Best Biography & Memoir Books

Oscar winner Viola Davis recounts her extraordinary journey from crushing poverty in rural Rhode Island to EGOT status, with unflinching honesty about trauma, shame, and self-worth.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate tells the story of growing up in Pakistan's Swat Valley, her father's school, the Taliban occupation, and surviving a targeted assassination attempt at fifteen.

Maya Angelou's first autobiographical volume, covering her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, her rape at eight years old, her years of traumatized silence, and her eventual recovery through literature and language.

David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Adams, the principled, irascible, and frequently underestimated second president of the United States.

Therapist Lori Gottlieb writes about going to therapy herself after a painful breakup, interweaving her own journey as a patient with the stories of four clients she is treating simultaneously.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's collection of outrageous, funny, and illuminating adventures — from cracking safes at Los Alamos to learning to draw, playing bongo drums, and embarrassing the censors of the Brazilian physics curriculum.

The true story of Louis Zamperini — Olympic runner turned World War II bombardier who survived 47 days adrift in the Pacific and then two years in Japanese POW camps — and his eventual path to redemption through faith.

Barack Obama's presidential memoir covers his early life, 2008 campaign, and first term, examining both the machinery of American democracy and the personal cost of holding its highest office.

The Japanese Breakfast musician writes about her Korean-American identity, her mother's death from cancer, and how food became the medium for grief and memory.

Barack Obama's searingly honest memoir about race, identity, and his search for belonging across three continents.

Ron Chernow's monumental biography of Ulysses S. Grant reclaims one of American history's most misunderstood figures — the general who won the Civil War and the president who fought to protect Black Americans during Reconstruction.

Patti Smith's memoir of her friendship and love with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in New York City from 1967 to his death from AIDS in 1989, written as a promise to a dying friend.

David Goggins continues his life story beyond Can't Hurt Me, exploring how he pushed further into the darkest corners of his mind to unlock the next level of human potential.

Sportswriter Mitch Albom reconnects with his dying professor Morrie Schwartz for a series of life lessons delivered in the shadow of death.

Walter Isaacson's definitive biography of Albert Einstein traces the physicist's life from his rebellious childhood to the development of the theory of relativity, his Nobel Prize, and his political activism as a refugee from Nazi Germany.

Matthew McConaughey's memoir drawn from 35 years of diary entries — a personal philosophy built from the experiences, mistakes, and epiphanies of an unconventional life.

Michael Lewis's memoir of his years as a bond salesman at Salomon Brothers in the 1980s, capturing the greed and absurdity of Wall Street's most explosive decade.

Jeannette Walls recounts her extraordinary childhood, raised by brilliant but dysfunctional nomadic parents who flouted convention and neglected their children's basic needs.

Joan Didion's unflinching account of the year following her husband John Gregory Dunne's sudden death while their daughter lay critically ill in the hospital.

A collection of essays on culture, politics, race, and feminism by Roxane Gay, who refuses the pressure to be a perfect feminist and argues for the political power of imperfect, contradictory humanity.

Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk, based on two years of access and hundreds of interviews, covering Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, and the tortured psychology behind his drive.

Roxane Gay writes about her body — fat, surveilled, weaponized against her — and the sexual violence that shaped her relationship with it, with unflinching honesty and structural precision.

The story of Christopher McCandless, a young man from a privileged background who walked into the Alaskan wilderness alone in 1992 — and was found dead in an abandoned bus four months later.

Glennon Doyle recounts how falling in love with soccer player Abby Wambach led her to question every choice she had made and learn to trust her own inner knowing.