autobiography book titles

The New York Times

Books | the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years, the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years.

By THE NEW YORK TIMES JUNE 26, 2019

The New York Times’s book critics select the most outstanding memoirs published since 1969.

Click the star icon to create and share your own list of favorites or books to read.

Fierce Attachments

Vivian gornick, farrar, straus & giroux, 1987.

“I remember only the women,” Vivian Gornick writes near the start of her memoir of growing up in the Bronx tenements in the 1940s, surrounded by the blunt, brawling, yearning women of the neighborhood, chief among them her indomitable mother. “I absorbed them as I would chloroform on a cloth laid against my face. It has taken me 30 years to understand how much of them I understood.”

When Gornick’s father died suddenly, she looked in the coffin for so long that she had to be pulled away. That fearlessness suffuses this book; she stares unflinchingly at all that is hidden, difficult, strange, unresolvable in herself and others — at loneliness, sexual malice and the devouring, claustral closeness of mothers and daughters. The book is propelled by Gornick’s attempts to extricate herself from the stifling sorrow of her home — first through sex and marriage, but later, and more reliably, through the life of the mind, the “glamorous company” of ideas. It’s a portrait of the artist as she finds a language — original, allergic to euphemism and therapeutic banalities — worthy of the women that raised her. — Parul Sehgal

I love this book — even during those moments when I want to scream at Gornick, which are the times when she becomes the hypercritical, constantly disappointed woman that her mother, through her words and example, taught the author to be. There’s a clarity to this memoir that’s so brilliant it's unsettling; Gornick finds a measure of freedom in her writing and her feminist activism, but even then, she and her mother can never let each other go. —  Jennifer Szalai

Gornick’s language is so fresh and so blunt; it’s a quintessentially American voice, and a beautiful one. The confidence of her tone in “Fierce Attachments” reminds me of the Saul Bellow who wrote, in the opening lines of “The Adventures of Augie March,” “I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way.” — Dwight Garner

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The Woman Warrior

Maxine hong kingston, alfred a. knopf, 1976.

This book is more than four decades old, but I can’t think of another memoir quite like it that has been published since. True stories, ghost stories, “talk stories” — Maxine Hong Kingston whirs them all together to produce something wild and astonishing that still asserts itself with a ruthless precision.

The American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants, Kingston navigates a bewildering journey between worlds, each one stifling yet perforated by inconsistencies. There’s the Chinese village of Kingston’s ancestors, where girls learn the song of the warrior woman while being told they are destined to become a wife and a slave. There’s the postwar California of her childhood, where she has to unlearn the “strong and bossy” voices of the Chinese women in her family in favor of an “American-feminine” whisper. There’s Mao’s revolution, which is supposed to upend the old feudal system that kept her female ancestors trapped in servitude (if they weren’t victims of infanticides as unwanted baby girls) but also imposes its own deadly cruelty, preventing her parents from returning home.

The narrative undulates, shifting between ghost world, real world and family lore. It can be deadpan and funny, too. The young Kingston resolves to become a lumberjack and a newspaper reporter. Both worthy ambitions, but I’m thankful she wrote this indelible memoir instead. — Jennifer Szalai

Alison Bechdel

Houghton mifflin harcourt, 2006.

Alison Bechdel’s beloved graphic novel is an elaborately layered account of life and artifice, family silence and revelation, springing from her father’s suicide. He was a distant man who devoted himself to the refurbishment of his sprawling Victorian home — and to a hidden erotic life involving young men. The title comes from the abbreviation of the family business — a funeral home — but it also refers to the dual funhouse portrait of father and daughter, of the author’s own queerness.

It’s a sexual and intellectual coming-of-age story that swims along literary lines, honoring the books that nourished Bechdel and her parents and seemed to speak for them: Kate Millet, Proust, Oscar Wilde, theory, poetry and literature. “Fun Home” joins that lineage, an original, mournful, intricate work of art. — Parul Sehgal

The Liars’ Club

Viking, 1995.

This incendiary memoir, about the author’s childhood in the 1960s in a small industrial town in Southeast Texas, was published in 1995 and helped start the modern memoir boom. The book deserves its reputation. You can almost say about Mary Karr’s agile prose what she says about herself at the age of 7: “I was small-boned and skinny, but more than able to make up for that with sheer meanness.”

As a girl, Karr was a serious settler of scores, willing to bite anyone who had wronged her or to climb a tree with a BB gun to take aim at an entire family. Her mother, who “fancied herself a kind of bohemian Scarlett O’Hara,” had a wild streak. She was married seven times, and was subject to psychotic episodes. Her father was an oil refinery worker, a brawling yet taciturn man who came most fully alive when telling tall stories, often in the back room of a bait shop, with a group of men called “The Liars’ Club.”

This is one of the best books ever written about growing up in America. Karr evokes the contours of her preadolescent mind — the fears, fights and petty jealousies — with extraordinary and often comic vividness. This memoir, packed with eccentrics, is beautifully eccentric in its own right. — Dwight Garner

For generations my ancestors had been strapping skillets onto their oxen and walking west. It turned out to be impossible for me to “run away” in the sense other American teenagers did. Any movement at all was taken for progress in my family.

—Mary Karr, “The Liar’s Club”

Christopher Hitchens

Twelve, 2010.

This high-spirited memoir traces the life and times of this inimitable public intellectual, who is much missed, from his childhood in Portsmouth, England, where his father was a navy man, through boarding school, his studies at Oxford and his subsequent career as a writer both in England and the United States.

Christopher Hitchens was a man of the left but unpredictable (and sometimes inscrutable) politically. “Hitch-22” demonstrates how seriously he took the things that really matter: social justice, learning, direct language, the free play of the mind, loyalty and holding public figures to high standards.

This is a vibrant book about friendships, and it will make you want to take your own more seriously. Hitchens recounts moments with friends that include Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and the poet James Fenton. There is a lot of wit here, and bawdy wordplay, and accounts of long nights spent drinking and smoking. Hitchens decided to become a student of history and politics, he writes, after the Cuban missile crisis. “If politics could force its way into my life in such a vicious and chilling manner, I felt, then I had better find out a bit more about it.” He was a force to contend with from the time he was in short pants. “I was probably insufferable,” he concedes. — Dwight Garner

Read the critics discuss the process of putting together the list.

Men We Reaped

Jesmyn ward, bloomsbury, 2013.

“Men’s bodies litter my family history,” the novelist Jesmyn Ward writes in this torrential, sorrowing tribute to five young black men she knew, including her brother, who died in the span of four years, lost to suicide, drugs or accidents. These men were devoured by her hometown, DeLisle, Miss. — called Wolf Town by its first settlers — “pinioned beneath poverty and history and racism.”

Ward tells their stories with tenderness and reverence; they live again in these pages. Their fates twine with her own — her dislocation and anguish, and later, the complicated story of her own survival, and isolation, as she is recruited to elite all-white schools. She is a writer who has metabolized the Greeks and Faulkner — their themes course through her work — and the stories of the deaths of these men join larger national narratives about rural poverty and racism. But Ward never allows her subjects to become symbolic. This work of great grief and beauty renders them individual and irreplaceable. — Parul Sehgal

Random House, 1995

It’s Vidal, so you know the gossip will be abundant, and top shelf. Scores will be settled (with Anaïs Nin, Charlton Heston, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, his mother), conquests enumerated (Jack Kerouac), choice quips dispensed. “At least I have a style,” Truman Capote once sniped at him. “Of course you do,” Vidal responded soothingly. “You stole it from Carson McCullers.”

It was a rangy life — one that took him into the military, politics, Hollywood, Broadway — and he depicts it with the silky urbanity you expect. What comes as a shock is the book’s directness and deep feeling — its innocence.

It’s a love story, at the end of the day. Vidal had a lifelong companion but remained passionately compelled by a beautiful classmate, his first paramour, Jimmie, who died at 19, shot and bayoneted while sleeping in a foxhole on Iwo Jima. He is the phantom that has haunted Vidal’s long, eventful life. “Palimpsest” is a book full of revelations.

“By choice and luck, my life has been spent reading other people’s books and making sentences for my own,” Vidal writes. Our great luck, too. — Parul Sehgal

Giving Up the Ghost

Hilary mantel, a john macrae book/henry holt & company, 2003.

As a poor Catholic girl growing up in the north of England, Hilary Mantel was an exuberant child of improbable ambition, deciding early on that she was destined to become a knight errant and would change into a boy when she turned 4.

Her mesmerizing memoir reads like an attempt to recover the girl she once was, before others began to dictate her story for her. At the age of 7, looking about the garden, she saw an apparition, perhaps the Devil. She thought it was her fault, for allowing her greedy gaze to wander. Her stepfather was bullying, judgmental, condescending; anything Mantel did seemed to anger him. As a young woman, she started to get headaches, vision problems, pains that coursed through her body, bleeding that no longer confined itself to that time of the month. The doctors told her she was insane.

The ghost she is giving up in the title isn’t her life but that of the child she might have had but never will. Years of misdiagnoses culminated in the removal of her reproductive organs, barnacled by scar tissue caused by endometriosis. Her body changed from very thin to very fat. Mantel, perhaps best known for her novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies,” writes about all of this with a fine ear and a furious intelligence, as she resurrects phantoms who “shiver between the lines.” — Jennifer Szalai

I used to think that autobiography was a form of weakness, and perhaps I still do. But I also think that, if you’re weak, it’s childish to pretend to be strong.

—Hilary Mantel, “Giving Up the Ghost”

A Childhood

Harry crews, harper & row, 1978.

This taut, powerful and deeply original memoir covers just the first six years of this gifted novelist’s life, but it is a nearly Dickensian anthology of physical and mental intensities.

Harry Crews grew up in southern Georgia, not far from the Okefenokee Swamp. His father, a tenant farmer, died of a heart attack before Crews was 2. His stepfather was a violent drunk. When Crews was 5, he fell into a boiler of water that was being used to scald pigs. His own skin came off, he writes, “like a wet glove.” When he recovered from this long and painful ordeal, he contracted polio so severely that his heels drew back tightly until they touched the backs of his thighs. He was told, incorrectly, that he would never walk again. “The world that circumscribed the people I come from,” he writes, “had so little margin for error, for bad luck, that when something went wrong, it almost always brought something else down with it.”

Crews sought solace in the Sears, Roebuck catalog, the only book in his house besides the Bible. He began his career as a writer by making up stories about the people he saw there. These humans didn’t have scars and blemishes like everyone he knew. “On their faces were looks of happiness, even joy, looks that I never saw much of in the faces of the people around me.” — Dwight Garner

Dreams From My Father

Barack obama, times books/random house, 1995.

Barack Obama’s first book was published a year before he was elected to the Illinois senate and long before his eight years in the White House under the unrelenting gaze of the public eye. “Dreams From My Father” is a moving and frank work of self-excavation — mercifully free of the kind of virtue-signaling and cheerful moralizing that makes so many politicians’ memoirs read like notes to a stump speech.

Obama recounts an upbringing that set him apart, with a tangle of roots that didn’t give him an obvious map to who he was. His father was from Kenya; his mother from Kansas. Obama himself was born in Hawaii, lived in Indonesia for a time, and was largely raised by his mother and maternal grandparents, after his father left for Harvard when Obama was 2.

“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he writes, “understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere.” To see what held his worlds together was also to learn what kept them apart. This is a book about the uses of disenchantment; the revelations are all the more astonishing for being modest and hard-won. — Jennifer Szalai

Philip Roth

Simon & schuster, 1991.

Philip Roth’s book is a Kaddish to his father, Herman Roth, who developed a benign brain tumor at 86. Surgery was not an option, and Herman became immured in his body, which “had become a terrifying escape-proof enclosure, the holding pen in a slaughterhouse.”

“Patrimony,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, is written plainly, without any flourishes — just the unbearable facts of a father’s decline, the body weakening, the vigorous mind dimming. It’s the rough stuff of devotion. Roth adopts care of his increasingly difficult father and witnesses his rapid decline, admonishing himself: “You must not forget anything.”

“He was always teaching me something,” Roth recalls of his father. He never stopped. In this book, Roth offers a moving tribute to the man but also a portrait almost breathtaking in its honesty and lack of sentimentalism, so truthful and exact that it is as much a portrait of living as dying, son as father. “He could be a pitiless realist,” Roth writes of Herman, proudly. “But I wasn’t his offspring for nothing.” — Parul Sehgal

I had seen my father’s brain, and everything and nothing was revealed. A mystery scarcely short of divine, the brain, even in the case of a retired insurance man with an eighth-grade education from Newark’s Thirteenth Avenue School.

—Philip Roth, “Patrimony”

All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw

Theodore rosengarten, alfred a. knopf, 1974.

This indelible book, an oral history from an illiterate black Alabama sharecropper, won the National Book Award in 1975, beating a lineup of instant classics that included “The Power Broker,” Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses; Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s “All the President’s Men”; Studs Terkel’s “Working”; and Robert M. Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Unlike these other books, “All God’s Dangers” has largely been forgotten. It’s time for that to change.

This book’s author, Theodore Rosengarten, was a Harvard graduate student who went to Alabama in 1968 while researching a defunct labor organization. Someone suggested he speak with Shaw, whose real name was Ned Cobb. What emerged from Cobb’s mouth was dense and tangled social history, a narrative that essentially takes us from slavery to Selma from the point of view of an unprosperous but eloquent and unbroken black man.

Reading it, you will learn more about wheat, guano, farm implements, bugs, cattle killing and mule handling than you would think possible. This is also a dense catalog of the ways that whites tricked and mistreated blacks in the first half of the 20th century. “Years ago I heard that Abraham Lincoln freed the colored people,” Cobb says, “but it didn’t amount to a hill of beans.” About his white neighbors, he declares, “Any way they could deprive a Negro was a celebration to ’em.” This book is not always easy reading, but it is the real deal, an essential American document. — Dwight Garner

Lives Other Than My Own

Emmanuel carrère. translated from the french by linda coverdale., metropolitan books/henry holt & company, 2011.

You begin this memoir thinking it will be about one thing, and it turns into something else altogether — a book at once more ordinary and more extraordinary than any first impressions might allow.

Emmanuel Carrère starts with the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka — he was there, vacationing with his girlfriend. But that’s just the first 50 pages. Then he turns to the story of his girlfriend’s sister, a small-town judge who’s dying of cancer, and her friendship with another judge, who also has cancer. Carrère’s girlfriend chides him for thinking that such unpromising material offers him some sort of golden storytelling opportunity: “They don’t even sleep together — and at the end, she dies,” she says to him. “Have I got that straight? That’s your story?”

