal hegemony and a collapsing empire.

The Last Days (Ebury) by Ali Millar and Sins of My Father (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) by Lily Dunn each tell harrowing stories of families torn apart by religious dogma. Millar, who grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness on the Scottish borders, reflects on a childhood haunted by predictions of Armageddon and blighted by her eating disorder. As an adult she marries, within the church, a controlling man and has a baby, though at 30 she makes her escape and is “disfellowshipped”, meaning she is cut off for ever from her family. Meanwhile, Dunn recalls losing her father to a commune in India presided over by the cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, where disciples were encouraged to “live in love”, meaning they could engage in guilt-free sex. Dunn’s book is her attempt to pin down this charismatic, mercurial and unreliable figure and the ripple effects of his actions on those closest to him. In Matt Rowland Hill’s scabrously funny Original Sins (Chatto & Windus), it is the author who is the agent of chaos. The son of evangelical Christians, Hill shoots heroin at the funeral of a friend who died from an overdose, and tries to score drugs on a visit to Bethlehem. Were his account a novel, you might accuse it of being too far-fetched.

In Kit de Waal’s first autobiographical work, Without Warning and Only Sometimes (Tinder Press), the author recalls how she and her four siblings would go to bed hungry while their father blew his earnings on a new suit, and her mother would work off her rage by collecting empty milk bottles and throwing them at a wall in the back yard. After a bout of depression in her teens, De Waal eventually found comfort and escape in literature. Her book is a brilliant evocation of the times in which she lived, when children learned to make their own entertainment and adults didn’t talk about their feelings, and a funny and tender portrait of a complicated family.

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The Crane Wife (Viking), by the American author CJ Hauser, began life as a confessional essay about the time she travelled to the gulf coast of Texas to study whooping cranes 10 days after breaking off her engagement. Published in the Paris Review, the essay blew up online, prompting Hauser to expand her thoughts on love and relationships into this thoughtful and fitfully funny book. Across 17 confessional essays, we find her furtively spreading her grandparents’ ashes at their old house in Martha’s Vineyard, contemplating breast reduction surgery and reflecting on her relationships with a high-school boyfriend and a divorcee who is clearly still in love with his ex.

Finally, some excellent biographies. Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman (Hodder & Stoughton) by Lucy Worsley is a riveting portrait of the queen of crime viewed through a feminist lens. The book acknowledges Christie’s flaws, most notably in her views on race, while portraying her as ahead of her time in putting women at the centre of her stories and showing how older women “have more to offer the world than meets the eye”. Super-Infinite (Faber), winner of this year’s Baillie Gifford prize, is a biography of the 17th-century preacher and poet John Donne by Katherine Rundell, the children’s novelist and Renaissance scholar. Ten years in the writing, the book approaches its subject with wit and vivacity, bringing to life Donne’s inner world through his verse.

Jonathan Freedland’s The Escape Artist (John Murray) is a remarkable account of the life of Rudolf Vrba, a prisoner at Auschwitz who was put to work in “Kanada”, a store of belongings removed from inmates which revealed that the line fed to them was a lie: they were not there to be resettled but murdered. Vrba and his friend Fred Wetzler pledged to escape and tell the world about the Nazis’ industrialised murder, hiding beneath a woodpile for three days before slipping through the fence to freedom. The horror of this story lies not just in its account of “cold-blooded extermination” but in the slowness of authorities to react to the Vrba-Wetzler report, which laid out the workings of Auschwitz, complete with maps showing the chambers. Freedland recalls the words of the French-Jewish philosopher Raymond Aron, who, when asked about the Holocaust, said: “I knew, but I didn’t believe it. And because I didn’t believe it, I didn’t know.”

• Best books of the year
• Best books 2022
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• Autobiography and memoir

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The Best Biographies of 2022

Summer Loomis

Summer Loomis has been writing for Book Riot since 2019. She obsessively curates her library holds and somehow still manages to borrow too many books at once. She appreciates a good deadline and likes knowing if 164 other people are waiting for the same title. It's good peer pressure! She doesn't have a podcast but if she did, she hopes it would sound like Buddhability . The world could always use more people creating value with their lives everyday.

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The following are the best biographies 2022 had to offer, according to my brain and my tastes. And I know it might sound like something everyone says, but it was really hard to pick them this year. Like many people, I love “best of” lists for the year, even when I disagree with the titles that make the cut. There is something about narrowing the field to “the best” that makes me excited to read the list and see what I’ve read already and which gems I’ve missed that year. If you want to look back at some of the titles Book Riot chose in 2021, try this best books of 2021 by genre or best books for 2020 . Both will probably quadruple your TBR, but they’re super fun to read anyway.

For 2022 in particular, there were a ton of excellent titles to choose from, in both biographies and memoirs. I am not being polite here but let me just say that it was genuinely hard to choose. To make it easier on myself, I have included some memoirs to pair with the best biographies of 2022 below. If you don’t see your absolute favorite, it’s either because I didn’t like it (I don’t believe in spending time on books I don’t like) or because I ran out of space. And it was most likely the latter!

His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

Samuels and Olorunnipa are two Washington Post journalists who meticulously researched Floyd’s personal history in order to better understand not only his life and experiences before his death, but also the systemic forces that eventually contributed to his murder. While very interesting, this is also a harder read and very frustrating at times as there is so much loss wrapped up into this story. Definitely one of the best biographies of 2022 and one that I think will be read for years to come.

Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird by Gene Andrew Jarrett

This is one of those classic biographies that I think readers will just love diving into. Rich in detail and nuance, it drops readers into Dunbar’s life and times, offering a fascinating look at both the literary and personal life of this great American poet. If you are able to read on audio, you may want to check out actor Mirron E. Willis’s excellent narration.

Didn’t We Almost Have it All: In Defense of Whitney Houston by Gerrick Kennedy

Maybe you’re a huge fan or maybe you don’t know who Whitney Houston was, but either way, you can still read this and enjoy it. Kennedy is very clear that he didn’t set out to write a traditional biography. He wasn’t trying to dig up new “dirt” about the singer or to ask people in her life to reflect back on her now that she has been gone for 10 years. Instead, Kennedy tackles something deeper and possibly harder: to see and appreciate Houston as the fully-formed and talented human being that she was and to understand in full her influence over popular culture and music.

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Finding Me by Viola Davis

If you are also interested in reading a memoir from 2022, you could pair Whitney Houston’s biography with Viola Davis’s book. It was a title I saw everywhere in 2022, but didn’t pick up until the end of the year. My only two cents to add to this strong choice is that I was also just about the last person on earth who hadn’t heard about Davis’s childhood. Please don’t go into this without knowing at least something about what she had to overcome. However, despite all that, I still think it is an excellent and ultimately uplifting read. Content warnings include domestic violence, child endangerment, physical and sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault, drug addiction, and animal death. And also the unrelentingly grinding nature of poverty.

Like Water: A Cultural History of Bruce Lee by Daryl Joji Maeda 

This is a much more academic presentation of Bruce Lee and the myriad of ways he can be “read” in his connections and contributions to American pop culture. If you or someone you know is itching to read an extremely detailed and deeply considered look at Lee’s life, then this is the book for you. If you read on audio, be sure to check out David Lee Huynh’s narration.

We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by Simu Liu

If you want to read something much lighter but still connected to Asian representation in Western movies, you could do worse than Liu’s 2022 memoir. In comparison to other books on this list, this felt like a much lighter read to me, but it is not without some heavier moments. While I am not a superfan of Liu (because I’m not really a superfan of anyone), I did enjoy learning about Liu’s childhood and especially hearing little details like that his grandparents called him a nickname that basically translated to “little furry caterpillar” as a child. I mean, is there anything more adorable for a kid?

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya

This is another meaty biography that readers will just adore. Complex and fascinating, von Neumann’s curiosity was legendary and his contributions are so far-reaching that it is hard to imagine any one person undertaking them all. This is a good choice for readers who are fascinated by mathematics, big personalities, and intellectual puzzles.

Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

This is another best biography of 2022 that many, many readers will want to sink into. The audio is also by the author so you may want to read it that way. Whether someone reads it with eyes or ears (or both!), this book is sure to interest many curious Christie fans. And if Worsley’s biography isn’t enough for you, you may also enjoy this breakdown of why Christie is one of the best-selling novelists of all time or these 8 audiobooks for Agatha Christie fans .

The School that Escaped the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler by Deborah Cadbury

Cadbury writes a fascinating biography of Anna Essinger, a schoolteacher who managed to smuggle her students out of a Germany succumbing to Hitler’s rise to power and all the horror that was to follow. Essinger’s bravery and clear-eyed understanding of what was happening around her is amazing. This is a thrilling and fascinating biography readers will no doubt find inspirational.

The Escape Artist: The Man who Broke out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland

Freedland is a British journalist who has written this thoroughly engrossing book about Rudolf Vrba, a man who managed to escape from Auschwitz. It’s no surprise that this is a very important but difficult read. For those who can manage it, I highly recommend immersing oneself in this historical nonfiction biography about a man who survived some of the darkest events of human history.

That is my list of the best biographies of 2022, with a few memoirs for those who are interested. And now of course, I need to mention several titles I have yet to get to from 2022: Hua Hsu’s Stay True , Zain Asher’s Where the Children Take Us , Fatima Ali’s Savor: A Chef’s Hunger for More , and Dan Charnas and Jeff Peretz’s Dilla Time , to name a few!