She does have it straight, but there’s so much more to it. Carrère weaves in his own experiences, coming up against his own limitations, his own prejudices, his own understanding of what defines a meaningful life. His sentences are clean, never showy; he writes about himself through others in a way that feels both necessarily generous and candidly — which is to say appropriately — narcissistic.

Whenever I try to describe this memoir — and I do that often, since it’s a book I don’t just recommend but implore people to read — I feel like I’m trying to parse a magic trick. — Jennifer Szalai

A Tale of Love and Darkness

Amos oz. translated from the hebrew by nicholas de lange., harcourt, 2004.

This memoir was born from a long silence, written 50 years after Amos Oz’s mother killed herself with sleeping pills, when he was 12, three months before his bar mitzvah. The resulting book is both brutal and generous, filled with meandering reflections on a life’s journey in politics and literature.

The only child of European Jews who settled in the Promised Land, Oz grew up alongside the new state of Israel, initially enamored of a fierce nationalism before becoming furiously (and in one memorable scene, rather hilariously) disillusioned. As a lonely boy, Oz felt unseen by his awkward father and confounded by his brilliant and deeply unhappy mother. She taught him that people were a constant source of betrayal and disappointment. Books, though, would never let him down. Hearing about what happened to those Jews who stayed in Europe, the young Oz wanted to become a book, because no matter how many books were destroyed there was a decent chance that one copy could survive.

Oz says he essentially killed his father by moving to a kibbutz at 15 and changing his name. But his father lives on in this memoir, along with Oz’s mother — not just in his recollections of her, but in the very existence of this book. She was the one who captivated him with stories that “amazed you, sent shivers up your spine, then disappeared back into the darkness before you had time to see what was in front of your eyes.” — Jennifer Szalai

This Boy’s Life

Tobias wolff, the atlantic monthly press, 1989.

“Our car boiled over again just after my mother and I crossed the Continental Divide.” So begins Tobias Wolff’s powerful and impeccably written memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, a classic of the genre that has lost none of its power.

Divorced mother and son had hit the road together, fleeing a bad man, trying to change their luck and maybe get rich as uranium prospectors. The author’s wealthy and estranged father was absent. Soon his mother linked up with a man named Dwight (never trust a man named Dwight) who beat young Wolff, stole his paper route money and forced him to shuck horse chestnuts after school for hours, until his hands were “crazed with cuts and scratches” from their sharply spined husks. Wolff became wild in high school, a delinquent and a petty thief, before escaping to a prep school in Pennsylvania. His prose lights up the experience of growing up in America during this era. He describes going to confession and trying to articulate an individual sin this way: “It was like fishing a swamp, where you feel the tug of something that at first seems promising and then resistant and finally hopeless as you realize that you’ve snagged the bottom, that you have the whole planet on the other end of your line.” — Dwight Garner

A Life’s Work

Rachel cusk, picador, 2002.

Rachel Cusk writes about new motherhood with an honesty and clarity that makes this memoir feel almost illicit. Sleepless nights, yes; colic, yes; but also a raw, frantic love for her firstborn daughter that she depicts and dissects with both rigor and amazement.

As many readers as there are who love “A Life’s Work” as much as I do, I know others who have been put off by its steely register, finding it too denuded, shorn of warmth and giddiness — those very things that help make motherhood such an enormous experience, and not just a grueling one. But whenever I read Cusk’s book, I am irrevocably pulled along in its thrall, constantly startled by her observations — milk running “in untasted rivulets” down her baby’s “affronted cheek”; pregnancy literature that “bristles with threats and the promise of reprisal” — and her willingness to see her experience cold.

Or, at least, to try to, because what becomes clear is that it’s impossible for Cusk to hold on to her old self. The childless writer who could compartmentalize with ease and take boundaries for granted has to learn an entirely new way of being. Embedded in Cusk’s chiseled sentences are her attempts to engage with a roiling vulnerability. None of the chipper, treacly stuff here; motherhood deserves more respect than that. — Jennifer Szalai

J.M. Coetzee

Viking, 1997.

The Nobel Prize-winning J.M. Coetzee is one of those novelists who rarely give interviews, and when he does, he’s like the Robert Mueller of the literary world — reticent, discreet and quietly insistent that his books should speak for themselves.

Coetzee, in other words, is taciturn in the extreme. Yet he has also written three revealing volumes about his life — “Boyhood,” “Youth” and “Summertime.” The first, “Boyhood,” is most explicitly and conventionally a memoir, covering his years growing up in a provincial village outside of Cape Town. The child of Afrikaner parents who had pretensions to English gentility, he was buttoned-up and sensitive, desperate to fit into the “normal” world around him but also confounded and repulsed by it. He noticed how his indolent relatives clung to their privileged position in South Africa’s brutal racial hierarchy through cruelty and a raw assertion of power. Out in the world, he lived in constant fear of violence and humiliation; at home he was cosseted by his mother and presided like a king.

The memoir is told in the third-person present tense, which lends it a peculiar immediacy. Coetzee is free to observe the boy he once was without the interpretive intrusions that come with age; he can remain true to what he felt then, rather than what he knows now. His recollections are stark and painfully intimate: “He feels like a crab pulled out of its shell, pink and wounded and obscene.” — Jennifer Szalai

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974

“The book is already a period piece,” the legendary travel writer Jan Morris opens her memoir. “It was written in the 1970s, and is decidedly of the 1970s.” It might be of its time but it is also ardent, musical, poetic and full of warm humor — a chronicle of ecstasies. Best remembered as one of the first accounts of gender transition, “Conundrum” is a study of home in all its forms — of finding home in one’s body, of Morris’s native Wales, of all the cities she possesses by dint of loving them so fiercely.

We are carried from her childhood, in the lap of a family militantly opposed to conformity, to her long career as a reporter in England and Egypt. She went everywhere, met everyone: Che Guevara (“sharp as a cat in Cuba”), Guy Burgess (“swollen with drink and self-reproach in Moscow”). It’s an enviably full life, with a long marriage, four children and Morris’s determinedly sunny disposition and ability to regard every second of her life, however difficult — especially if difficult — as a species of grand adventure.

She chafes at the notion of “identity” (“a trendy word I have long distrusted, masking as it often does befuddled ideas and lazy thinking”). It is thrilling to watch her arrive at an understanding of a sense of self and language that is her own, bespoke. “To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial,” she writes. “It was a melody that I heard within myself.” — Parul Sehgal

I did not query my condition, or seek reasons for it. I knew very well that it was an irrational conviction — I was in no way psychotic, and perhaps not much more neurotic than most of us; but there it was, I knew it to be true, and if it was impossible then the definition of possibility was inadequate.

—Jan Morris, “Conundrum”

Sonali Deraniyagala

Alfred a. knopf, 2013.

Sonali Deraniyagala was searching the internet for ways to kill herself when one click led to another and she was staring at a news article featuring pictures of her two young sons. The boys had died not long before — victims of the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, which also killed Deraniyagala’s husband and her parents. She herself survived by clinging to a branch.

“Wave” is a meticulous account of derangement — of being so undone by grief that life becomes not just impossible but terrifying. She recalls stabbing herself with a butter knife. She couldn’t look at a flower or a blade of grass without feeling a sickening sense of panic. Reading this book is like staring into the abyss, only instead of staring back it might just swallow you whole.

This, believe it or not, is why you should read it — for Deraniyagala’s unflinching account of the horror that took away her family, and for her willingness to lay bare how it made her not only more vulnerable but also, at times, more cruel. Her return to life was gradual, tentative and difficult; she learned the only way out of her unbearable anguish was to remember what had happened and to keep it close. — Jennifer Szalai

Always Unreliable: Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England and May Week Was in June

Clive james, picador, 2004.

The Australian-born critic, poet, memoirist, novelist, travel writer and translator Clive James isn’t as well known in America as he is in England, where he’s lived most of his adult life. Over there, cabdrivers know who James is: the ebullient man who hosted many comic and erudite television programs over the years. We have no one quite like him over here: Think Johnny Carson combined with Edmund Wilson.

James is the author of five memoirs, to which many readers have a cultlike devotion. The first three — “Unreliable Memoirs,” “Falling Towards England” and “May Week Was in June” — have been collected into one volume, “Always Unreliable,” and they are especially incisive and comic. In a preface to the first book, James dealt a truth few memoirists will admit: “Most first novels are disguised autobiographies. This autobiography is a disguised novel.” He’s an admitted exaggerator, but nonetheless he’s led a big life.

He was born in 1939 and grew up with an absent father, a Japanese prisoner of war. Released, his father died in a plane crash on his way home when James was 5. The author fully relives his adolescent agonies (“you can die of envy for cratered faces weeping with yellow pus”) and his rowdy troublemaking years. Later volumes take him to London and then to Cambridge University, where he edits Granta, the literary magazine, dabbles in theater (“It was my first, cruel exposure to the awkward fact that the arts attract the insane”) and gets married. He is never less than good company. — Dwight Garner

Travels With Lizbeth

Lars eighner, st. martin’s press, 1993.

Lars Eighner’s memoir contains the finest first-person writing we have about the experience of being homeless in America. Yet it’s not a dirge or a Bukowski-like scratching of the groin but an offbeat and plaintive hymn to life. It’s the sort of book that releases the emergency brake on your soul. Eighner spent three years on the streets (mostly in Austin, Tex.) and on the road in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after suffering from migraines and losing a series of jobs. The book he wrote is a literate and exceedingly humane document.

On the streets, he clung to a kind of dignity. He refused to beg or steal. He didn’t care for drugs; he barely drank. “Being suddenly intoxicated in a public place in the early afternoon,” he writes, “is not my idea of a good time.” He foraged for books and magazines as much as food, but an especially fine portion of this book is his writing about dumpster-diving. There’s the jarring impression that every grain of rice is a maggot. About botulism, he writes: “Often the first symptom is death.” There is something strangely Emersonian, capable and self-reliant, in his scavenging. “I live from the refuse of others,” he declares. “I think it a sound and honorable niche.” — Dwight Garner

Day after day I could aspire, within reason, to nothing more than survival. Although the planets wandered among the stars and the moon waxed and waned, the identical naked barrenness of existence was exposed to me, day in and day out.

—Lars Eighner, “Travels With Lizbeth”

Little, Brown & Company, 2015

The photographer Sally Mann’s memoir is weird, intense and uncommonly beautiful. She has real literary gifts, and she’s led a big Southern-bohemian life, rich with incident. Or maybe it only seems rich with incident because of an old maxim that still holds: Stories happen only to people who can tell them.

Like Mary Karr, Mann as a child was a scrappy, troublemaking tomboy, one who grew into a scrappy, troublemaking, impossible-to-ignore young woman and artist. She was raised in Virginia by sophisticated, lettered parents. When she grew too wild, they sent her away to a prep school in Vermont where, she writes, “I smoked, I drank, I skipped classes, I snuck out, I took drugs, I stole quarts of ice cream for my dorm by breaking into the kitchen storerooms, I made out with my boyfriends in the library basement, I hitchhiked into town and down I-91, and when caught, I weaseled out of all of it.”

This memoir recounts some of the Southern gothic elements of her parents’ lives. This book is heavily illustrated, and traces her growth as an artist. It recounts friendships with Southern artists and writers such as Cy Twombly and Reynolds Price. Her anecdotes have snap. About his advanced old age, in a line that is hard to forget, Twombly tells the author that he is “closing down the bodega for real.” But this story is entirely her own. — Dwight Garner

Country Girl

Edna o’brien, little, brown and company, 2013.

The enormously gifted Irish writer Edna O’Brien was near the red-hot center of the Swinging ’60s in London. She dropped acid with her psychiatrist, R.D. Laing. Among those who came to her parties were Marianne Faithfull, Sean Connery, Princess Margaret and Jane Fonda. Richard Burton and Marlon Brando tried to get her into bed. Robert Mitchum succeeded after wooing her with this pickup line: “I bet you wish I was Robert Taylor, and I bet you never tasted white peaches.”

O’Brien was born in a village in County Clare, in the west of Ireland, in 1930. This earthy and evocative book also traces her youth and her development as a writer. Her small family was religious. Her father was a farmer who drank and gambled; her mother was a former maid. She has described her village, Tuamgraney, as “enclosed, fervid and bigoted.” O’Brien didn’t attend college. She moved to Dublin, where she worked in a drugstore while studying at the Pharmaceutical College at night. She began to read literature, and she wondered: “Why could life not be lived at that same pitch? Why was it only in books that I could find the utter outlet for my emotions?” This memoir has perfect pitch. — Dwight Garner

Marjane Satrapi. Translated from the French by Mattias Ripa and Blake Ferris.

Pantheon, 2003.

At the age of 6, Marjane Satrapi privately declared herself the last prophet of Islam. At 14, she left Iran for a boarding school in Austria, sent away by parents terrified of their outspoken daughter’s penchant for challenging her teachers (and hypocrisy wherever she sniffed it out). At 31, she published “Persepolis,” in French (it was later translated into English by Mattias Ripa and Blake Ferris), a stunning graphic memoir hailed as a wholly original achievement in the form.

There’s still a startling freshness to the book. It won’t age. In inky shadows and simple, expressive lines — reminiscent of Ludwig Bemelmans’s “Madeline” — Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a world of protests and disappearances (and scoring punk rock cassettes on the black market).

The revolution, the rise of fundamentalism, a brutal family history of torture, imprisonment and exile are conveyed from a child’s perspective and achieve a stark, shocking impact. — Parul Sehgal

Margo Jefferson

Pantheon, 2015.

The motto was simple in Margo Jefferson’s childhood home: “Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment.” Her family was part of Chicago’s black elite. Her father was the head pediatrician at Provident, America’s oldest black hospital; her mother was a socialite. They saw themselves as a “Third Race, poised between the masses of Negroes and all classes of Caucasians.” Life was navigated according to strict standards of behavior and femininity. Jefferson writes of the punishing psychic burden of growing up feeling that she was a representative for her race and, later, of nagging, terrifying suicidal impulses.

Jefferson won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her book reviews in The New York Times. “Negroland” is an extended form of criticism that dances between a history of social class to a close reading of her mother’s expressions; the information calibrated in a brow arched “three to four millimeters.”

The prose is blunt and evasive, sensuous and ascetic, doubting and resolute — and above all beautifully skeptical of the genre, of the memoir’s conventions, clichés and limits. “How do you adapt your singular, willful self to so much history and myth? So much glory, banality, honor and betrayal?” she asks. This shape-shifting, form-shattering book carves one path forward. — Parul Sehgal

25 More Great Memoirs

Presented in Alphabetical Order by Author

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

Viv albertine, thomas dunne books/st. martin’s press, 2014.

Viv Albertine participated in the birth of punk in the mid-1970s. She was in a band with Sid Vicious before he joined the Sex Pistols. She dated Mick Jones while he was putting together his new band, the Clash. She could barely play guitar, yet she became the lead guitarist for the Slits. Her memoir is wiry and fearless. It contains story after story about men who told her she couldn’t do things that she did anyway. Her life up to the breakup of the Slits occupies only half of the book. There’s a lot of pain in the second section: loneliness, doubt, a bad marriage, cancer, depression. Throughout, this account has an honest, lo-fi grace.

Martin Amis

Talk miramax books/hyperion, 2000.

In this memoir, the acclaimed author of “London Fields,” “Money” and other novels decided, he writes, “to speak, for once, without artifice.” The entertaining, loosely structured result is movingly earnest and wickedly funny. It includes a portrait, both cleareyed and affectionate, of the author’s father, the comic novelist and poet Kingsley Amis. In addition, “Experience” offers more vivid and harrowing writing about dental problems than you might have thought one person capable of producing.

Slow Days, Fast Company

Alfred a. knopf, 1977.

The Los Angeles-born glamour girl, bohemian, artist, muse, sensualist, wit and pioneering foodie Eve Babitz writes prose that reads like Nora Ephron by way of Joan Didion, albeit with more lust and drugs and tequila. “Slow Days, Fast Company” and “Eve’s Hollywood,” the book that preceded it, are officially billed as fiction, but they are mostly undisguised dispatches from her own experiences in 1970s California. Reading her is like being out on the warm open road at sundown, with what she called “4/60 air-conditioning” — that is, going 60 miles per hour with all four windows down. You can feel the wind in your hair.

Russell Baker

Congdon & weed, 1982.

Russell Baker’s warm and disarmingly funny account of his life growing up in Depression-era America has garnered comparisons to the work of Mark Twain. The book quickly became a beloved best seller when it was published, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Baker was born into poverty in Virginia in 1925. He was 5 years old when his father, then 33, fell into a diabetic coma and died. The author’s strong, affectionate mother is a major presence in the book. Baker, a longtime humorist and columnist for The New York Times, died in January at 93.

Kafka Was the Rage

Anatole broyard, carol southern books/crown publishers, 1993.

Anatole Broyard, a longtime book critic and essayist for The New York Times, died in 1990 of prostate cancer. What he had finished of this memoir before his death mostly concerned his time living in the West Village after World War II. “A war is like an illness,” he writes, “and when it’s over you think you’ve never felt so well.” He writes about the vogue for psychoanalysis, his experience opening a used-book store and, primarily, his formative relationship with the artist Sheri Martinelli (her pseudonym in the book is Sheri Donatti). The book was truncated, but the writing in it is brilliant and often epigrammatic: “I just want love to live up to its publicity.”

Between the World and Me

Ta-nehisi coates, spiegel & grau, 2015.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, in the form of a letter to his son, is a scalding examination of his own experience as a black man in America, and of how much of American history has been systemically built on exploiting and committing violence against black bodies. Inspired by a section of James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” that was addressed to the author’s nephew, Coates’s book is a powerful testimony that will continue to have a profound impact on discussions about race in America.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan didion, alfred a. knopf, 2005.

Joan Didion, so long an exemplar of cool, of brilliant aloofness, showed us her unraveling in this memoir about the sudden death of her husband of 40 years, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and the frightening illness of her daughter, Quintana. It’s a troubled, meditative book, in which Didion writes of what it feels like to have “cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad.”

Barbarian Days

William finnegan, penguin press, 2015.

This account of a lifelong surfing obsession won the Pulitzer Prize in biography. William Finnegan, a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, recalls his childhood in California and Hawaii, his many surfing buddies through the years and his taste for a kind of danger that approaches the sublime. In his 20s, he traveled through Asia and Africa and the South Pacific in search of waves, living in tents and cars and cheap apartments. One takes away from “Barbarian Days” a sense of a big, wind-chapped, well-lived life.

Personal History

Katharine graham, alfred a. knopf, 1997.

Katharine Graham’s brilliant but remote father, Eugene Meyer, capped his successful career as a financier and public servant by buying the struggling Washington Post in 1933 and nursing it to health. Graham took command of the paper in 1963, and steered it through the Watergate scandal and the end of Richard Nixon’s presidency, among other dramas. Her autobiography covers her life from childhood to her command of a towering journalistic institution in a deeply male-dominated industry. Her tone throughout is frank, self-critical, modest and justifiably proud.

Thinking in Pictures

Temple grandin, doubleday, 1995.

Memoirs are valued, in part, for their ability to open windows onto experiences other than our own, and few do that as dramatically as Temple Grandin’s “Thinking in Pictures.” Grandin, a professor of animal science who is autistic, describes the “library” of visual images in her memory, which she is constantly updating. (“It’s like getting a new version of software for the computer.”) As Oliver Sacks wrote in an introduction to the book, “Grandin’s voice came from a place which had never had a voice, never been granted real existence, before.”

Autobiography of a Face

Lucy grealy, houghton mifflin, 1994.

When she was 9 years old, Lucy Grealy was stricken with a rare, virulent form of bone cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma. She had radical surgery to remove half of her jaw, and years of radiation and chemotherapy, and recovered. She then endured a sense of disfigurement and isolation from other children. She became an accomplished poet and essayist before dying at 39 in 2002. Although entitled to self-pity, Grealy was not given to it. This memoir is a moving meditation on ugliness and beauty. Grealy’s life is the subject of another powerful memoir, Ann Patchett’s “Truth & Beauty,” which recounts the friendship between the two writers.

Dancing With Cuba

Alma guillermoprieto. translated from the spanish by esther allen., pantheon, 2004.

Alma Guillermoprieto was a 20-year-old dance student in 1969, when Merce Cunningham offered to recommend her for a teaching job at the National Schools of the Arts in Havana. This memoir is her account of the six months she spent there, a frustrating and fascinating time that opened her eyes to the world beyond dance. Eventually, political turmoil, piled on top of loneliness, youthful angst and assorted romantic troubles, led the author to the edge of a nervous breakdown. This remembrance is a pleasure to read, full of humanity, sly humor, curiosity and knowledge.

Minor Characters

Joyce johnson, houghton mifflin, 1983.

Joyce Johnson was 21 and not long out of Barnard College when, in the winter of 1957, Allen Ginsberg set her up on a blind date with Jack Kerouac, who was 34 and still largely unknown. Thus began an off-and-on relationship that lasted nearly two years, during which time “On the Road” was published, leading to life-altering fame — not only for Kerouac but many of his closest friends. Johnson’s book about this time is a riveting portrait of an era, and a glowing introduction to the Beats. It’s a book about a so-called minor character who, in the process of writing her life, became a major one.

The Memory Chalet

Penguin press, 2010.

The historian Tony Judt, who was known for his incisive analysis of current events and his synthesizing of European history in books like “Postwar,” wrote this book of autobiographical fragments after he was stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and had become “effectively quadriplegic.” He would think back over his life in the middle of the night, shape those memories into stories and dictate them to an assistant the next day. “The Memory Chalet,” the resulting unlikely artifact, ranges over Judt’s boyhood in England; the lives of his lower-middle-class Jewish parents; life as a student and fellow at King’s College, Cambridge, in the 1960s and early ’70s; and his life in New York City, where he eventually settled and taught.

Kiese Laymon

Scribner, 2018.

The most recently published entry on this list of 50 books, Kiese Laymon’s “Heavy” details the author’s childhood in Mississippi in the 1980s and his relationship with his alternately loving and abusive mother, who raised him on her own. It’s full of sharp, heart-rending thoughts about growing up black in the United States, and his fraught relationship with his body — Laymon’s weight has severely fluctuated over the years, a subject he plumbs with great sensitivity. This is a gorgeous, gutting book that’s fueled by candor yet freighted with ambivalence. It’s full of devotion and betrayal, euphoria and anguish.

Priestdaddy

Patricia lockwood, riverhead books, 2017.

Patricia Lockwood, an acclaimed poet, weaves in this memoir the story of her family — including her Roman Catholic priest father, who received a special dispensation from the Vatican — with the crisis that led her and her husband to live temporarily under her parents’ rectory roof. The book, consistently alive with feeling, is written with elastic style. And in Lockwood’s father, Greg, it has one of the great characters in nonfiction: He listens to Rush Limbaugh while watching Bill O’Reilly, consumes Arby’s Beef ’n Cheddar sandwiches the way other humans consume cashews and strides around in his underwear. Hilarious descriptions — of, to take one example, Greg’s guitar playing — alternate with profound examinations of family, art and faith.

H Is for Hawk

Helen macdonald, grove press, 2015.

When we meet Helen Macdonald in this beautiful and nearly feral book, she’s in her 30s, with “no partner, no children, no home.” When her father dies suddenly on a London street, it steals the floor from beneath her. Obsessed with birds of prey since she was a girl, Macdonald was already an experienced falconer. In her grief, seeking escape into something, she began to train one of nature’s most vicious predators, a goshawk. She unplugged her telephone. She told her friends to leave her alone. Nearly every paragraph she writes about the experience is strange in the best way, and injected with unexpected meaning.

The Color of Water

James mcbride, riverhead books, 1996.

This complex and moving story, which enjoyed a long run on best-seller lists, is about James McBride’s relationship with his mother, Ruth, the daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox Jewish rabbi. She fervently adopted Christianity and founded a black Baptist church in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn with McBride’s father. The book is suffused with issues of race, religion and identity, and simultaneously transcends those issues to be a story of family love and the sheer force of a mother’s will.

Angela’s Ashes

Frank mccourt, scribner, 1996.

“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all,” Frank McCourt writes near the beginning of his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir. His parents had immigrated to New York, where McCourt was born, but soon moved back to Ireland, where they hoped relatives could help them with their four children. Having returned, they experienced crushing poverty. The book did perhaps more than any other to cement the 1990s boom in memoir writing — and reading. It features a Dickensian gallery of schoolmasters, shopkeepers and priests, in addition to McCourt’s unforgettable family.

Cockroaches

Scholastique mukasonga. translated from the french by jordan stump., archipelago books, 2016.

Thirty-seven of Scholastique Mukasonga’s family members were massacred in the Rwandan genocide in the spring of 1994, when the Hutu majority turned on their Tutsi neighbors, killing more than 800,000 people in 100 days. “Cockroaches” is Mukasonga’s devastating account of her childhood and what she was able to learn about the slaughter of her family. (“Cockroach” was the Hutu epithet of choice for the Tutsis.) It is a compendium of unspeakable crimes and horrifically inventive sadism, delivered in an even, unwavering tone.

Keith Richards

Little, brown & company, 2010.

In “Life,” the Rolling Stones guitarist writes with uncommon candor and immediacy — with the help of the veteran journalist James Fox — about drugs and his run-ins with the police; about the difficulties of getting and staying clean; and about the era when rock ’n’ roll came of age. He spares none of his thoughts, good and bad, about Mick Jagger. He also describes the spongelike love of music that he inherited from his grandfather, and his own sense of musical history — his reverence for the blues and R&B masters he has studied his entire life.

A Life in the Twentieth Century

Arthur schlesinger jr., houghton mifflin company, 2000.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a prizewinning historian who served in John F. Kennedy’s White House, here writes about the first 33 years of his life, from his birth in 1917 — the year the United States entered World War I — to 1950 and the beginnings of the Cold War. The son of an acclaimed historian, Schlesinger was born into great privilege. He went on a yearlong trip around the world between graduating from prep school and attending Harvard. This book has incisive things to say about the large themes of world history, including isolationism and interventionism, and about many other subjects besides, including the films of the 1930s.

Edmund White

Ecco/harpercollins publishers, 2006.

“My Lives” is broken into chapters whose headings follow a clever formula: “My Shrinks,” “My Mother,” “My Father,” “My Hustlers” ... But these seemingly narrow-focus, time-hopping slices add up to a robust autobiography. Edmund White’s portraits of his parents and their lives before him are novelistic; his writing about his own sexual experiences is exceedingly candid. Reviewing the book for The Guardian, the novelist Alan Hollinghurst said that “no other writer of White’s eminence has described his sexual life with such purposeful clarity.”

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Jeanette winterson, grove press, 2012.

This memoir’s title is the question Jeanette Winterson’s adoptive mother asked after discovering her daughter was a lesbian. Winterson’s mother loomed over her life, as she looms over this book. In a quiet way she is one of the great horror mothers of English-language literature. When she was angry with her daughter, she would say, “The Devil led us to the wrong crib.” This memoir’s narrative includes Winterson’s search for her birth mother and the author’s self-invention, her intellectual development. The device of the trapped young person saved by books is a hoary one, but Winterson makes it seem new, and sulfurous.

Close to the Knives

David wojnarowicz, vintage, 1991.

David Wojnarowicz, who died at 37 in 1992, was a vital part of the East Village art scene of the 1980s that also produced Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others. He was a painter, photographer, performance artist, AIDS activist and more — including writer. This work of hard-living autobiography is written in a flood of run-on sentences, and in a tone of almost hallucinatory incandescence. A typical sentence begins: “I remember when I was 8 years old I would crawl out the window of my apartment seven stories above the ground and hold on to the ledge with 10 scrawny fingers and lower myself out above the sea of cars burning up Eighth Avenue ...”

Share your picks on social media or email them to yourself as a reading list.

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Hey there, looking to get started on your autobiography but stuck on what to call it? Don’t worry, we’ve got your back! Choosing the perfect name for your life story can be tough, but it’s also a fun and important decision. So, grab a cup of coffee and get ready to brainstorm some awesome autobiography name ideas!

Table of Contents

Choosing a memorable autobiography name, reflecting your personal journey in the title, incorporating key themes and milestones, using humor or wit to engage readers, seeking feedback and suggestions from others, in conclusion.