Also Bernardine Evaristo published Manifesto: On Never Giving Up in 2022 and somehow it slipped through the cracks of my TBR. I will have to make time for that one soon.

If you still need more titles to explore, try these 50 best biographies or 20 biographies for kids . And to that latter list, I might add that a children’s biography came out about Octavia Butler in 2022 called Star Child by Haitian American author Ibi Zoboi, so you might want to check that out too!

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Best Biographies of 2022

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Best Biographies

Award winning biographies of 2022, recommended by sophie roell.

Five Books Expert Recommendations

In telling stories of lives that are often very different from our own and yet connected to us by our common humanity, biographies are some of the most compelling nonfiction books around. Five Books editor Sophie Roell rounds up some of the biographies that have won or been shortlisted for prizes in 2022.

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner

The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III by Andrew Roberts

Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane by Paul Auster

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert

1 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner

2 the last king of america: the misunderstood reign of george iii by andrew roberts, 3 burning boy: the life and work of stephen crane by paul auster, 4 the escape artist: the man who broke out of auschwitz to warn the world by jonathan freedland, 5 super-infinite: the transformations of john donne by katherine rundell, 6 chasing me to my grave: an artist's memoir of the jim crow south by winfred rembert.

The National Book Critics Circle award for biography and the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

The Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography

The LA Times book prize for biography

Biographies Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

The Pulitzer Prize for Biography

The 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Biography (which also includes works of autobiography) went to Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South by the late Winfred Rembert (1945-2021) . Rembert was from a family of field labourers in Cuthbert, Georgia and taught himself to paint at the age of 51 using leather tooling skills he learned in prison. In the preface, he writes that he had been scared to draw attention to what happened to him in Cuthbert during his lifetime, and so he only composed his memoir as he was dying. It’s a wrenching tale told in a very direct and touching way. The book also includes pictures of his paintings—of cotton fields, of his mother giving him away as a baby.

December 17, 2022

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Sophie Roell

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Biography Movies 2022 List

Top Biography Movies 2022

The Tender Bar

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Jump to: December 23 • November 4 • November 17 • November 18 • November 23 • October 7 • October 14 • October 28 • September 14 • September 16 • September 28 • August 13 • June 3 • June 24 • April 8 • April 22 • February 25 • January 17 • January 21

Released Friday, December 23, 2022

I Wanna Dance With Somebody PG-13

Released friday, november 4, 2022.

Released Thursday, November 17, 2022

Released Friday, November 18, 2022

Lamborghini: The Man Behind The Legend R

Released wednesday, november 23, 2022.

The Swimmers PG-13

Released friday, october 7, 2022.

Released Friday, October 14, 2022

Life & Life

Released friday, october 28, 2022, released wednesday, september 14, 2022.

Released Friday, September 16, 2022

Blonde NC-17

Released wednesday, september 28, 2022, released saturday, august 13, 2022.

The Princess

Released friday, june 3, 2022.

Benediction PG-13

Released friday, june 24, 2022.

Elvis PG-13

Released friday, april 8, 2022.

Aline PG-13

Released friday, april 22, 2022.

Released Friday, February 25, 2022

Gangubai Kathiawadi NR

Released monday, january 17, 2022.

The Tender Bar R

Released friday, january 21, 2022.

Munich - The Edge of War PG-13

Get the latest on upcoming movies before everyone else.

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

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

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

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

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Constructing a Nervous System

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

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

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?

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

The Invisible Kingdom

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

Lost & Found

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

What My Bones Know

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

Quite the Contrary

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

His Name Is George Floyd (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

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

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

The Book of Baraka

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

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

Fatty Fatty Boom Boom

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

Also a Poet

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

Corrections in Ink

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

Dirtbag, Massachusetts

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

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

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

Editors Select: June 2024

13 editors, 13 new listens—from fiction to theater to history, check out our most anticipated listens of the month.

The birth of "Quite the Contrary"

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

• Best of 2022
• Best of the Year

The 20 Best Memoirs of 2022

From marriage to medicine to masculinity, the year's best memoirs dig deep into thorny topics.

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

Still, our favorite memoirs of 2022 elevate the form to new heights. They tackle personal, psychological, and philosophical concerns through topics ranging from ancestry to medicine to marriage. With guts and grace, these authors dive deep into their loves and losses, and come ashore with these dazzling treasures for you to read. (Or give ! What better gift than that of a remarkable true story?)

Stay True, by Hua Hsu

When Hsu arrived at Berkeley in the 1990s, a rebellious undergrad obsessed with creating zines and developing “a worldview defined by music,” he made an unexpected friend. At first, Hsu wrote his fraternity brother Ken off as “mainstream,” thinking they had nothing in common beyond their Asian American identities—but soon, an unlikely friendship blossomed, with the two young men penning a screenplay together and discussing philosophy late into the night. It all came crashing down when Ken was murdered in a carjacking, sending Hsu into a decades-long spiral of grief and guilt. Ever since, Hsu has been trying to write Stay True , a wrenching memoir about who Ken was and what Ken taught him. At once a love letter, a coming-of-age tale, and an elegy, it’s one of the best books about friendship ever written.

The Man Who Could Move Clouds, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

“They say the amnesias were a door to gifts we were supposed to have,” Rojas Contreras muses in this poetic memoir. After a head injury afflicted the author with amnesia, she learned that this had happened before: decades ago, her mother took a fall that left her with amnesia, and when she recovered, she gained access to “the secrets.” The first woman to know “the secrets,” Rojas Contreras’ mother inherited them from her father, known to the family as Nono, a Colombian community healer renowned for his ability to communicate with the dead, predict the future, heal the sick, and move the clouds. After Rojas Contreras’ accident, she and her mother traveled to Colombia to disinter Nono’s remains and tell his story. That quest, recounted here with mesmerizing prose and bracing insight, sent the women on a journey through the brutal colonial history that shaped their family and their nation. Rich in personal and political history, The Man Who Could Move Clouds is an effervescent read.

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man, by Paul Newman

After six decades of Hollywood superstardom, it’s difficult to imagine that anything could remain unknown about Paul Newman . But that’s the particular magic trick of this memoir, assembled by way of a literary scavenger hunt. Between 1986 and 1991, Newman sat down with screenwriter Stewart Stern for a series of soul-baring interviews about his life and career. With the actor’s encouragement, Stern also recorded hundreds of hours worth of interviews with his friends, family, and colleagues. The whole enterprise was destined to become Newman’s authorized biography, but his feelings on the project soured; in 1998, he gathered the tapes in a pile and set fire to them. Luckily, Stern kept transcripts—over 14,000 pages worth. Now, those transcripts have been streamlined into this honest and unvarnished memoir, in which the actor speaks openly about his traumatic childhood, his lifelong struggle with alcoholism, and his tormenting self-doubt. But the highs are there too—like his 50-year marriage to actress Joanne Woodward—as well as the mysteries of making art, and the “imponderable of being a human being.” All told, the memoir is an extraordinary act of resurrection and reimagination.

Bad Sex, by Nona Willis Aronowitz

When Teen Vogue ’s sex columnist decided to end her marriage at 32 years old, chief among her complaints was “bad sex.” Newly divorced, Aronowitz went in search of good sex, but along the way, she discovered thorny truths about “the problem that has no name”—that despite the advances of feminism and the sexual revolution, true sexual freedom remains out of reach. Cultural criticism, memoir, and social history collide in Aronowitz’s no-nonsense investigation of all that ails young lovers, like questions about desire, consent, and patriarchy. It’s a revealing read bound to expand your thinking.

The High Sierra: A Love Story, by Kim Stanley Robinson

A titan of science fiction masters a new form in this winsome love letter to California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. Constructed from an impassioned blend of memoir, history, and science writing, The High Sierra chronicles Robinson’s 100-plus trips to his beloved mountains, from his LSD-laced first encounter in 1973 to the dozens of ​​“rambling and scrambling” days to follow. From descriptions of the region’s multitudinous flora and fauna to practical advice about when and where to hike, this is as comprehensive a guidebook as any, complete with all the lucid ecstasy of nature writing greats like John Muir and Annie Dillard.

Year of the Tiger, by Alice Wong

In this mixed media memoir, disability activist Alice Wong outlines her journey as an advocate and educator. Wong was born with a form of progressive muscular dystrophy; as a young woman, she attended her dream college, but had to drop out when changes to Medicaid prevented her from retaining the aides she needed on an inaccessible campus. In one standout essay, Wong recounts her struggle to access Covid-19 vaccines as a high-risk individual. The author's rage about moving through an ableist world is palpable, but so too is her joy and delight about Lunar New Year, cats, family, and so much more. Innovative and informative, Year of the Tiger is a multidimensional portrait of a powerful thinker.

My Pinup, by Hilton Als

Has any book ever roved so far and wide in just 48 pages as My Pinup ? In this slim and brilliant memoir, Als explores race, power, and desire through the lens of Prince. Styling the legendary musician in the image of his lovers and himself, Als explores injustice on multiple levels, from racist record labels to the world's hostility to gay Black boys. “There was so much love between us,” the author muses. “Why didn’t anyone want us to share it?” These 48 meandering pages are difficult to describe, but trust us: My Pinup is a heady cocktail you won’t soon forget.