When it comes to choosing a memorable name for your autobiography, there are a few things to consider. The title of your life story should be captivating, intriguing, and reflective of the journey you’ve been through. It’s the first thing people will see when they come across your book, so it’s important to make it memorable.

One approach to creating an autobiography name is to brainstorm keywords or phrases that encapsulate the essence of your story. Think about the major themes, events, or turning points in your life, and try to distill them into a few impactful words. Consider using **metaphors or symbolism** to convey deeper meanings and emotions. It’s also helpful to evoke a sense of curiosity or mystery with the title, sparking interest in potential readers.

Another strategy is to draw inspiration from literature, poetry, or famous quotes that resonate with your life experiences. **Quoting a meaningful line** from a favorite book or poem can add a layer of depth and resonance to your autobiography title. Additionally, incorporating personal mottos or mantras that have guided you through life can lend authenticity and significance to the name of your book.

For **creativity and impact**, consider experimenting with wordplay, alliteration, or unconventional phrasing. A catchy, unique title can make your autobiography stand out and pique curiosity. Remember to also consider the marketability and resonance of the title, as it will play a major role in attracting potential readers. By taking the time to consider these factors, you can create a memorable autobiography name that truly captures the essence of your life story.

Are you ready to share your personal journey with the world? Choosing the perfect title for your autobiography is crucial in capturing the essence of your story. Your title should reflect the unique experiences, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped you into the person you are today. Here are some tips and ideas for creating an impactful and meaningful title that truly represents your personal journey:

### Tips for When brainstorming ideas for your autobiography title, consider the following tips to ensure it resonates with your readers:

– **Think about the central theme**: What is the main message or theme of your life story? Is it resilience, love, overcoming adversity, or personal growth? – **Use imagery**: Incorporate vivid imagery that reflects key moments or symbols from your life that have had a significant impact on your journey. – **Highlight your unique perspective**: What sets your story apart from others? Emphasize what makes your experiences and insights distinctive and valuable.

### Autobiography Title Ideas Here are some creative and inspiring title ideas to spark your imagination and help you craft the perfect name for your autobiography:

| Title Ideas | Description | |—————————-|————————————————–| | Unbreakable Spirit | A powerful and evocative title reflecting resilience and strength. | | From Struggle to Strength | Capture the essence of overcoming obstacles and personal growth. | | In My Own Words | Emphasize the personal and intimate nature of your story. | | The Road Less Traveled | Highlight the unique and unconventional path of your journey. |

Find a title that resonates with you and captures the heart of your personal narrative. Taking the time to reflect and choose the perfect name for your autobiography will ensure that your story is told in a compelling and authentic way.

When it comes to choosing a name for your autobiography, it’s important to incorporate key themes and milestones from your life. These elements help to tell your unique story and make your book memorable to readers. Whether you’re focusing on a specific event, a personal journey, or an overarching theme, the title of your autobiography should encapsulate the essence of your life story.

One approach to brainstorming autobiography name ideas is to reflect on significant milestones and themes in your life. Consider the following prompts to help spark inspiration for your autobiography title: – What are the defining moments or turning points in your life? – What themes or patterns have been recurring throughout your journey? – What unique experiences or challenges have shaped your perspective and identity?

By incorporating these key themes and milestones into your autobiography title, you can create a compelling and meaningful representation of your life story. Remember to choose a title that resonates with you and accurately captures the essence of your unique narrative. Embrace creativity and authenticity as you explore different autobiography name ideas that reflect the depth and richness of your personal journey.

When it comes to choosing a name for your autobiography, it’s essential to create a title that is engaging, memorable, and reflective of your personality and experiences. One way to capture readers’ attention is to use humor or wit in your autobiography title. Incorporating humor into the title can make it more relatable and appealing to a wider audience, while adding wit can add a clever and thought-provoking element.

Here are some ideas for autobiography names that use humor or wit to engage readers:

• “Laughing Through the Tears: My Life Story” – This title combines humor and emotion, drawing readers in with the promise of both lighthearted moments and poignant reflections.
• “The Chronicles of Awkwardness: A Memoir” – Using humor to acknowledge the inherent awkwardness of life can resonate with readers who can relate to the challenges and humorous moments that come with navigating through life.
• “Sarcastic and Sassy: My Journey to Self-Discovery” – This title employs wit and humor to convey a bold and confident narrative, appealing to readers who appreciate a sharp sense of humor.

Are you in the process of writing your autobiography and in need of a catchy and captivating name? Naming your autobiography is a crucial step in the publishing process. A well-thought-out title can pique the interest of potential readers and encapsulate the essence of your life story. If you’re currently brainstorming autobiography name ideas, we’re here to help.

can provide valuable insights and fresh perspectives that you may not have considered. It’s always beneficial to gather input from a diverse group of people to ensure that your autobiography name resonates with a wide audience. Whether you’re a first-time author or a seasoned writer, feedback from others can make a significant impact on the success of your book. Here are some suggestions for soliciting feedback and suggestions for your autobiography name:

– Reach out to friends, family, and colleagues who know you well – Join writing groups or forums and participate in discussions about autobiography titles – Utilize social media platforms to conduct polls and gather opinions from a broader audience – Attend book clubs or literary events to engage with avid readers and gather feedback By , you can gain valuable insights that will help you choose a compelling and memorable name for your autobiography. Your book deserves a title that truly captures the essence of your life story, and the input of others can help you achieve that goal. So, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for feedback – the perfect autobiography name may be just a suggestion away.

Q: I’m struggling to come up with a catchy title for my autobiography. Any tips? A: Yes, think about the main theme or message of your autobiography and try to capture that in a few words.

Q: Can I use a quote as the title of my autobiography? A: Of course! A meaningful quote can make a great title for your autobiography and give it a personal touch.

Q: How long should my autobiography title be? A: It should be relatively short and punchy, ideally no more than a few words or a brief phrase.

Q: What if I can’t think of anything good? A: Don’t stress too much about it – sometimes a simple, straightforward title can be just as effective as a clever or creative one.

Q: Should I include my name in the title? A: It’s up to you! Including your name can make the autobiography feel more personal, but it’s not necessary.

Q: Can I ask friends and family for title ideas? A: Absolutely! Getting input from others can help you brainstorm and come up with something that truly resonates with you.

Q: Are there any common themes or phrases used in autobiography titles? A: Yes, many autobiographies use phrases like “My Story” or “Life and Times of [Name]” but feel free to get creative and come up with something unique to you.

So if you’re considering writing your own autobiography, choosing the perfect title is an important first step. Whether you decide to go with a catchy phrase or a meaningful quote, make sure it reflects the essence of your life story. Hopefully, the ideas we’ve shared here have sparked some inspiration for your own memoir title. Happy writing!

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

• New autobiographies & biographies
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The best new autobiographies and biographies

Charles iii, by robert hardman.

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

Sociopath: A Memoir

By patric gagne.

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

Lisa Marie Presley's memoir

By lisa marie presley.

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

Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary

By nina stibbe.

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

Beyond the Story

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

Hildasay to Home

By christian lewis.

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

by Carolyn Hays

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

by Prince Harry

The fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time and packed with revelations, Spare is Prince Harry's story. Twelve-year-old Harry was known as the carefree one; the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir until the loss of his mother changed everything. Then, at twenty-one, he joined the British Army, resulting in post-traumatic stress. Amidst this, the Prince also couldn't find love. Then he met Meghan. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. 

Is This Ok?

By harriet gibsone.

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

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

Life's Work

By david milch.

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

Will You Care If I Die?

By nicolas lunabba.

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

The best inspiring autobiographies and biographies

By yusra mardini.

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

Finding Hildasay

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

The Happiest Man on Earth

By eddie jaku.

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

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

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

I Am Malala

By malala yousafzai.

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

In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin

By lindsey hilsum.

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

The best memoirs

This is going to hurt, by adam kay.

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

The Colour of Madness

By samara linton.

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

Nothing But The Truth

By the secret barrister.

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

by Michelle Obama

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

Kitchen Confidential

By anthony bourdain.

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

Everything I Know About Love

By dolly alderton.

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

The best sports autobiographies and biographies

By chris kamara.

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

Alone on the Wall

By alex honnold.

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

On Days Like These

By martin o'neill.

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

Too Many Reasons to Live

By rob burrow.

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

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

At home with muhammad ali, by hana yasmeen ali.

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

They Don't Teach This

By eniola aluko.

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

Touching The Void

By joe simpson.

A million-copy bestseller, Touching The Void recounts Joe Simpson and Simon Yate's near fatal dscent after climbing Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. A few days after reaching the summit of the mountain, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frost-bitten, with news that that Joe was dead. What happened to Joe, and how the pair dealt with the psychological traumas that resulted when Simon was forced into the appalling decision to cut the rope, makes not only an epic of survival but a compelling testament of friendship. 

The best celebrity autobiographies and biographies

By adrian edmondson.

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

Being Henry

By henry winkler.

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

What Are You Doing Here?

By floella benjamin.

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

Life Lessons

By jay blades.

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

A Funny Life

By michael mcintyre.

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

by Elton John

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

And Away...

By bob mortimer.

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

by Walter Isaacson

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

Maybe I Don't Belong Here

By david harewood.

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

Scenes from My Life

By michael k. williams.

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

The best political and historical autobiographies

The fall of boris johnson, by sebastian payne.

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

by Sung-Yoon Lee

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

Long Walk To Freedom

By nelson mandela.

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

The Diary of a Young Girl

By anne frank.

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

The best literary autobiographies

The immortal life of henrietta lacks, by rebecca skloot.

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

A Fortunate Woman

By polly morland.

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

Father and Son

By jonathan raban.

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

Crying in H Mart

By michelle zauner.

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

The Reluctant Carer

By the reluctant carer.

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

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How to Create Killer Autobiography Titles: Tips and Examples

Writing an autobiography can be a great journey of self-discovery and even a kind of therapy. But how do you boil down years of experiences and pages and pages of text into a single, captivating title that will draw in your reading audience and somehow seem to summarize the “plot” of your life? This question can be a deeply challenging one for many authors.. Let’s start by answering two questions.

Q: Why is it so important to take the time to come up with interesting autobiographical titles?

A: The answer is simple. A good title gives the reader an idea of what your story is about and prepares them for the journey. Dedicate time to coming up with a list of appealing titles, and see how well they seem to fit with the story that you’re trying to tell.

Q: Do you need to have a title before you start writing?

A: It’s up to you. Some writers prefer to create a title for their autobiographies well before penning the first pages of their first drafts. Having the title creates a framework for their writing.. But this isn’t everybody’s way of doing things. Many authors prefer to write and let the title emerge from the writing. In short, whether you start out with a title or pick one after you’ve written the last words on the last page is completely up to you.

If you think that now is the best time to think about autobiography title ideas, here’s some advice and helpful tips to help you choose the best one.

Develop Autobiography Ideas

This section will be helpful for those authors who are only at the beginning of the writing process. However, if you have already written something, answering these questions will still help you improve your writing and perhaps help you look at your draft with fresh eyes.

• Come up with the main theme . As you are going to share the story, it should have a core theme that will tie the scenes and memories from your life into a meaningful whole.
• Think about your future reader. Now you might consider your prospective audience. Perhaps you’ll want to consider the values and interests of that audience. Knowing your future readers could help you promote your book, define your style, find appropriate examples from your life, and help your writing to keep a consistent tone and focus.
• Define the reason. First of all, to find the core idea of your autobiography, ask yourself why you are writing an autobiography in the first place. What is it that you want people to know? 

So, WHY? Here are some autobiography topics to look at:

• Share an inspiring or unusual story that happened in your life.
• Promote your values, beliefs, and principles.
• Tell the story of your career path in a particular company or business you have worked for.
• Praise your parents, friends, beloved, or any other person that has significantly influenced your life.
• Spread valuable lessons that you have learned.
• Glorify God and tell your own story about your relationship with God.
• Show off your cultural background, traditions, and events that have influenced your cultural identity.
• Simply record your life story and understand its place in the universe.
• Relate your biggest mistake and how it influenced your life.

Grab Readers’ Attention with Catchy Autobiographical Titles

Let’s face the fact that the first thing your prospective reader will see is the book title and cover. That’s why it’s important to hook readers’ attention with something touching, intriguing, comical, or breathtaking. Here are some of the most engaging autobiographical topics that are more likely to be appreciated by readers.

Self-criticism . The power to draw conclusions and admit mistakes is a sign of a strong personality. Your reflections on your faults can  make for an attractive and spicy autobiographical title. Include this in your title to make it more appealing to the reader.

E.g. “Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back Again” by Norah Vincent 

Controversial notes. If you have done something that is unusual, that isn’t the norm for your community, or that is generally surprising and unique , it could also help you produce a fascinating title. 

E.g. “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible” by A.J. Jacobs 

Brief ideas. The more clever and direct the words you choose, the more appealing the title will be. Try to pack the main idea of your autobiography into one or two words.

E.g. “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah, “Educated” by Tara Westover 

Evocative emotions . If your personality is unknown to the reader, you have a gap to fill. Add vivid descriptions and evocative mental images to immediately involve the reader in the journey you’re about to take them on.

E.g. “The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother” by James McBride

Match Title for Autobiography about Yourself with Overall Tone

Let’s say you are writing a lighthearted and funny autobiography with a lot of humor and allegory. Then a humorous title will clearly signal to the reader what to expect. After all,the title and book cover are the first things the prospective reader sees.

A more serious or dramatic autobiography could do with a title  that’s a bit deeper or more profound in tone. Don’t mislead the reader, a cheerful title for a story about tragedy and obstacles will only disappoint the reader.

Types of Creative Autobiography Title: Ideas and Examples

You can get inspired by existing autobiography titles. Use an online bookstore such as Amazon to find autobiographies from other writers. Jot down the most interesting and appealing words and phrases. Think how you can base your own title on your findings.

Here are the most common types of autobiographies titles:

Word-emblem. It may be the main event or influential person in your story. Also, it may be a symbol, turning point, or something powerful.

Paradox . If your story is about opposing forces or events, you can turn it into a title.

Evocative words. How can you describe the main theme of your story in one to two words? You can add subtitles if you wish to add depth to the title.

Metaphorical/literal phrase. It may be a phrase from the text that characterizes the main idea of your autobiographical story.

Your name. This type is more common for historical personalities or celebrities who are well-known to the general public. But there is no prohibition on adding your name to autobiography titles. Just add a subtitle to provide more details about yourself for the reader and an eye-catching book cover for the best results.