Novelist as a Vocation, by Haruki Murakami

In this winsome volume, one of our greatest novelists invites readers into his creative process. The result is a revealing self-portrait that answers many burning questions about its reclusive subject, like: where do Murakami’s strange and surreal ideas come from? When and how did he start writing? How does he view the role of novels in contemporary society? Novelist as a Vocation is a rare and welcome peek behind the curtain of a singular mind.

Bloomsbury Publishing Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional, by Isaac Fitzgerald

In this bleeding heart memoir, Fitzgerald peels back the layers of his extraordinary life. Dirtbag, Massachusetts opens with his hardscrabble childhood in a dysfunctional Catholic family, then spins out into the decades of jobs and identities that followed. From bartending at a biker bar to smuggling medical supplies to starring in porn films, it’s all led him to here and now: he’s still a work in progress, but gradually, he’s arriving at profound realizations about masculinity, family, and selfhood. Dirtbag, Massachusetts is the best of what memoir can accomplish. It's blisteringly honest and vulnerable, pulling no punches on the path to truth, but it always finds the capacity for grace and joy. “To any young men out there who aren’t too far gone,” Fitzgerald writes, “I say you’re not done becoming yourself.”

Pretty Baby, by Chris Belcher

As a financially strapped PhD student in Los Angeles, Belcher fell into an unusual side hustle: she began working as a pro-domme, fulfilling the fantasies of male clients aroused by feelings of shame and weakness. Belcher found unique power in the work as a queer woman, writing, “My clientele wanted a woman who would never want them in return, and at that, I excelled." But as she illuminates in this discerning memoir, the work had its drawbacks—namely, the brutality and blackmail of men. In a lucid examination of power, sexuality, and class, Belcher tells a gripping story about the performance of identity, inside and outside of the dungeon.

Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me, by Ada Calhoun

When Calhoun once went looking for a childhood toy, she stumbled upon a far greater treasure: dusty cassette tapes of interviews recorded by her father, art critic Peter Schjeldahl, who started but never completed a biography of the gone-too-soon poet Frank O’Hara. As a lifelong O’Hara fan, Calhoun gleefully committed to finishing what Schjeldahl started, but the task proved to be anything but easy. Like her father before her, Calhoun was stonewalled by Maureen O’Hara, the poet’s prickly sister and executor; the project also revealed the faultlines in her complicated bond with Schjeldahl, whom she longs to impress. In this heartfelt memoir, Calhoun recounts how going in search of O’Hara revealed so much more—like the painful complexities of parents, children, art, and ambition.

Because Our Fathers Lied, by Craig McNamara

How do we reckon with the sins of our parents? That’s the thorny question at the center of this moving and courageous memoir authored by the son of Robert S. McNamara, Kennedy’s architect of the Vietnam War. In this conflicted son’s telling, a complicated man comes into intimate view, as does the “mixture of love and rage” at the heart of their relationship. At once a loving and neglectful parent, the elder McNamara’s controversial lies about the war ultimately estranged him from his son, who hung Viet Cong flags in his childhood bedroom as a protest. The pursuit of a life unlike his father’s saw the younger McNamara drop out of Stanford and travel through South America on a motorcycle, leading him to ultimately become a sustainable walnut farmer. Through his own personal story of disappointment and disillusionment, McNamara captures an intergenerational conflict and a journey of moral identity.

The Unwritten Book, by Samantha Hunt

One of our most gifted practitioners of the short story makes her first foray into nonfiction with this shapeshifting volume. Hunt’s many-feathered subject is the things that haunt: art, the dead, the forest, things left unfinished. Her investigation centers on an unfinished novel written by her late father, a Reader's Digest editor; “the dead leave clues, and life is a puzzle of trying to read and understand these mysterious hints before the game is over,” she writes. As she considers the novel, she sifts through her relationship with her father, characterized as it was by his alcoholism and their shared love of story. Eerie, profound, and daring, this is a book only the inimitable Hunt could write.

Roc Lit 101 Shine Bright, by Danyel Smith

Memoir, criticism, and cultural history meet in this masterful study of the brilliant Black women who shaped American pop music, enriched by the author's own experiences and memories. Some of the figures here will be familiar, like Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston, while others are long overdue for the reckoning Smith provides, from the Dixie Cups, a gone-too-soon sixties girl group, to the enslaved poet Phyllis Wheatley, who cleared a path for generations of descendants by singing her poems. In this soulful, enriching portrait of these extraordinary artists’ struggles and triumphs, Smith widens the canon to usher in new luminaries.

Lost & Found, by Kathryn Schultz

Eighteen months before Schultz’s father died after a long battle with cancer, she met the love of her life. It’s this painful dichotomy that sets the foundation for Lost & Found , a poignant memoir about how love and loss often coexist. Braiding her personal experiences together with psychological, philosophical and scientific insight, Schultz weaves a taxonomy of our losses, which can “encompass both the trivial as well as the consequential, the abstract and the concrete, the merely misplaced and the permanently gone.” But so too does she celebrate the act of discovery, from finding what we’ve mislaid to lucking into lasting love. Penetrating and profound, Lost & Found captures the extraordinary joys and sorrows of ordinary life.

Ecco Press South to America, by Imani Perry

The American South is often cast as a backwater cousin out of step with American ideals. In this vital cultural history, Perry argues otherwise, insisting the South is, in fact, the foundational heartland of America, an undeniable fulcrum around which our wealth and politics have always turned. Fusing memoir, reportage, and travelogue, Perry imparts Southern history alongside high-spirited interviews with modern-day Southerners from all walks of life. At once a love letter to “a land of big dreams and bigger lies” and a clarion call for change, South to America will change how you understand America’s past, present, and future.

Admissions, by Kendra James

When James enrolled at Connecticut’s prestigious Taft School at fifteen years old, she had no idea that, as the predominantly white boarding school’s first “Black American legacy student to graduate since 1891,” she would become its involuntary poster child for diversity. James’ hopes for a positive high school experience were dashed by “a swamp of microaggressions,” ranging from a student who accused her of stealing $20 to an article in the student newspaper blaming students of color for the segregation of campus. Determined that students after her wouldn’t suffer the same fate, she became an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment, but soon felt that she was “selling a lie for a living.” Frank and devastating in its candor, as well as incisive in its critique of elite academia, Admissions is a poignant coming-of-age memoir.

The Invisible Kingdom, by Meghan O'Rourke

“I got sick the way Hemingway says you go broke: ‘gradually and then suddenly,’” O’Rourke writes in The Invisible Kingdom , describing the beginning of her decades-long struggle with chronic autoimmune disease. In the late nineties, O’Rourke began suffering symptoms ranging from rashes to crushing fatigue; when she sought treatment, she became an unwilling citizen of a shadow world, where chronic illness sufferers are dismissed by doctors and alienated from their lives. In this elegant fusion of memoir, reporting, and cultural history, O’Rourke traces the development of modern Western medicine and takes aim at its limitations, advocating for a community-centric healthcare model that treats patients as people, not parts. At once a rigorous work of scholarship and a radical act of empathy, The Invisible Kingdom has the power to move mountains.

Read an exclusive interview with O'Rourkre here at Esquire.

Ancestor Trouble, by Maud Newton

Who are our ancestors to us, and what can they tell us about ourselves? In this riveting memoir, Newton goes in search of the answers to these questions, spelunking exhaustively through her frustrating and fascinating family tree. From an accused witch to a thirteen times-married man, her family tree abounds with stories that absorb and appall, but taxonomizing her family history doesn’t satisfy Newton’s hunger for meaning. Just what do the facts of a life tell us about who we are or where we come from, and what can our personal histories tell us about our national past? Carefully blending memoir and cultural criticism, Newton explores the cultural, scientific, and spiritual dimensions of ancestry, arguing for the transformational power of grappling with our inheritances.

Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage, by Heather Havrilesky

No one writes about the agony and ecstasy of relationships with as much gutsy grace as Havrilesky, who has long counseled troubled lovers under the guise of Ask Polly . In Foreverland , Havrilesky turns the microscope on her own relationship, illuminating the joys and exasperations of her fifteen-year marriage. From parenting to quarantining together to bristling at her husband’s every loud sneeze, Havrilesky proves that forever is hard, wonderful work.

Read Havrilesky’s column about her husband here at Esquire.

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BOOKS SPRING PREVIEW: NONFICTION

17 New Nonfiction Books to Read This Season

Two journalists dive into George Floyd’s life and family; Viola Davis reflects on her career; a historian explores the brutal underpinnings of the British Empire; and more.

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By John Williams ,  Tina Jordan and Joumana Khatib

Whether you want to read about current events, memoirs or history, this season brings plenty of new titles.

Memoirs & Biographies | Current Affairs | History, Revisited | Other

MEMOIRS & BIOGRAPHIES

‘ Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir, ’ by Bob Odenkirk

Odenkirk’s memoir might have also been titled “Obscurity Obscurity Obscurity Fame.” He was a cult favorite of comedy fans in the late 1990s for his work on the sketch-comedy series “Mr. Show,” but his supporting role in “Breaking Bad” and his starring turn in the show’s prequel, “Better Call Saul,” made him a household name. His memoir charts his dogged and unlikely path from Chicago comedy clubs to leading man.