Humor. If your story is about something positive and light-hearted or perhaps well-packed with self-deprecating jokes, why not go for a humorous title?

Try AI Title Generators to Get Autobiography Title Ideas

You can ask an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Copy.ai to give you advice and sample topics to choose from. When you write a detailed description of what your autobiography is about, including the main theme and events you get the best results.

We recommend using artificial intelligence services with caution however. Use it as inspiration and as a source of ideas. Mix, rewrite, or develop something yourself from the titles offered.

Ask for Advice on Your Autobiographies Titles

Write down the greatest autobiography title ideas on a sheet of paper. Ask someone  close to you to take a look at it and give you their honest, detailed feedback. You can ask friends, relatives, coworkers, and other people you trust and whose opinions you value.

There are also a lot of literary forums, communities, and groups who are ready to help you with not only your title, but also to evaluate your autobiography draft. 

Reddit. Here are some popular subreddits for writers:

• r/logophilia
• r/writerchat
• r/selfpublish

Twitter. You can ask for advice in a topical Twitter feed like #WritingCommunity.

NaNoWriMo. It’s a great writer’s community of writers with more than 20 years of experience. This non-profit organization is free and has a lot of active members. You can visit their forum to ask for advice, get feedback, and much more.

Do’s and Don’ts to Create the Best Title for Autobiography about Yourself

• Stick to what it means for you. You can add vivid descriptions and even some fiction (but preferably be honest about it) to your autobiography, but you need to express what matters to you in the title.
• Ask your friends and family for advice. Write down the best title variants and share them with your close ones for feedback.
• Be patient. It may take a long time to come up with a really catchy autobiography title. Just leave yourself enough time to sith with your ideas if you’re not quite sure yet.
• Keep it short and concise. On the one hand, you can create a long title with a subtitle. But keep in mind that it should be easy to read and understand. That’s why you should aim for short and sweet.

Don’ts

• Use puns. Maybe, you have already found autobiographies that have puns in titles and even got inspired. Most of the time these titles don’t work well for the general public.
• Offensive humor. Funny titles are great, but try not to go too far. Carefully pick words so as not to denigrate parts of your potential audience, even if the funny words are really only referring to yourself.
• Use misleading titles. The autobiography title should give your reader a grasp of what to expect in the book (while leaving some room for the imagination).
• Include generic titles. Make an investigation and make sure that your title hasn’t already been taken by another book, movie, or other work.

Wrapping Up

We hope that you are now well-armed with these working tips to help you find your perfect autobiography title. Stay sincere, grab the reader’s attention, and focus on your experiences to make it shine. Don’t rush. When people dedicate time to coming up with their autobiographies titles they’re more likely to find something to attract their people’s attention and this can make the difference between an autobiography being read or passed up!. 

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Memoirs That Changed a Generation

Personal stories, universal impact.

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In the three decades since, the memoir has become a powerful force for healing and change on both the individual and the cultural level. Here are 33 unforgettable personal narratives: the naked truth of real lives, elevated by gorgeous language, unforgettable scenes, breathtaking humor, and artful suspense. Each has the power to change your life and heal your heart.

Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Grealy

Childhood cancer left Grealy with half her jaw removed, a disfigurement that filled her with self-loathing. A heartbreakingly wise child reborn as a brilliant writer, she puts readers in touch with a self beyond ugliness or pain.

The Liars' Club, by Mary Karr

With deadpan humor, a killer eye for detail, and a badass persona founded at age 7, Karr makes a convincing case that there's no dysfunctional childhood that can't be redeemed with a great story.

Prozac Nation, by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Wurtzel's raw emotional honesty about coming of age with a diagnosis and a bottomless pill bottle stirred up a storm of criticism and outrage but spoke straight to the hearts of the Kurt Cobain generation.

Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt

A childhood of abject poverty and brutal loss in Limerick, Ireland, becomes a luminous legend in this extraordinary account. Feeling sorry for yourself about something? Here's a sure end to that.

Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel

LGBTQIA+ hero Bechdel grew up in a small-town funeral home run by her father, a man with many secrets. This beautifully illustrated graphic memoir inspires us to rethink the mysteries of our own pasts.

Wild, by Cheryl Strayed

Strayed cut short a self-destructive spinout after her mother's death with an 1,100-mile hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, blazing a path for readers who are having trouble forgiving themselves.

Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Lifting up brokenhearted women since 2006, this iconic story of reinvention after divorce goes from the pits—a cold bathroom floor—to the peaks, a year of sensory delights and spiritual magic in Italy, India, and Bali.

Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen

Kaysen's parents were so frightened by her adolescent melodrama that they hustled her into treatment and she spent over a year in a mental hospital. Her ability to recreate the mindset of a miserable 18-year-old qualifies this memoir as a self-help book for parents.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers

When their parents died within weeks of each other, leaving him the caretaker of his 8-year-old brother, the 21-year-old author had just one superpower—irony. If there's a grief guide for the cool kids, this is it.

When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi

If you need to know what makes life worth living in the face of a terminal diagnosis, this book has an answer. The heartfelt reckoning of a 36-year-old neurosurgery resident with stage IV cancer was completed by his wife after he died.

Drinking, by Caroline Knapp

Knapp was exactly the kind of well-educated, high-powered woman nobody dreams has a drinking problem, partly because she was so good at hiding it. The gift she gained by ending the denial is one she shares.

Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

Does your book club need a reboot? Nafisi's account of gathering with her former students to read forbidden classics in the midst of the Islamist crackdown comes with the world's most powerful reading list.

Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs

Burroughs's no-holds-barred account of his harrowing childhood—gross, hilarious, completely outrageous—writes a bold permission slip for anyone who worries her secrets are too much to share.

H Is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald

Macdonald's experience of bonding with her goshawk Mabel opens a bright window into the bond between people and animals, deepening our understanding of our role as custodians of the natural world.

Just Kids, by Patti Smith

A magic carpet ride to the bohemian New York of the late ’60s and early ’70s, the future punk heroine's love letter to her friend Robert Mapplethorpe is filled with idealism, beauty, and sweetness.

Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward

Ward wrote this book to understand the unjust, untimely deaths of her brother and four other beloved Black men, revealing the forces of poverty and racism in their most personal and vicious form.

First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung

The author's survival of the violence and terror of the Cambodian Pol Pot regime is a stirring testimony to the resilience of children, a green shoot of hope and goodness in the devastation of the killing fields.

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

Read this book to be astonished—by the gutting nightmare of Didion's loss, and by the power of her intellect and her sentences to transform it into an immortal thing of beauty and deep humanity.

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

Without a bit of sugarcoating, Walls shows how we can love our families and our history no matter how much of a nightmare it all was. Her journey from the trailer park to the limo is an all-American success story.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris

If laughter is the best medicine, Sedaris is a great big bottle of it. The avatar of dysfunctional families everywhere, his sardonic, self-deprecating storytelling is guaranteed to deliver comic relief.

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15 Autobiography Examples to Inspire Your Own

POSTED ON Oct 25, 2023

Written by Nicole Ahlering

So you’re ready to write an autobiography ! Congratulations; this can be a gratifying personal project. And just like any creative endeavor, it’s a great idea to start by getting inspired. 

In this article, we’re sharing 15 stellar autobiography examples to get your wheels turning. We’ll also share some need-to-know info on the different types of autobiographies and autobiography layouts, and we’ll leave you with a list of catchy ways to start your book. Let’s get going!

In this article, we'll explore:

What are the different types of autobiographies .

As it turns out, there are many different ways to write a book about yourself. You can go the traditional autobiography route, which is a chronological account of your entire life. Or you can write a memoir , which zeroes in on specific themes or time periods in your life. 

If you’d like, your autobiography can be composed of individual personal essays, or you can blend your autobiography with literary techniques to create a piece of creative nonfiction . 

There are graphic autobiographies that use comics or other combinations of images and text to illustrate your life story, or you can simply publish an edited version of your journal or diary . 

You can write a travelog that documents your life through your adventures or blend elements of your life with made-up stories to create autobiographical fiction . 

When it comes to sharing your life story, there are few rules!

How can I lay out my autobiography? 

Did you know there are multiple ways you can structure your autobiography? The most common is to put it in chronological order . But you can also lay out your book in reverse chronological order or even jump around in time .

Here are a few other layouts to consider: 

• Thematic or topical . As you outline your autobiography, pay attention to themes that emerge. You can lay out your autobiography by central ideas rather than by time. 
• Flashback and flash-forward. This nonlinear approach can be a great way to create some excitement and intrigue in your life story.
• Cyclical structure. Is there one event that you feel defined your life story? Why not try circling back to it throughout your book? This can be an interesting way to demonstrate how your perspective changed with time. 

If you need a little more help laying out your autobiography, we have free autobiography templates and free book templates to help you. 

Related: 50 Eye-Catching Autobiography Titles

15 Autobiographies to inspire your own 

Ready to get your creative juices flowing? Here are some examples of autobiography to add to your reading list. 

1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

One of the best-known autobiographies, The Diary of a Young Girl, is an excellent example of a journal-style layout. Featuring the story of a young girl who is hiding during the Holocaust, aspiring writers will find inspiration in Frank’s raw emotions and candor. 

2. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda 

A favorite of Steve Jobs, this autobiography details the author’s spiritual journey through yoga and meditation. It’s a wonderful example of how to blend the recounting of events with spiritual insights and philosophical teachings. 

3. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela 

The former South African president wrote this stunning autobiography about his struggle against apartheid, his imprisonment, and his presidency. Aspiring autobiography writers who want to write a book about social change should read this one. 

4. The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi

In his autobiography, Gandhi explores his philosophy of nonviolent resistance through his political and spiritual journey. Writers will appreciate this book for the way it weaves stories of personal growth into a larger narrative of social change. 

5. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

One of several autobiographical works by Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings explores her coming-of-age experience amidst racism and a traumatic childhood. Writers should read this to hear Angelou’s powerful story and be inspired by her vivid language. 

6. The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller

Keller details her remarkable life as a deaf and blind person, sharing intimate details about her education and advocacy work. Aspiring writers will benefit from reading Keller’s sensory-rich language since she has the unique experience of navigating the world through touch.

7. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

This autobiography, written in collaboration with journalist Alex Haley, tracks Malcolm X from his youth through his adulthood as a prominent activist in the civil rights movement. Read this one to learn tips and tricks for writing about your personal evolution. 

8. The Story of My Life by Clarence Darrow 

Darrow shares his experiences as a civil libertarian and prominent American Lawyer in this enlightening autobiography. Writers should read this one to learn how to build a persuasive argument in their book. 

9. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah 

South African comedian, television host, and political commentator Trevor Noah wrote this autobiography detailing his upbringing during apartheid in South Africa. This is a must-read for writers who are looking to infuse humor into their autobiographies—even when writing about heavy subjects . 

10. I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

In her autobiography, Yousafzia recounts her tumultuous and sometimes terrifying journey advocating for equal education for girls. If you want to write your own autobiography, read this one first to learn how to bring an authentic voice to your narrative. 

11. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Boom’s autobiography shares the harrowing story of her family’s efforts to hide Jews from the Nazis during World War II. Writers should read this to witness how Boom weaves a historical narrative into her life story. 

12. Agatha Christie: An Autobiography by Agatha Christie 

Renowned mystery writer Agatha Christie took time away from her suspenseful novels to write a book about herself. If you plan to write an autobiography, read Christie’s first to learn how to build a sense of intrigue. 

13. Chronicles: Volume 1 by Bob Dylan 

If you’re an artist writing your autobiography, you’ll be inspired by Dylan’s. It shares his unique perspective on the creative process in music and literature and delves into what it means to maintain your artistic vision. 

14. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi 

This well-known autobiography may make you cry, but it’s well worth the read. Written by a surgeon as he faces a terminal illness, it’s a must-read for any author exploring themes of mortality in their writing. 

15. Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama 

This autobiography by the former U.S. president is a great read for anyone aspiring to write an autobiography that intertwines their personal story with a larger societal and political narrative. 

• 31 Best Autobiographies
• 30 Celebrity Autobiographies

What is a catchy autobiography introduction? 

Sometimes the hardest part of a new project is getting started. If you’re ready to begin writing your autobiography and need a good opener, here are some angles to consider: 

• Start by describing a childhood dream and how it influenced your journey. 
• Open with a letter to your younger self.
• Share a formative childhood memory. 
• Start with a thought-provoking question you’ll answer as your book progresses.
• Talk about an object that’s meaningful to you and tie it to a larger story about your life.

With so much inspiration and so many wonderful resources, there’s never been a better time to write your autobiography. If, after reading a few books on this list, you’re not sure where to start with yours—let us help! Just sign up for a book consultation to get started.

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Saturday, May 3, 2014

69 awesome and awful autobiography titles.

8 comments:

LOL: Hitch-22

Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me (R. Kelly) Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?: A Memoir (George Clinton)

larger than life [eddie large]

Thanks for this list. It gave me the idea to create the best Autobiography Quotes. Keep up with the good work!

this helped me a lot with homework

Wow.great post.

lolol very punny !

How To Write an Autobiography 2024 (Tips, Templates, & Guide)

Your life story has value, merit, and significance. You want to share it with the world, but maybe you don’t know how .

Here’s how to write an autobiography:

Write an autobiography by creating a list of the most important moments, people, and places in your life. Gather photos, videos, letters, and notes about these experiences. Then, use an outline, templates, sentence starters, and questions to help you write your autobiography .

In this article, you are going to learn the fastest method for writing your autobiography.

We are going to cover everything you need to know with examples and a free, downloadable, done-for-you template.

What Is an Autobiography?

Table of Contents

Before you can write an autobiography, you must first know the definition.

An autobiography is the story of your life, written by you. It covers the full span of your life (at least, up until now), hitting on the most significant moments, people and events.

When you write your autobiography, you write an intimate account of your life.

What Should I Include In an Autobiography?

If you are scratching your head, baffled about what to include in your autobiography, you are not alone.

After all, a big part of how to write an autobiography is knowing what to put in and what to leave out of your life story. Do you focus on every detail?

Every person? Won’t your autobiography be too long?

A good way to think about how to write an autobiography is to use the Movie Trailer Method.

What do movie trailers include?

• High emotional moments
• The big events
• The most important characters

When you plan, organize, and write your autobiography, keep the Movie Trailer Method in mind. You can even watch a bunch of free movie trailers on YouTube for examples of how to write an autobiography using the Movie Trailer Method.

When wondering what to include in your autobiography, focus on what would make the cut for a movie trailer of your life:

• Most important people (like family, friends, mentors, coaches, etc.)
• Significant events (like your origin story, vacations, graduations, life turning points, life lessons)
• Emotional moments (When you were homeless, when you battled a life-threatening condition, or when you fell in love)
• Drama or suspense (Did you make it into Harvard? Did your first surgery go well? Did your baby survive?)

Autobiography Structure Secrets

Like any compelling story, a well-structured autobiography often follows a pattern that creates a logical flow and captures readers’ attention.

Traditionally, autobiographies begin with early memories, detailing the writer’s childhood, family background, and the events or people that shaped their formative years.

From here, the narrative typically progresses chronologically, covering major life events like schooling, friendships, challenges, achievements, career milestones, and personal relationships.

It’s essential to weave these events with introspective insights.

This allows readers to understand not just the what, but also the why behind the author’s choices and experiences.

Towards the end, an effective autobiography often includes reflections on lessons learned, changes in perspective over time, and the wisdom acquired along life’s journey.

Example of the Structure:

• Introduction: A gripping event or anecdote that gives readers a hint of what to expect. It could be a pivotal moment or challenge that defines the essence of the story.
• Childhood and Early Memories: Recounting family dynamics, birthplace, cultural background, and memorable incidents from early years.
• Adolescence and Discovering Identity: Experiences during teenage years, challenges faced, friendships formed, and personal evolutions.
• Pursuits and Passions: Describing education, early career choices, or any particular hobby or skill that played a significant role in the author’s life.
• Major Life Events and Challenges: Chronicles of marriage, parenthood, career shifts, or any significant setbacks and how they were overcome.
• Achievements and Milestones: Celebrating major accomplishments and recounting the journey to achieving them.
• Reflections and Wisdom: Sharing life lessons, changes in beliefs or values over time, and offering insights gained from lived experiences.
• Conclusion: Summarizing the journey, contemplating on the present state, and sharing hopes or aspirations for the future.

How To Write an Autobiography Quickly: Strategies & Templates

Want the quickest way to organize and write your autobiography in record time? You can literally write your autobiography in 7 days or less with this method.

The secret is to use done-for-you templates.

I have personally designed and collected a series of templates to take you from a blank page to a fully complete Autobiography. I call this the How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint.

And it’s completely free to download right from this article. 🙂

In the How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint, you get:

• The Autobiography Questions Template
• The Autobiography Brainstorm Templates
• The Autobiography Outline Template

Here is an image of it so that you know exactly what you get when you download it:

How To Write an Autobiography: Step-by-Step

When you sit down to write an autobiography, it’s helpful to have a step-by-step blueprint to follow.

You already have the done-for-you templates that you can use to organize and write an autobiography faster than ever before. Now here’s a complete step-by-step guide on how to maximize your template.

• Brainstorm Ideas
• Order your sections (from medium to high interest)
• Order the ideas in each section (from medium to high interest)
• Write three questions to answer in each section
• Choose a starter sentence
• Complete a title template
• Write each section of your by completing the starter sentence and answering all three questions

Brainstorm Your Autobiography

The first step in writing your autobiography is to brainstorm.

Give yourself time and space to write down the most significant people, events, lessons, and experiences in your life. The templates in the How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint provide sections for you to write down your brainstormed ideas.

This will help you organize your ideas into what will become the major sections of your book.

These will be:

• Y our most significant events and experiences.
• The people who impacted you the most.
• The challenges you have overcome.
• Your achievements and successes.
• The lessons you have learned.

The “other” sections on the second page of the Brainstorm template is for creating your own sections or to give you more space for the sections I provided in case you run out of space.

As I brainstorm, I find asking myself specific questions really activates my imagination.

So I have compiled a list of compelling questions to help you get ideas down on paper or on your screen.

Order Your Sections (From Medium to High Interest)

The next step is to order your main sections.

The main sections are the five (or more) sections from your Brainstorm templates (Significant events, significant people, life lessons, challenges, successes, other, etc). This order will become the outline and chapters for your book.

How do you decide what comes first, second or third?

I recommend placing the sections in order of interest. Ask yourself, “What’s the most fascinating part of my life?”

If it’s a person, then write the name of that section (Significant People) on the last line in the How to Write an Autobiography Outline Template. If it’s an experience, place the name of that section (Significant Events) on the last line.

For example, if you met the Pope, you might want to end with that nugget from your life. If you spent three weeks lost at sea and survived on a desert island by spearfishing, that is your ending point.

Then complete the Outline by placing the remaining sections in order of interest. You can work your way backward from high interest to medium interest.

If you are wondering why I say “medium to high interest” instead of “low to high interest” it is because there should be no “low interest” parts of your autobiography.

But wait, what if you met the Pope AND spent three weeks lost at sea? How do you choose which one comes first or last?

First of all, I want to read this book! Second, when in doubt, default to chronological order. Whatever event happened first, start there.

Here is an example of how it might look:

Order The Ideas in Each Section (From Medium To High Interest)

Now, organize the ideas inside of each section. Again, order the ideas from medium to high interest).

Within your “Significant People” section, decide who you want to talk about first, second, third, etc. You can organize by chronological order (who you met first) but I recommend building to the most interesting or most significant person.

This creates a more compelling read.

Keep in mind that the most significant person might not be the most well-known, most famous, or most popular. The most significant person might be your family member, friend, partner, or child.

It comes down to who shaped your life the most.

So, if your “significant people list” includes your dad, a famous social media influencer, and Mike Tyson, your dad might come last because he had the biggest significance in your life.

Write Three Questions to Answer in Each Section

Ok, you’ve done the heavy lifting already. You have the major sections organized and outlined.

Next on your autobiography to-do list is to choose and write down three questions you are going to answer in each section. You can write your questions down in the provided “boxes” for each section on the template outline (or on another piece of paper.

This is easier than it might seem.

Simply choose one of the sample autobiography questions below or create your own:

• Why did I choose this person/event?
• What does this person/event mean to me?
• How did I meet this person?
• Where did it happen?
• When did it happen?
• Why did it happen?
• How did it happen?
• What is the most interesting part?
• How did I feel about this person or event?
• How do I feel now?
• Why does this person or event matters to me?
• How did this person or event change my life?
• What is the most challenging part?
• How did I fail?
• How did I succeed?
• What did I learn?

Questions are the perfect way to write quickly and clearly. I LOVE writing to questions. It’s how I write these blog posts and articles.

Choose a Starter Sentence

Sometimes the hardest part of any project is knowing how to start.

Even though we know we can always go back and edit our beginnings, so many of us become paralyzed with indecision at the starting gate.

That’s why I provided sample starter sentences in your How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint.

Here are the story starters:

• I began writing this book when…
• Of all the experiences in my life, this one was the most…
• I’ve been a…
• My name is…
• Growing up in…
• It wasn’t even a…
• It all started when…
• I first…
• I was born…

Keep in mind that you do not need to begin your book with one of these story starters. I provide them simply to get you going.

The key is to not get bogged down in this, or any, part of writing your autobiography. Get organized and then get writing.

Complete a Title Template

At the top of the How to Write an Autobiography Outline is a place for you to write your book title.

Some authors struggle forever with a title. And that’s ok. What’s not ok is getting stuck. What’s not ok is if coming up with your title prevents you from finishing your book.

So, I provided a few title templates to help juice your creativity.

Just like the story starters, you do not need to use these title templates, but you certainly can. All you need to do is fill in the title templates below and then write your favorite one (for now) at the top of your outline. Presto! You have your working title.

You can always go back and change it later.

How to Write an Autobiography Title templates:

• [Your Name]: [Phrase or Tag Line]
• The [Your Last Name] Files
• Born [Activity]: A [Career]’s Life
• The Perfect [Noun]: The Remarkable Life of [Your Name]

Examples using the Templates:

• Christopher Kokoski: Blog Until You Drop
• The Kokoski Files
• Born Writing: A Blogger’s Life
• The Perfect Freelancer: The Remarkable Life of Christopher Kokoski

Write Your Autobiography

You have your outline. You have your title, templates, and sentence starters. All that is left to do is write your autobiography.

However, you can use tools like Jasper AI and a few other cool tricks to craft the most riveting book possible.

This is the easy way to remarkable writing.

Check out this short video that goes over the basics of how to write an autobiography:

How To Write an Autobiography (All the Best Tips)

Now that you are poised and ready to dash out your first draft, keep the following pro tips in mind:

• Be vulnerable. The best autobiographies share flaws, faults, foibles, and faux pas. Let readers in on the real you.
• Skip the boring parts. There is no need to detail every meal, car ride, or a gripping trip to the grocery store. Unless you ran into the Russian Mafia near the vegetables or the grocery store is perched on the side of a mountain above the jungles of Brazil.
• Keep your autobiography character-driven . This is the story of YOU!
• Be kind to others (or don’t). When writing about others in your story, keep in mind that there may be fallout or backlash from your book.
• Consider a theme: Many autobiographies are organized by theme. A perfect example is Becoming . Each section of the book includes “becoming” in the title. Themes connect and elevate each part of the autobiography.
• Write your story in vignettes (or scenes). Each vignette is a mini-story with a beginning, middle, and end. Each vignette builds. Each vignette should be described in rich sensory language that shows the reader the experience instead of telling the reader about the experience. Each vignette is immersive, immediate, and intimate.
• Include snippets of dialogue. Use quotation marks just like in fiction. Show the dialogue in brief back-and-forth tennis matches of conversation. Remember to leave the boring parts out!
• Choose a consistent tone. Some autobiographies are funny like Bossy Pants by Tina Fey. Others are serious such as Open by Andre Agassi. Your story (like most stories) will likely include a mix of emotions but choose an overall tone and stick with it.
• Don’t chronicle, captivate . Always think about how to make each section, each chapter, each page, each paragraph, and each sentence more compelling. You want to tell the truth, but HOW you tell the truth is up to you. Create suspense, conflict, and mystery. Let drama linger until it becomes uncomfortable. Don’t solve problems quickly or take away tension right away.

How Do I Format an Autobiography?

Most autobiographies are written in the first person (using the pronouns I, me, we, and us).

Your autobiography is written about you so write as yourself instead of pretending to be writing about someone else.

Most autobiographies are also written in chronological order, from birth right up to your current age, with all the boring parts left out. That doesn’t mean you can’t play around with the timeline.

Sometimes it’s more interesting to start at a high moment, backtrack to the beginning and show how you got to that high moment.

Whatever format you choose, be intentional, and make the choice based on making the most compelling experience possible for your readers.

How Long Should an Autobiography Be?

There are no rules to how long an autobiography should be but a rough guideline is to aim for between 200 and 400 pages.

This will keep your book in line with what most readers expect for books in general, and will help get your book traditionally published or help with marketing your self-published book.

How To Write a Short Autobiography

You write a short autobiography the same way that you write a long autobiography.

You simply leave more out of the story.

You cut everything down to the bones. Or you choose a slice of your life as you do in a memoir. This often means limiting the people in your book, reducing the events and experiences, and shrinking your story to a few pivotal moments in your life.

How To Start an Autobiography

The truth is that you can start your autobiography in any number of ways.

Here are four common ways to begin an autobiography.

• Start at the beginning (of your life, career or relationship, etc.)
• Start at a high moment of drama or interest.
• Start at the end of the story and work backward
• Start with why you wrote the book.

Good Autobiography Titles

If you are still stuck on titling your autobiography, consider going to Amazon to browse published works. You can even just Google “autobiographies.”

When you read the titles of 10, 20, or 50 other autobiographies, you will start to see patterns or get ideas for your own titles. (HINT: the title templates in the Autobiography Blueprint were reverse-engineered from popular published books.

Also, check out the titles of the full autobiography examples below that I have included right here in this article.

Types of Autobiographies

There are several different kinds of autobiographies.

Each one requires a similar but slightly nuanced approach to write effectively. The lessons in this article will serve as a great starting point.

Autobiography Types:

• Autobiography for School
• Autobiography Novel
• Autobiography for a Job
• Short Autobiography
• Autobiography for Kids

Therefore, there is actually not just one way to write an autobiography.

Memoir vs. Autobiography: Are They The Same?

It’s common to feel confused about a memoir and an autobiography. I used to think they were the same thing.

But, nope, they’re not.

They are pretty similar, which is the reason for all the confusion. A memoir is the story of one part of your life. An autobiography is the story of your full life (up until now).

What Is the Difference Between an Autobiography and a Biography?

An autobiography is when you write about your own life. A biography, on the other hand, is when you write the story of someone else’s life.

So, if I write a book about the life of the President, that’s a biography.

If the President writes a story about his or her own life, that’s an autobiography.

What Not To Include In an Autobiography

Autobiographies are meant to be a snapshot of our lives that we can share with others, but there are some things that are best left out.

Here are three things you should avoid including in your autobiography:

1) Anything That Readers Will Skip

Your life may not be filled with non-stop excitement, but that doesn’t mean you need to include every mundane detail in your autobiography.

Stick to the highlights and leave out the low points.

2) Character Attacks on Others

It’s okay to discuss conflicts you’ve had with others, but don’t use your autobiography as a platform to attack someone’s character.

Keep it civil and focus on your own experiences and how they’ve affected you.

3) Skipping Highlights

Just because something embarrassing or painful happened to you doesn’t mean you should gloss over it in your autobiography.

These are the moments that shape us and make us who we are today, so don’t skip past them just because they’re uncomfortable.

By following these simple tips, you can ensure that your autobiography is interesting, honest, and engaging.

How To Write an Autobiography: Autobiography Examples

I have always found examples to be extremely instructive. Especially complete examples of finished products. In this case, books.

Below you will find examples of published autobiographies for adults and for kids. These examples will guide you, motivate you and inspire you to complete your own life story.

They are listed here as examples, not as endorsements, although I think they are all very good.

The point is that you don’t have to agree with anything written in the books to learn from them.

Autobiography Examples for Adults

• A Promised Land (Autobiography of Barack Obama)
• If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won’t) (Betty White)
• It’s a Long Story: My Life (Willie Nelson)
• Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (Rob Lowe)
• Becoming (Michelle Obama)

Autobiography Examples for Kids

• This Kid Can Fly: It’s About Ability (NOT Disability) (Aaron Philips)
• Bee Fearless: Dream Like a Kid (Mikaila Ulmer)

Final Thoughts: How To Write An Autobiography

Thank you for reading my article on How to Write an Autobiography.