Random House, out now

‘ Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand ,’ by John Markoff

Brand might be best known for his countercultural magazine Whole Earth Catalog, which first published in 1968. In that same decade, Brand was a participant in the exploits of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. Now 83, he went on to a long and varied life of thought and activism in the realms of environmentalism, Native American rights and personal computing. Markoff, a former technology reporter for The New York Times, wraps his arms around the whole story in this new biography.

Penguin Press, out now

‘ Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation ,’ by Maud Newton

In her first book, Newton, a critic and essayist, digs deep into her family’s past, from Depression-era Texas to witch-hunting Massachusetts, not flinching at what she sees. Closer to the present day, she wrestles with her father’s racism and her family’s religious extremism. Rooted in the personal, Newton’s book opens out to an examination of a culture besotted with Ancestry.com and 23andme.com , and asks what we’re really looking for in the past.

Random House, March 29

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Historia Magazine

The magazine of the Historical Writers Association

Historical books to look out for in 2022

2 January 2022 By Frances Owen

Our popular annual list of books to look out for during the year is back for 2022, with history, biography and historical fiction. Here are books to read from HWA authors covering eras from Ancient Rome to the 1980s and sweeping across continents from China to Russia and India, the USA to Australia and the Antarctic, and Africa to all around Europe.

We’ll be updating this list when information about new books comes in, so do come back and see what’s been added.

The year opens with six immersive tales of intrigue and untrustworthiness on 6 January, 2022. WC Ryan ‘s The Winter Guest is set in Ireland in 1921. The Great War is over, but the killing goes on and Tom Harkin, an IRA intelligence officer and former British Army captain must find the murderer of his one-time fiancee amid the gloom of a decaying Big House and his own memories of battle and loss. William is writing a feature for Historia about creating a sense of place in his book.

The sixth book in Nicola Pryce ‘s Cornish Saga series, The Cornish Captive , finds Madeleine Pelligrew released after 14 years’ confinement in mad houses. Disguising her identity, she’s determined to find out who imprisoned her under false pretences. But is her new friend, Pierre de la Croix, a French prisoner on parole, the man he says he is? Who can she trust as her past collides with her present? Nicola writes about the shocking background to her story in Asylums and prisons: locking women away in madhouses .

City of Vengeance , the first in DV Bishop ‘s Cesare Aldo series, gets its paperback publication. In Florence in 1536 money is king and Alessandro de’ Medici is duke. Law officer Aldo has four days to catch the murderer of a prominent Jewish moneylender; but he stumbles across a plot to overthrow Alessandro. Can he solve the two mysteries and avoid having his own deadly secret revealed? Read about the author’s research journey in Walking in the footsteps of Florentine history .

Matthew Harffy ‘s For Lord and Land is also out in paperback. Beobrand of Ubbanford unwittingly changes the balance of power in Northumbria, setting the kings of Bernicia and Deira against each other in a deadly final fight. Meanwhile his chief warrior, Cynan, is entangled in conflict in the West when a figure from his past calls for his help.

Also out in paperback is Mrs England by Stacey Halls . Newly-graduated nurse Ruby May takes a position looking after the children of Charles and Lilian England at the isolated Hardcastle House. But there’s something not quite right about the mistress of the house. Then a series of strange events forces Ruby to question everything she thought she knew. Stacey has written about the background to her novel in Nanny state: why the golden era of Edwardian childhood is ripe for fiction .

Twice Royal Lady by Hilary Green is reissued on 6 January as a paperback, with the ebook out on the 4th. Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, is her father’s only legitimate heir. Married to Geoffrey of Anjou, she has provided the male heirs her father needs. But when Henry dies and Matilda’s cousin Stephen seizes the throne, she must choose between her husband and her rights as her father’s heir.

Fil Reid ‘s debut novel, Guinevere: The Dragon Ring is published on 10 January. On Glastonbury Tor, librarian Gwen picks up a ring embossed with a dragon emblem and is transported into the past, where she’s expected to fulfil a prophecy by marrying Prince Arthur and helping him become the king of legend. Will she stay with the future King or return to her 21st-century life?

On 11 January, Linda Stratmann ‘s Sherlock Holmes and the Explorers’ Club  is published. It’s her second book imagining the consulting detective as a young man and sees Sherlock fascinated by a preserved foot with extra toes which turns up at a London hospital. The clues lead Holmes and Stamford to a mysterious club – and a series of murders. Read Tom Williams’s review of the first book in the series .

Bjarki and Tor, Angus Donald ‘s berserkers, return on 13 January in The Saxon Wolf , the second in his Fire Born series. Widukind, lord of pagan Saxony, will stop at nothing to reconquer his lands from the Christian Franks. Can he persuade his people to follow him into war, and will Tor and Bjarki join him in his doomed venture? Angus is writing a piece for Historia on the background to his book.

The Key in the Lock by Beth Underdown is out on the same day. Ivy Boscawen mourns the loss of her son, Tim, in the Great War, but by night she mourns another boy whose death, decades ago, haunts her still. Ivy is sure that there is more to what happened: the fire at the Great House, and the terrible events that came after. But once you open a door to the past, can you ever truly close it again?

Tom Williams returns with another James Burke adventure in Burke and the Pimpernel Affair on 14 January. The French have broken an English spy ring. Now it’s up to James Burke to rescue our agents from a Paris prison. Is this a mission too far? And how on earth does the Empress Josephine fit it into his plans?

The Widow’s Last Secret , Lora Davies ‘s second novel, comes out on 18 January. In 1846, after her husband’s sudden death, Bella Farrow is living a quiet life under a secret identity. But when she meets James Earlham, their instant connection disturbs her heart, her peace and her safety. Because Bella knows that for their love to flourish, she will have to reveal her long-hidden secret – and put her trust in James.

Three books are published on 20 January. The Queen’s Lady , the second in Joanna Hickson ‘s Queens of the Tower series, continues the story of ‘Lady of the Ravens’ Joan Vaux. The Tudor court of Henry VII is in turmoil, the succession rocky. Joan faces a stark choice: be true to her heart and risk everything, or play the dutiful servant and watch her dreams wither and die? Joanna’s feature on the background to her new book is in Historia, and there will be a giveaway, too.

The Good Death , the fifth in SD Sykes ‘s Oswald de Lacy Medieval Murders , has its paperback release on the same day. Oswald’s dying mother clutches a letter which will force him to confront a secret which has haunted him for over 20 years: the mysterious disappearance of young girls near the monastery where he was a novice monk, and the sequence of events that led to him becoming Lord of Somershill. Read Catherine Hokin’s review .

And The Man in the Bunker is the latest from Rory Clements . Germany’s defeated and Adolf Hitler has killed himself in his Berlin bunker. Yet no body has been found – and many believe he’s still alive. American and British intelligence can’t find the truth. Then Tom Wilde, the Cambridge professor and spy, arrives.

On 26 January, The Commandant’s Daughter , the first in a four-part series by Catherine Hokin , is published. In 1945, Hanni Foss hides from her concentration camp commandant father, developing the photographs she took to record the brutality of the camp and get justice. But before she can hand them to the Allies, Hanni discovers that he is now working with the British forces and will do anything to protect his secrets.

Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman is out in hardback and ebook on the following day. Dora Blake, an aspiring jewellery artist, lives with her uncle in what used to be her parents’ respected antiquities shop. When a mysterious Greek vase is delivered, Dora enlists a young antiquarian to find out more about the vase – and, she hopes, restore the shop to its former glory. But the vase holds secrets…

February begins with The Silver Wolf , the first in the Fiskardo’s War series by JC Harvey , on the third of the month. Amidst the chaos of the Thirty Years’ War, Jack Fiskardo embarks upon a quest which takes him from France to Amsterdam and then onto the battlefields of Germany. Will he unravel the mystery of his father’s death before the killers find him, too? The author writes about her inspiration in Nördlingen, a town where history is past and present .

On the same day, The Heretic’s Mark , the fourth in SW Perry ‘s Jackdaw Mysteries , is out in paperback. Nicholas Shelby, unorthodox physician and unwilling spy, and his wife Bianca flee accusations of treason in London and head to Padua, accompanied by a strange young woman. Once there, they begin to wonder: who is this troublingly pious woman? And what does she want?

Also on 3 February, Ben Kane ‘s Crusader is out in paperback. Richard the Lionheart is crowned king in 1189 and can, at last, go on crusade, accompanied by Ferdia, his loyal Irish follower. In the Holy Land he finds war at stalemate, a dispute over who will be King of Jerusalem – and the iconic Saracen leader, Saladin. Read an extract from the beginning of this book.

Lorna Cook ‘s The Dressmaker’s Secret is also published on 3 February. It’s 1941 and in Paris Adèle works for Coco Chanel. She also works for the Resistance. In the present, Chloé’s grandmother has never spoken about the war. Chloé goes to Paris to uncover the truth about Adèle’s life. But her grandmother’s secrets will change her family forever.

The Wolves of Odin are back on 10 February in The Bear of Byzantium , the second in SJA Turney ‘s series set in the 11th century. Halfdan and the crew of the Sea Wolf sail to Constantinople and join the Varangian Guard. But the Emperor is dying and courtiers, as well as Varangians, are picking sides. Meanwhile Gunnhild, unable to join the Guards, has visions of a wolf, a boar and a golden bear fighting to support the throne. What do they mean?