Now that you know all of the secrets to write your book, you may want to get it published, market it, and continue to upskill yourself as an author.

In that case, read these posts next:

• Can Anyone Write A Book And Get It Published?
• The Best Writing Books For Beginners 2022 (My 10 Favorites)
• Why Do Writers Hate Adverbs? (The Final Answer)
• How To Write a Manifesto: 20 Ultimate Game-Changing Tips

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24 best autobiographies you have to read in 2024

Whether you're a long-time lover of non-fiction or you're new to the world of autobiographies, this is our list of the 24 best autobiographies you've got to read in 2024.

• Imogen Hope
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Are you dreaming of a summer holiday? Perhaps you're fantasising of afternoons spent lying on the beach or by the pool — chilly January days just a mere memory... And there's nothing that says holiday quite like a new book.

Autobiographical writing is a skill that is hard to master. Done well, it can give you a behind the scenes peek into the world of your favourite star, or give you an insight into historical events and cultural context that would otherwise be near impossible to understand.

While books can make some of the best gifts for others they also can be a great gift for yourself — especially if you're looking to take a break from the screens that surround us in modern life. We love the experience of going into a bookshop, looking at all the covers and picking out a few new titles. But life can get busy, and it can be tricky to find the time to continue to support your local bookshop. Shopping from a site like Bookshop.org also lets you support independent bookshops from home.

Having said that, reading a physical book isn't the only way to enjoy these amazing stories.

Getting a Kindle can be a great way to carry lots of books round with you if you're travelling, and you can often download books for a much lower cost. Listening to audiobooks is also a great way to stay on top of your reading when you're on the go. Amazon Audible lets you download books onto your phone and listen as you go, and it's also running a 30-day UK free trial right now.

More like this

Here's our list of the best autobiographies that you should read in your lifetime.

Looking for better ways to experience your favourite audiobook? Check out guides to the best wireless earbuds , best AirPod alternatives , and the best smart speakers . For more on audio, take a look at the best DAB radios .

Best autobiographies at a glance:

• Open, Andre Agassi | £10.99
• Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton | £10.99
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou | from £4.99
• Wild Swans, Jung Chang | from £4.49
• The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion | from £6.99
• The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher | £10.99
• The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank | from £9.49
• All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot | from £9.49
• This is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay | from £5.99
• Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela | from £6.99
• I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy | from £11.99
• Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama | £9.99
• Becoming, Michelle Obama | from £7.99
• Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman, Alan Rickman | from £7.50
• Just Kids, Patti Smith | £12.34
• Wild, Cheryl Strayed | £8.99
• Taste, Stanley Tucci | from £1.99
• Educated, Tara Westover | £10.99
• I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai | from £8.54
• Crying In H Mart, Michelle Zauner | £9.99
• Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew Perry | £20.99
• The Woman in Me, Britney Spears | £12.50
• Love, Pamela, Pamela Anderson | from £10.99
• Finding Me, Viola Davis | from £5.99

Best autobiographies to read in 2024

Open, andre agassi.

Written in 2009, this is the autobiography of the American former World No.1 tennis player, Andre Agassi. Written in collaboration with JR Moehringer from a collection of hundreds of hours of tapes, this memoir gives top insight into the life of a professional sportsperson.

Agassi's was a career of fierce rivalries and it's fascinating to hear these from the perspective of an insider. Like many high-performing careers, in sport children are singled out for their talent at a young age, and Agassi describes the intensity of training for himself and his fellow tennis players in their collective pursuit of excellence.

This book would make a great present for any tennis fan, and gives an interesting insight into the man behind the nickname 'The Punisher'.

Buy Open by Andre Agassi for £10.99 at Waterstones

Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton

Everything I Know About Love follows Times columnist Dolly Alderton through her early life and 20s. It tackles themes of dating, love, friendship as Alderton comes of age and grows into herself. Dispersed with recipes in the style of Nora Ephron's Heartburn, the book gained a cult following since it was published in 2018 and won a National Book Award (UK) for best autobiography of the year.

Alderton's memoir has also now been turned into a BBC TV show which follows a fictionalised version of Alderton and her friends as they navigate life in London.

Buy Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton for £10.99 at Foyles

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is the first of seven autobiographies Angelou wrote about her life. It follows her childhood, beginning when she's just three years old and spanning to when she is 16 — from her time as a child to when she had a child herself. The book follows the young Maya as she and her brother Bailey are moved between family members following the separation of her parents.

Discussing themes of racism, sexual assault and displacement, the expertly crafted narrative is widely taught in schools here and in the US. Written in the aftermath of the death of Martin Luther King Jr in 1968, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings became an instant classic and is a must-read.

Buy I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou from £4.99 at Amazon

Wild Swans, Jung Chang

Slightly different from traditional first person autobiographies, in this book Jung Chang tells the stories of three generations of women in her own family — her grandmother, her mother and herself. At a time when China is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, this book provides vital context into the 20th century history of the country.

Through the stories of her grandmother who was given to a warlord as a concubine, and her mother who was a young idealist during the rise of Communism, she captures moments of bravery, fear, and ultimately survival.

The book, which is banned in China, has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide and is as beautifully written as it is educationally fascinating.

Buy Wild Swans by Jung Chang from £4.49 at Amazon

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion

Published in 2005 when it went on to win Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, this book follows Didion in the year after her the death of her husband of nearly 40 years, John Gregory Dunne. In this harrowing depiction of grief, love and loss, Didion turns her personal experience into one that is universally relatable.

Didion and Donne's adopted daughter Quintana fell ill days before his death and was still in hospital when he died. Didion recounts her experience caring for her throughout the book, all while going through her own grief.

While not an easy read, this is an incredibly powerful one.

Buy The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion from £6.99 at Amazon

The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher

This might be an obvious choice for any Star Wars fan, but we think the appeal of this book stretches far beyond just that. Made up of the diaries Fisher wrote when she was 19 years old and first started playing Princess Leia, the book was released shortly before her death in 2016.

Any peak behind the scenes of such a well-known franchise is bound to be popular, and this examines her experience as a young adult thrust into the world of fame and sex. Unlike her deeply person earlier memoir Wishful Drinking, in which Fisher described her struggles with mental illness, The Princess Diarist is full of bombshell revelations and funny punchlines, making for an enjoyable read.

Buy The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher for £10.99 at Foyles

The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank

The title of this book is clever because in so many ways, Anne Frank's diary is just that — the diary of a young girl. But it is also a vital account of history.

Starting on her 13th birthday, Anne writes about her life with her family living in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944. Alongside other Jews, Anne and her family go into hiding to escape persecution from the Nazis. She deals with all the feeling teenagers experience growing up, but also grapples with her isolation, lack of freedom, and trying to understand what is happening in the world around her.

Important reading for young people and adults alike, Anne's writing brings home the realities of human suffering levelled upon the Jewish people by the Nazis. Anne's father Otto Frank was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust, and he published his daughter's diary in line with her wishes.

Buy The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank from £9.49 at Bookshop.org

All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot

This book would make a great gift for the animal lover in your life, or any fan of the great outdoors. In it, James Herriot recounts his experiences as a newly qualified vet working in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s.

The first in his series of memoirs, All Creatures Great and Small finds Herriot in situations where there are high stakes, and more often than not some hilarity (think escaped pigs!). In the years since their first publication, the books have become classics.

If you want more of All Creatures Great and Small, there is also a TV adaptation to get stuck into.

Buy All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot from £8.54 at Bookshop.org

This is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay

This autobiography follows Adam Kay through his years as a junior doctor specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology and working within the NHS. It will have you crying of laughter and sorrow as the young doctor finds himself helping people from all walks of life, all while his own personal life falls into disarray.

Kay's debut publication was the bestselling non-fiction title of 2018 in the UK and stayed at the top of the charts for weeks.

This is Going to Hurt was adapted into a limited drama series by the BBC earlier this year starring Ben Whishaw, which used elements of the book to explore wider themes around health and the NHS.

Buy This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay from £5.99 at Amazon

Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela

This autobiography hardly needs an introduction. It tells the life story of former South African President and antiapartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela, covering his childhood, education and the 27 years he spent in prison.

Mandela is internationally praised for overcoming enormous persecution and struggle, rebuilding South Africa's society as President. The film adaptation of his autobiography stars Idris Elba as Mandela, and was released shortly after his death.

The Kindle edition and paperback copy of this book starts from just £6.99.

Buy Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela from 99p at Amazon

I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy

Jennette McCurdy's memoir has been one of the most talked about books of 2022. A former child star best know for her role on Nickelodeon's iCarly in the USA, McCurdy's memoir describes her experience growing up in the limelight with an abusive parent.

The book's title has, unsurprisingly, been a big talking point, but it addresses an issue faced by many who write about their life experiences — how do you write about your true experience without damaging your relationships? In this frank and often funny book, McCurdy describes the emotional complexity of receiving abuse from someone you love.

Buy I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy from £11.99 at Amazon

Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama

Published nearly 15 years before he became President of the United States, Barack Obama's first memoir is a deep exploration into identity and belonging. In this book which begins with him learning about his father's death, Obama explores his own relationship with race as the son of a Black Kenyan father and a white American mother.

Written with his recognisable voice, Obama travels back to Kansas where his mother's family is from (they later moved to Hawaii where Obama spent most of his childhood) before making the journey to Kenya.

This makes an interesting read not only to learn more about the background of a man who holds such an important place in America's history, but also in shedding light on how we all relate to our own parentage and what makes us who we are.

Buy Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama for £9.99 at Waterstones

Becoming, Michelle Obama

America's former First Lady Michelle Obama recounts experiences of her life in this record breaking autobiography, from growing up on the south side of Chicago with her parents and brother, to attending Princeton University and Harvard Law School before returning to Chicago as a qualified lawyer. It was whilst working at a law firm in the city that she met her husband Barack Obama.

Obama uses her elegant story telling to take us along on the incredible journey she went on, as an accomplished lawyer, daughter, wife and mother to becoming First Lady. This is an autobiography that lets you see history from the insider's perspective and is definitely a must read.

Buy Becoming by Michelle Obama from £7.99 at Amazon

Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman, Alan Rickman

Alan Rickman was much loved for his roles in fan favourite films, such as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. This collection of diary entries, written with the intention of being made public and published after his death, give his witty insights into his day-to-day life but also his take on world events.

The book is filled not only with delightful showbiz gossip, but also with snippets of hidden moments — from his disbelief and grief at the sudden death of actor and friend Natasha Richardson, to the relief he feels that the costume for Severus Snape still fits.

Buy Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman from £7.79 at Amazon

Just Kids, Patti Smith

On its release in 2010, Patti Smith's memoir won the US National Book Award for Nonfiction. In many ways it is a love letter to her life long friend, the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. In Just Kids, she recounts their meeting, romance and how they continued to inspire and encourage each other in their artistic pursuits for the rest of their lives.

This story which so vividly depicts life is, however, overshadowed by Mapplethorpe's death. Read for a vivid description of the New York art scene in the late '60s.

Buy Just Kids by Patti Smith for £12.34 at Bookshop.org

Wild, Cheryl Strayed

In this autobiography, Cheryl Strayed writes about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, from the Mojave Desert in California to Washington State in the Pacific North West. In total, Strayed walks over a thousand miles on her own and in the process, she walked back to herself.

This memoir is beautifully written, moving between stories from the trail to those about Strayed's childhood, her struggles with heroin use and the sudden death of her mother — the main motivation for her walk. Full of suspense, warmth and humour, this book will make you think about your life and your family, and probably make you want to go on a walk.

Wild was adapted into a film in 2014, produced by and starring Reese Witherspoon.

Buy Wild by Cheryl Strayed for £8.99 at Waterstones

Taste, Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci has long been beloved for his nuanced and charming acting performances, but in the last few years has gained popularity for his true love — food. Between his CNN series Searching for Italy making us all cross eyed with food envy, and his cookbook The Tucci Table written with wife Felicity Blunt, there's no getting away from the fact that Stanley Tucci is giving Italian food an even better name than it had already.

But there's a good reason for Tucci's renewed love of food and his devotion to these passion projects. He was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2018 which left him unable to eat for several months, and even after he was able to eat again, his sense of taste was changed. In this memoir, he recounts his early relationship with food in his grandparent's kitchen and at his parent's table, and how his relationship with food has shaped all the loves of his life.

We recommend having a bowl of pasta in front of you while you read this!

Buy Taste by Stanley Tucci from £6.99 at Amazon

Calling all bookworms, take a look at the best Kindle deals and the best Audible deals for this month.

Educated, Tara Westover

This is a frankly astonishing memoir in which Tara Westover recounts how she came from a Mormon fundamentalist background without a birth certificate or any schooling, and ended up studying for her PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Westover gives readers a peak behind the curtain into the lifestyle of a group who do everything they can to stay away from the outside world. She recounts the experience of herself and her siblings as they grew up in an environment where they were often injured and didn't have access to medical help.

The juxtaposition of loving her family and yet needing to escape is acutely described, and she writes so cleverly about the complex subject matter, often admitting that her version of events may not be the correct one. Westover expertly uses her own story to examine themes of religion, love and above all education - and we promise you won't be able to put it down.

Buy Educated by Tara Westover for £10.99 at Foyles

I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai's story is undeniably an incredible one. After the Taliban took over in Swat Valley in Pakistan where she was born, Yousafzai was prevented from going to school. Despite being just a child herself, she became outspoken on girls' right to learn and in 2012, she was shot in the head by a masked gunman while on the bus to school.

After the attack Yousafzai moved to the UK with her family. In this autobiography, she describes the importance of female education, starting the Malala Fund, and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. This book will leave you inspired.

Buy I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai from £8.54 at Bookshop.org

Crying In H Mart, Michelle Zauner

Michelle Zauner is an Asian-American singer-songwriter and guitarist best known as lead of the band Japanese Breakfast. In this memoir, Zauner explores her relationship with her Korean heritage and how her mother's death forced her to reckon with the side of herself she had all but lost.

At the heart of this book about love, loss and grief is food. It acts as a constant dialogue between Zauner and her mother, as well as an enduring connection with her Korean heritage. This makes for a highly emotional and thought-provoking read.