On 12 February Emma Darwin ‘s This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin gets its paperback release. When Emma tried to fictionalise her family’s history, she struggled – and failed to write that book. What she’s written, instead, is a memoir, a book about failure, and, above all, a book about writing and how stories are told.

Alex Rutherford ‘s Fortune’s Heir , the second in the Ballantyne Chronicles , is out in paperback on 14 February. Nicholas Ballantyne, in his Himalayan retreat, hopes for a peaceful life. But Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, with French help, aim to drive the East India Company from India and when Warren Hastings, the Company’s newly appointed Governor-General, seeks Nicholas’s help, he agrees.

What Only We Know by Catherine Hokin is released in paperback on 15 February. Karen Cartwright discovers an old photograph and a stranger’s love letter to her dead mother sent from Germany after the war. Karen had struggled to understand her shy, fearful mother, but now she realises there was more to Elizabeth than she knew. For one thing, her name wasn’t Elizabeth; it was Liese… Catherine writes about the historical background to this book in Concentration camps and the politics of memory .

Also out on 15 February is Simon Turney ‘s Agricola: Architect of Roman Britain . From Boudica’s revolt to Mons Graupius, Agricola was involved in the conquest of Britannia, becoming governor in AD77. His biography was written by his son-in-law, Tacitus, but his life has not been examined in detail since then. Using the archaeological record and contemporary accounts to compare with Tacitus, this book aims to uncover the truth about Agricola. Simon’s feature, Agricola’s victories in Britain , looks at the Roman general’s conquests.

On 16 February Son of Mercia , the first in MJ Porter ‘s Eagle of Mercia Chronicles , is published as an ebook. In 825 Beornwulf, King of Mercia, is dead and Ecgberht of Wessex prepares to strike the divided kingdom. Wiglaf has claimed the right to rule Mercia, but can he unite it against the might of Wessex? MJ has written a Historia feature about the background to her story, Rival kings and the fall of Mercia .

Six books are published on 17 February. TL Mogford ‘s The Plant Hunter starts in the exotic world of Victorian plant nurseries. Harry Compton is no plant hunter, but when he inherits a specimen of a fabled tree and a map, greedy eyes fall on him and soon he’s sailing up the Yangtze alongside a young widow, both in pursuit of the plant that could transform both their lives. Read the Historia piece about the inspiration for this book.

On the same day, Miranda Malins returns with The Rebel Daughter , her second novel about Oliver Cromwell’s daughters. It’s 1643, and 19-year-old Bridget finds herself at the heart of the Civil War. With her father’s star on the rise, Bridget has her own ambitions for a life beyond marriage and motherhood. And as fractures appear in her own family, Bridget faces a choice: to follow her heart, or to marry for power and influence. Miranda will write more about Bridget for Historia.

In The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson it’s 1944 and Clara Button has created the country’s only underground library in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. But as the war drags on, Clara and her best friend’s determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested when the lives of those closest to them are at stake. Kate has written us a feature about the true story behind her novel.

Biographer Jane Dismore ‘s Tangled Souls: Love and Scandal among the Victorian Aristocracy reveals the scandal that shocked the unconventional Souls, a circle of cultured wits who flourished in the 1890s. Handsome, witty, and clever MP Harry Cust’s affair with artist and poet Nina Welby-Gregory, and her pregnancy, exposed the hypocrisy of this group of upper-class pleasure-seekers who turned a blind eye to their own adulteries. Read Jane’s feature about the scandal.

Liz Hyder ‘s The Gifts is set in 1840. A young woman sprouts a huge pair of impossible wings, and, as rumours of a ‘fallen angel’ cause a frenzy across London, a surgeon finds himself in the grip of a dangerous obsession. This is a story of four young women, their extraordinary gifts, and their struggle to find their own freedoms.

And, still on 17 February, Andrew Taylor ‘s The Royal Secret is out in paperback. In 1670, James Marwood is investigating the murder of a colleague. Cat Hakesby is working on Slaughter Street, where a captive lion prowls the stables, until the King commissions a poultry house for his sister, visiting from France – with a secret that could change Europe. Will they be thrown together to solve the mysteries? (Is Louis XIV a Catholic?)

Castles of Wales by John Paul Davis is out on 23 February. No country has more castles per square mile than Wales. Even today, there are more than 200; some ruins, others family homes, hotels, or museums. This book throws light on the stories behind them.

Scandal at Dolphin Squ are: A Notorious History by Daniel Smith and Simon Danczuk investigates the history of one of the UK’s most notorious addresses, where the private lives of those from the highest of high society and the lowest depths of the underworld have collided since it was built in Pimlico in 1936. It’s an account of mysterious deaths, exploitation, child sex abuse, espionage and illicit love affairs and is out on 24 February.

The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak is one of six books published on 3 March. Brunhild was a Visigothic princess; her sister-in-law Fredegund started out in servitude. In sixth-century Merovingian France, these two rival queens reigned for decades; but after their deaths, their stories were rewritten, their names defamed. This double biography reinterprets their lives. And Shelley will write more about these remarkable women for Historia.

DV Bishop returns to Cesare Aldo’s story in The Darkest Sin . Aldo’s enquiry into intruders at a convent in Florence is complicated when a man’s naked body is found. Could a nun have killed him? Meanwhile Constable Strocchi investigates the body of a law officer pulled from the Arno. Identifying the killers will put both men in great danger. And we’re promised a Historia feature about 16th-century Florentine nuns.

Hunlaf, Matthew Harffy ‘s cleric turned warrior, is sent by the King of Northumbria to seek an alliance against the marauding Vikings in A Night of Flames , the sequel to A Time for Swords . But Hunlaf and the Norseman, Runolf, have their own plans – which see them caught up in a violent revolt led by a fanatical escaped slave in the wild lands of the North. Jemahl Evans reviews this book in Historia.

Lizzie Pook ‘s debut novel, Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter , is set in a pearl-fishing community on the Western Australian coast in 1886. When Eliza Brightwell’s father, the bay’s most prolific pearler, goes missing at sea, she refuses to believe the rumours that he was murdered. But in a corrupt town, the cost of truth is greater than pearls, and Eliza must decide what price she’ll pay to pursue the truth. Read Lizzie’s feature about the shocking background to her book.

The Clockwork Girl by Anna Mazzola takes us to Paris in 1750. Madeleine Chastel arrives at a clockmaker’s house, plotting to discover the truth of his experiments. As children vanish from the streets, there are rumours that the clockmaker’s intricate mechanical creations are more than they seem. Has she stumbled upon a conspiracy which reaches as far as the court at Versailles? Essie Fox reviews Anna’s book .

And finally on 3 March, the paperback edition of Laura Shepherd-Robinson ‘s Daughters of Night hits the shelves. It’s 1782 and Caro Corsham finds a dying woman in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. With the clock ticking on her own secret, Caro sets out to find the killer; a search that takes her to the most elegant and sordid worlds of Georgian London – and into deadly danger.

Carol McGrath ‘s Sex and Sexuality in Tudor England is published on 8 March. What was the Church view on morality, witchcraft and the female body? On which days could married couples have sex and why? How were same sex relationships perceived? How common was adultery? How did they deal with contraception and venereal disease? And how did people bend and ignore all these rules? Carol writes about Henry VIII’s sexual problems in Historia.

Annie Garthwaite ‘s Cecily is out in paperback on 10 March, showing the Wars of the Roses from a woman’s perspective. When Cecily Neville’s husband, the Duke of York, takes arms against the corrupt courtiers surrounding Henry VI, a struggle for safety becomes and a fight for the crown. It will take all of her courage and cunning to save her family – and make a York king. Read Annie’s feature, Finding my matriarch, Cecily Neville .

Damn’ Rebel Bitches ,  Maggie Craig ‘s classic book about the women of the 1745 Jacobite Rising, is issued in a new edition on 10 March. Drawn from many original documents and letters, this title includes stories of the women – and their men – that are often touching, occasionally light-hearted and always engrossing. Maggie has written about research before online records in Damn’ Rebel Bitches : Research Then and Now .

And Maggie Craig ‘s companion book (about the men of the 1745 Jacobite Rising), Bare-Arsed Banditti , is out in a new edition on the same day. They were modern men; often written out of history, or depicted as gallant but misguided fools, in reality they were children of the Age of Reason. Few had any illusions about the consequences of failure.

On 17 March, VB Grey ‘s Sisterhood is released in paperback. Twin sisters swap roles during the Second World War, with decades-long repercussions. Can Freya’s daughter Kirsty untangle the secrets as her mother, unable to speak, watches while the Berlin Wall falls – and dreads the truth coming out? Find out about the background to this book in Some reasons why history gets lost .

Sophie Haydock ‘s debut novel, The Flames , is out on the same day. It’s about the four muses who posed for the artist Egon Schiele in Vienna more than 100 years ago: Adele, Gertrude, Vally and Edith. At last they can tell their story, one of passion and betrayal. Sophie has written about rediscovering Adele for Historia.

In Elizabethan Secret Agent: The Untold Story of William Ashby , Timothy Ashby documents a gentleman spy who took part in some of the most important events of the Elizabethan era. As ambassador to Scotland he played a major part in Anglo-Scottish relationships during the Spanish Armada crisis, and was, before that, a senior ‘intelligencer’ for Sir Francis Walsingham. It’s published on 30 March, 2022.

Traitor in the Ice by KJ Maitland is on the shelves on 31 March. Murder at the Catholic household of Battle Abbey in 1607 sees unwilling spy Daniel Pursglove sent to find proof of treachery. But nearly everyone at the abbey has something to hide – deeds far more dangerous than religious dissent. And could the traitor Spero Pettingar be hiding among them? Red our feature about the mealtime rituals at Battle .

Anne O’Brien ‘s The Royal Game is out is paperback on the same day. In 1444, King Henry VI’s grip on the crown hangs by a thread as the Wars of the Roses tear England apart. From the ruins of war, three remarkable women use cunning, ambition, and good fortune to raise the Paston family from obscurity to the heart of Court politics and intrigue.

The second book in Catherine Hokin ‘s Hanni Winter series, The Pilot’s Girl , is published in ebook format on 4 April. It’s years since Hanni’s ordeal with the Nazis, but when she goes to photograph Tony Miller, the American pilot risking his life to help starving Berliners, she sees Reiner Foss again. She’s vowed to avenge everyone who suffered at Reiner’s hands. But does her attraction to Tony leave her vulnerable? Catherine writes about the Berlin Blockade , the background to her novel.

The Bear’s Blade , the fifth in Tim Hodkinson ‘s Whale Road Chronicles , is released as an ebook on 5 April. Einar, rightful Jarl of Orkney, is too injured to hold a weapon. His Wolf Coats have been fighting their enemy’s warriors, who are led by a ferocious man called the Bear, owner of a legendary sword. Such a sword could be key to Einar’s plans – but first they must contend with the Bear himself. And can a man unable to wield a weapon be a true Viking warrior?

On 7 April, The Empress and the English Doctor by Lucy Ward examines how Catherine the Great summoned the physician Thomas Dimsdale from Hertford to St Petersburg to carry out a secret mission that would transform both their lives; inoculation against smallpox. It’s a story of Enlightenment ideals, female leadership and the fight to promote science over superstition.

In Beheld: Godiva’s Story by Christopher M Cevasco (out on 10 April), Godgyfu of Coventry’s plans to better life in her beloved city are set back by her husband, Earl Leofric, and the perverse desires of Thomas, a Benedictine novice. Can she escape the monk’s menacing wiles and Leofric’s betrayals to secure her future – and what’s the story behind her famous ride?

England descends into a bitter civil war in A Marriage of Lions by Elizabeth Chadwick , released in paperback on 14 April. In 1238 Joanna of Swanscombe must separate from her husband, William de Valence, when he flees for his life. She has only her wit and courage to prevent their enemies from destroying her husband, her family, and their fortunes.

Elizabeth Lowry ‘s new novel, The Chosen , is also out on 14 April. After his wife Emma dies the author Thomas Hardy finds her diary, in which she confides her true feelings about him. He has to re-evaluate himself, and reimagine his unhappy wife as she was when they first met. Elizabeth has written about reconstructing Emma’s diaries .

Simon Turney starts a new Roman series with The Capsarius , published on the same day. Titus Cervianus is a capsarius – a combat medic – with the XXII Deiotariana legion, posted to Egypt in 25BC. He’s also unpopular with the men and needs all the help he can get from his unexpected and eccentric allies, not just against the warrior queen of Kush.

International Trade in the Middle Ages by Hilary Green , published on 15 April, journeys through the complex developing exchanges which are the foundation of trade today. As trade expanded and became more valuable, international relations became more sophisticated when governments moved to protect the valuable income it brought and nations became ever more competitive. (We’re thrilled that Hilary was asked to write this book after her feature on the subject appeared in Historia.)

Nicola Griffith retells Arthurian myth in Spear , out on 19 April in ebook format. Filled with magic and determination, Peretur (whose name means ‘spear’) leaves her home in the dark wood to travel to Artos in Caer Leon, where she steals the hearts of beautiful women, fights warriors and sorcerers, and makes a place to call home.

On 21 April The Stone Rose , the third book in Carol McGrath ‘s She-Wolves trilogy, retells the life of fierce, self-destructive Isabella of France. Wife to a weak king, Isabella finds herself facing enemies in a war with Scotland and her uncle Lancaster, whose attempts to rein in royal power cause a rift between them. But the threat to the kingdom is a threat to her marriage – and to her own life.

A Silent Way to Die , the second Kember and Hayes Mystery by NR Daws , is published on 26 April and continues the murder-solving partnership of DI Jonathan Kember and psychologist and pilot Lizzie Hayes during the Second World War.

The first in a new series, The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra hits the shelves on 28 April, one of five books by HWA authors published on this day. After a murder at a party, Kaveri sets out to find the killer and discovers that sleuthing in a sari isn’t so hard when you have a talent for maths, a head for logic and a doctor for a husband. And she’ll need them all as the case leads her deeper into danger, sedition and intrigue in Bangalore’s darkest alleyways.

The French House by Jacquie Bloese is also out on 28 April. In Nazi-occupied Guernsey, the consequences of making the wrong decision can be deadly. And when the lives of estranged lovers Émile and Isabelle become entwined with a German officer, loyalties are blurred, and dangerous secrets are forged.

Miss Aldridge Regrets is the second novel from Louise Hare . After a death at the club she sings at, Lena Aldridge can’t resist the offer of a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary . Until death follows her onto the ship, where her greatest performance has already begun… because someone there has only one thing on their mind – murder. Read about the glamorous backdrop to Louise’s novel in RMS Queen Mary , the great transatlantic liner .

Jacqueline Riding ‘s biography Hogarth: Life in Progress has its paperback publication on the same day. William Hogarth’s vision still largely defines the 18th century. Here we meet an artist who was far bolder and more various than we realise: an ambitious self-made man, a devoted husband, a sensitive portraitist, an unmatched storyteller, philanthropist, technical innovator and the author of a seminal work of art theory.

And Alex von Tunzelmann ‘s Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History is also out in paperback on 28 April. Statues are one of the most visible, and controversial, forms of historical storytelling. This book looks at 12 statues in modern history: why they were put up; the stories they were supposed to tell; why those stories were challenged; and how they came down.

On 30 April, Britain’s Plot to Kill Hitler: The True Story of Operation Foxley and SOE by Eric Lee is published. His extensive research into an assassination plan which remained shrouded in mystery for decades reveals several bizarre suggestions, including poisoning Hitler’s water, hypnotism and injecting vegetables with female hormones. Eric’s Historia feature looks more closely at these strange events.

Other books scheduled for publication this month are The King’s Cavalier (working title), book three in Mark Turnbull ‘s Rebellion series of novels, and Sara Read ‘s The Midwife’s Truth .

The sixth and last in Jean Fullerton ‘s Ration Book series is out on 5 May. In A Ration Book Victory , Queenie Brogan discovers that her one-time love – now her parish priest – is dying. Can she finally tell him the secret she has kept for over 50 years? And if she does, could the truth destroy the Brogan family?

Six books are in the shops on 12 May. In One Moonlit Night by Rachel Hore Maddie and her daughters flee the Blitz to the house her missing husband stayed in during his childhood. She won’t accept that he’s dead; and she becomes curious about a mysterious event in his youth that seems to be unresolved. No-one will tell her the truth – or reassure her that he’ll ever return to her.

Privilege is the new novel by Guinevere Glasfurd . In 18th-century Paris, Delphine Vimond and apprentice printer Chancery Smith set out to to discover the author of potentially incendiary papers marked only ‘D’. Louis XV’s censor, Henri Gilbert, is also looking for D; but who will find the writer first – and does D even exist?

Louise Fein ‘s The Hidden Child is out in paperback. In inter-war London, a successful couple must confront their fears and their lies when their daughter is found to have epilepsy, a condition her eugenicist father campaigns against. Louise writes about the chilling theory that lies behind her novel in Building better humans? Eugenics and history .

Also out in paperback is Commander , Paul Fraser Collard ‘s tenth Jack Lark book. It’s 1869 and Jack is in Egypt, where he’s offered work on an expedition into the Sudan to eradicate the slave trade and open the area to commerce. How can he refuse?

The Fallen Sword , AJ Mackenzie ‘s latest book, will also be published on 12 May. During the Hundred Years’ War, the conspiracy against the thrones of England and France has regrouped. Ambush and murder in the war-torn fields of Flanders, meetings in ruined castles and assassination attempts in the streets of Bruges and Paris all follow, as Simon Merrivale relentlessly hunts the conspirators.

Elizabeth Buchan ‘s Two Women in Rome is out in paperback on the same day. Archivist Lottie Archer unravels a tragic love story beset by the political turmoil of post-war Italy and begins to confront the losses in her own life. You can find out about medieval miniatures, one of the more intriguing aspects of the background to her book, in her Historia feature .

Widows of the Ice: The Women that Scott’s Antarctic Expedition Left Behind by Anne Fletcher is published on 15 May. Unlike other accounts of the famous expedition which became a powerful symbol of heroic failure and British bravery, this book examines the rest of the story through the experience of the wives whose husbands did not return: Kathleen Scott, Oriana Wilson and Lois Evans.

Dead in the Water , the fifth in Mark Ellis ‘s DCI Frank Merlin series set during the Second World War, comes out on 19 May. In a bombed-out London swarming with gangsters and spies, DCI Frank Merlin continues his battle against rampant wartime crime. A mangled body is found in the Thames just as some items of priceless art go mysteriously missing. What sinister connection links the two?

The Lying Dutchman by Graham Brack , the sixth in his Master Mercurius Mysteries , is published in ebook format on 20 May. Set in 1685, it sees Mercurius being tasked with thwarting a plan to invade England, only to be tried for espionage.

On 24 May the hardback edition of Nicola Griffith ‘s Spear is out (see 19 April for details). Nicola writes about the inspirations for her book in History, historicity, historiography and Arthurian legend .

King , the third in Ben Kane ‘s Lionheart series, is released on 26 May. In 1192 Richard I can return from the Holy Land to his troubled kingdom, accompanied by the faithful Ferdia. But on the way Richard is captured and imprisoned, his ransom bleeding England’s coffers dry. How can he outwit his enemies in France and at home and restore order to England? Read the first chapter of Ben’s book in our preview: King by Ben Kane: exclusive extract for Historia .

Fil Reid ‘s latest Arthurian timeslip novel, The Sword , is out on 31 May. After Gwen was snatched by Merlin from the 21st century to become King Arthur’s wife, she chose to stay. But she carries the secret of what the stories say will happen to him. Can she save him from defeat at Camlann – or will her knowledge bring about his downfall?

The month begins with Rotten to the Core , TE Kinsey ‘s eighth Lady Hardcastle Mystery book, published on 7 June. In Summer 1911, amateur sleuth Lady Hardcastle and her lady’s maid, Flo, are investigating odd cider-related murders amid whispers of ancient secrets and moonlit rituals. Can they catch the killer before any more people drop off the tree?

Also on 7 June, MJ Porter ‘s Eagle Of Mercia series continues with Wolf of Mercia . As Wiglaf’s warriors beat back Wessex, Icel finds himself among the retreating troops. To survive, he must pretend to be a Wessex warrior while plotting to bring down their forces. But his allegiances are tested…

On 9 June there are nine books by HWA authors published. Madwoman by Louisa Treger tells the story of Nellie Bly who, desperate to make her name as a journalist in New York, tricks hers way into an asylum to report on conditions from the inside. Her days of terror reawaken the traumatic events of her childhood. She entered the asylum of her own free will. But will she ever get out?

It’s clear by AD312 that Constantine and Maxentius’s rivalry must end in Simon Turney and Gordon Doherty ‘s Sons of Rome , the final book in their Rise of Emperors trilogy. When the two forces clash in a battle that will shape history, only one thing is certain: the sole ruler of an empire will be decided.

Sean Lusk ‘s The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley , set in the mid-18th century, is the story of Zachary, whose father, Abel, makes extraordinary clockwork automata in London. Abel sends his son to be raised by his late wife’s eccentric aunt, a proto-feminist who keeps the largest owl collection in England. Then Abel is coerced into spying in Constantinople – with an automaton.

Acts of Love and War by Maggie Brookes is also out on 9 June. When two brothers who both love her join opposite sides in the Spanish Civil War, Lucy goes to Spain to persuade them to come home. Horrified by the plight of refugee children, she volunteers to help. But the question of which brother she loves is less immediate than whether any of the trio will survive.

In The Wall by Douglas Jackson , Marcus Flavius Victor has kept the Picts behind Hadrian’s Wall for 20 years. So why is he now stripping the defences of cavalry to strengthen his own force? Is he risking civil war to seize Britannia for himself? Or is he raising an army to save the province from what waits on the other side of the Wall?

Richard Sharpe is back in Bernard Cornwell ‘s Sharpe’s Assassin , also on 9 June. Napoleon’s army may be defeated, but another enemy lies waiting in the shadows – a secretive group of fanatical French revolutionaries. Wellington sends Sharpe to a new battleground: the maze of Paris street. In search of a spy, he will have to defeat a lethal assassin determined to kill his target or die trying.

And in Sara Sheridan ‘s Celtic Cross , a Mirabelle Bevan mystery, Mirabelle and her fiance Alan move into a secluded house on the banks of the Firth of Forth. But when a nun dies in mysterious circumstances at the Little Sisters of Gethsemane Convent nearby, they are drafted to uncover what happened.

Elizabeth Macneal ‘s Circus of Wonders gets its paperback release on the same day. Nell, the ‘leopard girl’, is the star of Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders. But who gets to tell her story? And, as she falls in love with Toby, can he detach himself from his past and the secret binding him to his brother?

And, finally on 9 June, The Tsarina’s Daughter by Ellen Alpsten is out in paperback. Elizabeth Romanov is the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I, but when her mother dies, she is left penniless and powerless, constantly threatened. Consumed by passion, Elizabeth must decide whether to take up her role as Russia’s ruler, and what she’s willing to do for her country… and for love.

The paperback edition of Anna Abney ‘s The Master of Measham Hall comes out on 23 June. When Alethea Hawthorne finds herself cast out on the streets of London during the Great Plague, getting home to Derbyshire seems impossible until she meets Jack. But further problems await her when she returns and only quick wits can save her – and her home.

On 30 July, The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan is out in paperback. In the summer of 1822 two young women are drawn to Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens as the rare Agave Americana plant draws near to flowering. But what secret is Belle hiding from Elizabeth? Sara writes about the inspirations for her book in Rediscovering Edinburgh’s New Town .

Jonathan Trigell ‘s latest novel, Under Country , set among the poverty, camaraderie and brutality of the miners’ strike in 1984, is out on 1 July. Charlie was a miner, son of a miner, son of a miner’s son. And he was proud to be so. The pit villages were proud places. Miners were respected. The mines never stopped. Until they did.

The King’s Cavalier by Mark Turnbull , the third book in his Rebellion Series , is also out on 1 July. When the Second Civil War breaks out in 1647, Captain Maxwell Walker is torn between his duty to King Charles I and the promise of a new life. Then the New Model Army initiates a coup and the two men’s fates must be decided.

Agent in Peril , the second book in Alex Gerlis ‘s Wolf Pack series is published on 7 July. Roman Loszynski knows how to make bombing raids far more accurate. British agent Jack Miller and undercover spy Sophia von Naundorf must get Loszynski out of the Warsaw ghetto, a desperate mission filled with danger.

Tim Hodkinson ‘s The Bear’s Blade (out as an ebook on 5 April) gets its paperback publication on 7 July.

Two Houses, Two Kingdoms: A History of France and England, 1100-1300 is the new book from Catherine Hanley , told through the stories of the people involved. In an age of personal monarchy, the personalities and actions, the likes and dislikes, of kings could affect the lives of millions. As could the queens, the children, the sisters used as peace offerings, the jealous brothers and cousins, the murderous uncles and stepmothers. It’s out on 12 July.

The latest in Alexandra Walsh ‘s Marquess House Saga , The Jane Seymour Conspiracy , is out as an ebook on 20 July. Perdita and Piper have a new mystery to unravel: a code that leads to a new outlook on Henry’s relationship with Jane Seymour. But before they can reveal the secret, their cousin starts his campaign to take Marquess House from them. A potentially deadly campaign…

Three books hit the shelves on 21 July. In Frances Quinn ‘s new novel, That Bonesetter Woman , Endurance Proudfoot isn’t exactly an ideal Georgian lady, but she has inherited her father’s skills. So while her pretty sister makes a name as a society beauty, she makes hers as London’s first and best female bonesetter. But it’s dangerous at the top, and there’s a long way to fall…

Hawker and the King’s Jewel , the debut novel by Ethan Bale , is out on the same day. After the Battle of Bosworth, Sir John Hawker, Richard III’s loyal retainer, flees England with two Yorkist companions. They head for Venice, where Hawker must return a cursed jewel – and where his former love still is. Ethan’s feature on the enduring mystery of the Princes in the Tower will be in Historia soon.

And it’s paperback publication day for The Spirit Engineer by AJ West . Belfast in 1914, and high society is obsessed with spiritualism. When ‘spirit’ voices suddenly come to scientist and sceptic William Jackson Crawford he becomes obsessed with the phenomenon, questioning his own beliefs. Or is the medium Kathleen Goligher playing tricks on him?

On 29 July, The Carnelian Phoenix by Jacquie Rogers sees Valerius travel to Rome to visit his family. On the way he inherits a carnelian ring from his father. Then his lover, Julia disappears and Valerius finds his loyalties torn, especially when he discovers a plot against the boy Emperor. When he reaches Rome, can he save himself – and the Empire?

There are five books out on 4 August. Leanda de Lisle follows her HWA Non-fiction Crown-winning White King with a biography of Charles I’s Queen, Henrietta Maria . Challenging nearly 400 years of prejudice, she reveals her subject as a fascinating, fearless woman. Leanda has written about this controversial figure for Historia.

In SG MacLean ‘s latest novel, The Bookseller of Inverness , Iain MacGillivray has survived the Battle of Culloden and is living a quiet life as a bookseller. The day after a stranger visits his shop, Iain finds him dead, and a dagger with a Jacobite symbol beside the body. Iain finds himself embroiled in a web of deceit and a series of old scores to be settled.

On the same day, Oscar de Muriel ‘s Frey & McGray Victorian melodrama series comes to an eye-opening end with The Sign of the Devil . Detective ‘Nine-Nails’ McGray must clear his sister’s name of an accusation of murder at the lunatic asylum she’s kept in. He enlists the help of Inspector Ian Frey in a case which reveals all the secrets so carefully kept throughout their story.

Jean Fullerton ‘s Ration Book series about an East London family during the Second World War is well known. Now she’s written her autobiography, A Child of the East End , which documents life in post-war Cockney London drawing on her own and her family’s memories. Jean’s guide to writing your own memoir, Writing yourself into history: useful tips , is available in Historia.

And finally on 4 August, Julie Walker ‘s debut novel, Bonny & Read , is out. In 1720, in the Caribbean, two extraordinary women are on the run – from their pasts, from the British Navy and from their fates. When they meet, during a pirate raid on a ship, the connection is immediate. They’ll fight together, weep together… will they die together?

The Loki Sword , the third in Angus Donald ‘s Fire Born series, hits the shelves on 11 August. Bjarki Bloodhand has subdued his berserker madness; his half-sister, the shield maiden Tor Hildarsdottir, faces brutal reprisals for killing the Jarl of Norrland’s warriors. The solution? To find a lost sword said to have belonged to the Norse god Loki.

Gill Paul ‘s latest novel, The Manhattan Girls , comes out on 18 August. New York, 1921; four extraordinary women form a bridge group that becomes a firm friendship. Dorothy Parker, renowned wit, member of the Algonquin Round Table; Jane Grant, first female reporter for The New York Times ; Broadway actress Winifred Lenihan; and Peggy Leech, magazine assistant by day, novelist by night.

On the same day, The Lost Man of Bombay by Vaseem Khan sees Inspector Persis Wadia investigating the death of a white man found frozen in the Himalayan foothills. Is he linked to two murders? The third in the Malabar House series pits Persis against a deadly mystery in the turbulence of post-colonial India.

And TL Mogford ‘s The Plant Hunter (see 17 February) gets its paperback release, also on 18 August.

Plenty of paperback editions of novels are released this month. On 1 September three books by HWA members come out, including The Gifts by Liz Hyder and Kate Thompson ‘s The Little Wartime Library , both first published earlier this year on 17 February.

And A Night of Flames by  Matthew Harffy is released in paperback on the same day (see 3 March for details).

Also out in paperback is One Moonlit Night by Rachel Hore , this time on 15 September (see 12 May).

Captain Hazard’s Game , the third of David Fairer ‘s social comedies set in early 18th-century London, is out on 28 September. He’s written about the social background to his books in London in 1708: a surprisingly modern city .

And it’s paperback publication time on 29 September for Traitor in the Ice by KJ Maitland , first released on 31 March.

Domitian , the third in  SJA Turney ‘s Damned Emperors series, is published on 20 October. Vespasian’s younger son has known only fear, death and treachery and uses a network of spies to stay one step ahead. So when Domitian unexpectedly becomes Emperor, his childhood guardian, Nerva, is the man he turns to with his fears, and his secrets.

Nicola Cornick ‘s latest novel, The Winter Garden , is out on 27 October. It’s a dual-timeline novel set in the present and the years preceding the Gunpowder Plot in 1605.

Also on 27 October, the most brilliant – but the most wayward – soldier in the British army is back in Sharpe’s Command by Bernard Cornwell . It’s 1812 in Spain, and two French armies march towards each other. If they meet, the British are lost. But guess who plans to stand in their way?

And National Treasures by Caroline Shenton is released as a paperback on the same day. She tells the gripping and sometimes hilarious true story of how an unlikely bunch of men and women saved London’s museums, galleries and archives in the Second World War. Caroline has written about one unusual aspect of the operation in How WWI veterans saved Britain’s treasures in WWII .

Finally on 27 October, WC Ryan ‘s The Winter Guest has its paperback release. See 6 January for details.

Tracy Borman ‘s next book, Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I: The mother and daughter who changed history , is expected to be published this month.

Forest of Foes , the ninth in the Bernicia Chronicles by Matthew Harffy , is out in hardback and ebook formats on 8 December.

This list is a work in progress. We’ll update it as more information about new books becomes available, so if you don’t see a book you want, pop back in a few weeks and see what we’ve added.

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Historia Magazine is published by the Historical Writers’ Association. We are authors, publishers and agents of historical writing, both fiction and non-fiction. For information about membership and profiles of our member authors, please visit our website .

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Prince Harry's memoir has a cover, title and release date — finally

In July 2021, Prince Harry, 37, revealed he was writing a memoir set to come out in fall 2022. Over a year later, in October 2022, long-awaited details emerged — notably, that the memoir's release date would be pushed to 2023.

“Prince Harry will share, for the very first time, the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses, and life lessons that have helped shape him,” Random House said in the press release, teasing the book as an "honest and captivating personal portrait."

The announcement came six months after he and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, stepped by from their duties as senior royals and moved to California, and four months after Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey about her time with the Windsors.

The memoir has been the focus of tabloid reports, with questions about how it may have contributed to tension between him and his brother, William, and how the figures named will handle its revelations.

“Harry’s memoir will resurface a particular agony for Charles,” "Palace Papers" author and royal commentator Tina Brown said in an interview with the Daily Beast .

Brown predicted the memoir will explore Harry’s relationship with his mom, Diana, and the aftermath of her death in 1997 . Harry was 12 at the time .

“The queen was re-stabilized after the death of Diana, whereas Charles has continually battled to end those ghosts," Brown said. The rehabilitation of Camilla’s image has been utterly successful, but she lives in dread of Harry’s book. In some ways, Diana’s ghost still rattles at the gate.”

Indeed, the moment echoes the publication of Diana’s biography “Diana: Her True Story, in Her Own Words,” written by Andrew Morton in 1992. The tell-all contains revelations about Diana and then Prince Charles’ marriage and its associated infidelities; Diana’s experiences with disordered eating; and more.

While she was living, Morton and Diana both denied that she was a source for the book. But after her death in 1997, Morton revealed that she was the primary source, per Frontline .

With the prospective release date of Harry's book approaching, here's what we know.

When is the memoir coming out? We have a release date

The initial press release indicated the book would come out in the fall of 2022. However, following speculation the book will be pushed back to 2023, the release date is Jan. 10, 2023.

What will the book be about?

In the first announcement, Random House previewed the book’s contents, saying it would span from childhood to fatherhood, essentially. Harry and Meghan share two children , Archie, 3 , and Lilibet, 1.

“Covering his lifetime in the public eye from childhood to the present day, including his dedication to service, the military duty that twice took him to the frontlines of Afghanistan, and the joy he has found in being a husband and father, Prince Harry will offer an honest and captivating personal portrait, one that shows readers that behind everything they think they know lies an inspiring, courageous, and uplifting human story,” Random House said.

What is the title of the memoir?

More details emerged in October — including a title, "Spare."

“‘Spare’ takes readers immediately back to one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow — and horror,” the publisher said in a statement. “As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling — and how their lives would play out from that point on.

“For Harry, this is his story at last. With its raw, unflinching honesty, ‘Spare’ is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.”

What is the memoir going to say?

Harry promises an 'accurate and wholly truthful' account of his life

In a statement accompanying the announcement, Harry gave insight into his approach: “I’m writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become," he said.

“I’ve worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story — the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned — I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.”

He promised a "firsthand account of (his life)" that is "accurate and wholly truthful.”

Harry has already gotten candid about palace life

Since stepping back as a senior royal in 2020, Harry has been progressively more candid. Notably, he opened up about his mental health journey in the documentary “The Me You Can’t See ," co-hosted with Oprah Winfrey, the grieving process, and life as Harry.

At one point, he gave an insight into growing up near cameras.

“I always wanted to be normal, as opposed to being Prince Harry, just being Harry. It was a puzzling life and, unfortunately, when I think about my mom the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one, over and over again: Strapped in the car, seatbelt across. My brother in the car as well, and my mother driving and being chased by three, four, five mopeds with paparazzi on,” he said.

He said he suppressed his feelings for his mom after she died.

“I don’t want to think about her, because if I think about her then it’s going to bring up the fact that I can’t bring her back and it’s just going to make me sad. What’s the point in thinking about something sad, what’s the point of thinking about someone that you’ve lost and you’re never going to get back again. And I just decided not to talk about it. No one was talking about it,” he said.

Then, as he got older, he told Winfrey he used substances to "mask" what he was feeling.

“I was willing to drink, I was willing to take drugs, I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling. But I slowly became aware that, okay, I wasn’t drinking Monday to Friday, but I would probably drink a week’s worth in one day on a Friday or a Saturday night. And I would find myself drinking, not because I was enjoying it but because I was trying to mask something.”

Readers are anticipating this level of candor in his memoir.

Elena Nicolaou is a senior entertainment editor at Today.com, where she covers the latest in TV, pop culture, movies and all things streaming. Previously, she covered culture at Refinery29 and Oprah Daily. Her superpower is matching people up with the perfect book, which she does on her podcast, Blind Date With a Book.

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A drama based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office. A drama based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office. A drama based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office.

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