Buy Crying In H Mart by Michelle Zauner for £9.99 at Waterstones

Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Matthew Perry

Last year, we were saddened by the news that Friends actor Matthew Perry had sadly passed away, his autobiography, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing had become a bestseller the year before.

In Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry takes the reader behind the scenes of the most successful sitcom of all time (Friends), and he opens up about his private struggles with addiction. The book is honest and moving, with plenty of Perry's trademark humour, too.

Buy Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry for £20.99 at Waterstones

The Woman in Me, Britney Spears

If the reviews of Britney Spears's autobiography are anything to go by — "The easiest 5 stars I've given" — The Woman in Me is sure to be a hit with Spears fans.

For the first time in a book, Spears is sharing her truth with the world: The Woman in Me tackles themes of fame, motherhood, survival and freedom, and Spears doesn't shy away from speaking about her journey as one of the world's biggest pop stars.

Buy The Woman in Me by Britney Spears for £12.50 at Waterstones

Love, Pamela, Pamela Anderson

We might think we know Pamela Anderson as the bombshell in Baywatch, Playboy's favourite cover girl, and, more recently, making makeup-free appearances on red carpets – looking beautiful as she does so; she's an icon and an activist, and now we can read all about her in her own words for the first time.

Anderson uses a mixture of poetry and prose to speak about her childhood, career, and how she lost control of her own narrative.

Buy Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson from £10.99 at Amazon

Finding Me, Viola Davis

Naturally, we're big Viola Davis fans over on RadioTimes.com — we've loved her in everything from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes to The Woman King and The Help, so her autobiography Finding Me is right up our street.

In this book, we meet Davis when she's a little girl in an apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and we journey with her to her stage career in New York City and beyond.

Buy Finding Me by Viola Davis from £5.99 at Amazon

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Book Title Generator

10,000+ good book titles to inspire you..

Generate a random story title that’s relevant to your genre. You can pick between fantasy, crime, mystery, romance, or sci-fi. Simply click the button below to get started.

The International Bestseller

The Reaper in the Chasm

How to come up with book title ideas.

Need an original book title, and fast? We got you. Here are 8 ways to come up with book title ideas. 

1. Start free writing to find keywords

Write absolutely anything that comes into your head: words, phrases, names, places, adjectives — the works. You’ll be surprised how much workable content comes out from such a strange exercise.

2. Experiment with word patterns

Obviously, we’re not advocating plagiarism, but try playing around with formats like:

“The _____ of _______”

“______ and the _____”

These will work for certain genres, though they are by no means the only patterns you can play around with. Have you noticed how many blockbuster thrillers these days feature the word “woman” or “ girl” somewhere in the title?

3. Draw inspiration from your characters 

If your central character has a quirky name or a title (like Doctor or Detective) you can definitely incorporate this into your book title. Just look at Jane Eyre, Percy Jackson, or Harry Potter, for instance — working with one or more or your characters’ names is a surefire way to get some title ideas down. Equally, you can add a little detail, like Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, to add a little color to a name and make it title-worthy.

4. Keep your setting in mind

Is your book set somewhere particularly interesting or significant? Even if your title isn’t just where the action takes place (like Middlemarch by George Eliot), it’s something to have in the back of your mind. You can include other details, like The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum or Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, to give your readers a sense of action and character, as well as setting (which tend to be linked).

5. Look for book title ideas in famous phrases 

Think Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird here — this is a central symbol and significant piece of dialogue in the novel. It’s enigmatic (what does it even mean? Is it a warning? An instruction?) and makes us really sit up when these words appear in the text itself. Try and think of your inspiration for writing your book or sum up your central theme in a few words, and see if these inspire anything.

6. Analyze the book titles of other books

You might be surprised at how many books refer to other works in their titles ( The Fault in Our Stars by John Green comes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar , and Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men takes its inspiration from a Robert Burns poem). Going this route allows authors to use an already beautiful and poetic turn of phrase that alludes to a theme in their own book. From Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials , so many books have used this technique that might also work for you.

7. Don’t forget the subtitle

In non-fiction publishing, there’s a trend of evocative or abstract titles, followed by a subtitle that communicates the content (and is packed with delicious keywords that the Amazon search engine can’t resist). This is also another way to get around long titles — and to add a little panache to an otherwise dry subject matter. In the United States, it’s also quite common to have “A Novel” as a subtitle (if, you know, it’s a novel). In the United Kingdom, this practice is much rarer.

8. Generate a book name through a book title generator

If you’ve gone through all of the above and are still wringing out your brain trying to come up with the golden formula — fear not! There are other ways to get the cogs whirring and inspiration brewing, such as title generators.

And speaking of cogs whirring, let us present you with the...

15 best book titles of all time

Witty, eye-catching, memorable — these famous book titles have it all. Without further ado, here are 15 best book titles you can take inspiration from.

• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
• The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

Looking for even more story title ideas?

If you’re agonizing over your book title, you’re not alone! Some of the best book titles today emerged only after much teeth gnashing. The Sun Also Rises was once titled Fiesta ; Pride and Prejudice was once First Impressions . Then there was F. Scott Fitzgerald, who reportedly took forever to think of a good title. He ultimately discarded a dozen ( Gold-Hatted Gatsby , The High-Bouncing Lover , and Trimalchio in West Egg included) before reluctantly picking The Great Gatsby .

So it’s tough out there for a novelist, which is why we built this generator: to try and give you some inspiration. Any of the titles that you score through it are yours to use. We’d be even more delighted if you dropped us the success story at [email protected] ! If you find that you need even more of a spark beyond our generator, the Internet’s got you covered. Here are some of our other favorite generators on the web:

Fantasy Book Title Generators : Fantasy Name Generator , Serendipity: Fantasy Novel Titles

• Sci-Fi Novel Title Generators : Book Title Creator , Story Title Generator

Romance Book Title Generators : Romance Title Generator

Crime Book Title Generators : Tara Sparling’s Crime Thriller Titles , Ruddenberg’s Generator

Mystery Novel Title Generators : The Generator .

Or if you think that generators are fun and all — but that you’d rather create your own book title? Great 👍 Kick off with this post, which is all about how to choose your book title . And once you've got the words down, make sure you capitalize your title correctly .

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The best celebrity memoir titles

T his week sees "Super Thursday" – that frenzied autumn date when publishers release the blockbuster hardbacks they hope will become Christmas bestsellers. As always, the crop includes some big showbiz autobiographies, including My Story by Cheryl Cole, Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart, Still Standing by Paul O'Grady and Rod: The Autobiography by Rod Stewart. We're disappointed by these titles – whatever happened to the gratuitous pun? At least David Walliams ( Camp David ), Pete Townshend ( Who I Am ) and Roger Moore ( Bond on Bond ) have made a bit of effort. To compensate for this patchy bunch, here are 16 of our favourite celebrity memoir titles…

■ Trowel and Error by Alan Titchmarsh

The nation's favourite gardener dug up a prize pun.

■ A Young Man's Passage by Julian Clary

Applaud this double entendre. Julian's always enjoyed a warm hand upon his entrance.

■ Tall, Dark and Gruesome by Christopher Lee

We're too scared of him not to like this one.

■ Leading with My Chin by Jay Leno

The talkshow host headed off any big jaw-based wisecracks by getting his own in first.

■ In the Time of Nick by Nick Owen

At first it sounds pompous. Then you spot the pun. Nope, still pompous.

■ I Am Not Spock by Leonard Nimoy

Confusingly , he called the follow-up I Am Spock . Make your mind up, pointy ears.

■ Rags to Richie by Shane Richie

From son of a binman to EastEnders star. Do you see what he did there?

■ Look Back in Hunger by Jo Brand

The comic followed this with Can't Stand Up For Sitting Down .

■ Kiss and Make-Up by Gene Simmons

Wearing full facepaint and sticking his tongue out on the cover, naturally.

■ Soula Coaster: The Diary of Me by R Kelly

Suitably preposterous title from the R&B star.

■ Don't Hassel the Hoff by David Hasselhoff

The cult TV doofus turned his nickname into a knowing "brand".

■ Pryor Convictions by Richard Pryor

Joined in the punning comedian canon by Jerry Seinfeld's Sein Language .

■ Me: Moir by Vic Reeves

The comedian's real name is Jim Moir! It spells memoir! Geddit?

■ The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz by Ron Jeremy

The porn star's confessions bore the subtitle: "Horny women, Hollywood nights and the rise of the hedgehog!"

■ sTori Telling by Tori Spelling

The star's sequel was entitled Uncharted TerriTori .

■ A Fart in a Colander by Roy Hudd

A favourite phrase of Hudd's grandmother, apparently.

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The Best New Biographies and Memoirs to Read in 2024

This year sees some riveting and remarkable lives—from artist ai weiwei to singer-songwriter joni mitchell—captured on the page..

A life story can be read for escapist pleasure. But at other times, reading a memoir or biography can be an expansive exercise, opening us up to broader truths about our world. Often, it’s an edifying experience that reminds us of our universal human vulnerability and the common quest for purpose in life.

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Biographies and memoirs charting remarkable lives—whether because of fame, fortune or simply fascination—have the power to inspire us for their depth, curiosity or challenges. This year sees a bumper calendar of personal histories enter bookshops, grappling with enigmatic public figures like singer Joni Mitchell and writer Ian Fleming , to nuanced analysis of how motherhood or sociopathy shape our lives—for better and for worse.

Here we compile some of the most rewarding biographies and memoirs out in 2024. There are stories of trauma and recovery, art as politics and politics as art, and sentences as single life lessons spread across books that will make you rethink much about personal life stories. After all, understanding the triumphs and trials of others can help us see how we can change our own lives to create something different or even better.

Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini

Ai Weiwei , the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic of his homeland China, mixes fairy tales with moral lessons to evocatively retrace the story of his life in graphic form. Illustrations are by Italian artist Gianluca Costantini . “Any artist who isn’t an activist is a dead artist,” Weiwei writes in Zodiac , as he embraces everything from animals found in the Chinese zodiac to mystical folklore tales with anamorphic animals to argue the necessity of art as politics incarnate. The meditative exercise uses pithy anecdotes alongside striking visuals to sketch out a remarkable life story marked by struggle. It’s one weaving political manifesto, philosophy and personal memoir to engage readers on the necessity of art and agitation against authority in a world where we sometimes must resist and fight back.

Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

Already well-known for her experimental writings, Sheila Heti takes a decade of diary entries and maps sentences against the alphabet, from A to Z. The project is a subversive rethink of our relationship to introspection—which often asks for order and clarity, like in diary writing—that maps new patterns and themes in its disjointed form. Heti plays with both her confessionals and her sometimes formulaic writing style (like knowingly using “Of course” in entries) to retrace the changes made (and unmade) across ten years of her life. Alphabetical Diaries is a sometimes demanding book given the incoherence of its entries, but remains an illuminating project in thinking about efforts at self-documentation.

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison

Unlike her previous work The Empathy Exams , which examined how we relate to one another and on human suffering, writer Leslie Jamison wrestles today with her own failed marriage and the grief of surviving single parenting. After the birth of her daughter, Jamison divorces her partner “C,” traverses the trials and tribulations of rebound relationships (including with “an ex-philosopher”) and confronts unresolved emotional pains born of her own life living under the divorce of her parents. In her intimate retelling—paired with her superb prose—Jamison charts a personal history that acknowledges the unending divide mothers (and others) face dividing themselves between partners, children and their own lives.

Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring by Brad Gooch

Whether dancing figures or a “radiant baby,” the recognizable cartoonish symbols in Keith Haring ’s art endure today as shorthand signs representing both his playfulness and politicking. Haring (1958-1990) is the subject of writer Brad Gooch ’s deft biography, Radiant , a book that mines new material from the archive along with interviews with contemporaries to reappraise the influential quasi-celebrity artist. From rough beginnings tagging graffiti on New York City walls to cavorting with Andy Warhol and Madonna on art pieces, Haring battled everything from claims of selling out to over-simplicity. But he persisted with work that leveraged catchy quotes and colorful imagery to advance unsavory political messages—from AIDS to crack cocaine. A life tragically cut short at 31 is one powerfully celebrated in this new noble portrait.

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul Charles

In The House of Hidden Meaning , celebrated drag queen, RuPaul , reckons with a murky inner world that has shaped—and hindered—a lifetime of gender-bending theatricality. The figurative house at the center of the story is his “ego,” a plaguing barrier that apparently long inhibited the performer from realizing dreams of greatness. Now as the world’s most recognizable drag queen—having popularized the art form for mainstream audiences with the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race —RuPaul reflects on the power that drag and self-love have long offered across his difficult, and sometimes tortured, life. Readers expecting dishy stories may be disappointed, but the psychological self-assessment in the pages of this memoir is far more edifying than Hollywood gossip could ever be.

Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne

Patric Gagne is an unlikely subject for a memoir on sociopaths. Especially since she is a former therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. Still, Gagne makes the case that after a troubled childhood of antisocial behavior (like stealing trinkets and cursing teachers) and a difficult adulthood (now stealing credit cards and fighting authority figures), she receives a diagnosis of sociopathy. Her memoir recounts many episodes of bad behavior—deeds often marked by a lack of empathy, guilt or even common decency—where her great antipathy mars any ability for her to connect with others. Sociopath is a rewarding personal exposé that demystifies one vilified psychological condition so often seen as entirely untreatable or irreparable. Only now there’s a familiar face and a real story linked to the prognosis.

Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare

Nicholas Shakespeare is an acclaimed novelist and an astute biographer, delivering tales that wield a discerning eye to subjects and embrace a robust attention to detail. Ian Fleming (1908-1964), the legendary creator of James Bond, is the latest to receive Shakespeare’s treatment. With access to new family materials from the Fleming estate, the seemingly contradictory Fleming is seen anew as a totally “different person” from his popular image. Taking cues from Fleming’s life story—from a refined upbringing spent in expensive private schools to working for Reuters as a journalist in the Soviet Union—Shakespeare reveals how these experiences shaped the elusive world of espionage and intrigue created in Fleming’s novels. Other insights include how Bond was likely informed by Fleming’s cavalier father, a major who fought in WWI. A martini (shaken, not stirred) is best enjoyed with this bio.

Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie , while giving a rare public lecture in New York in August 2022, was violently stabbed by an assailant brandishing a knife . The attack saw Rushdie lose his left hand and his sight in one eye. Speaking to The New Yorker a year later , he confirmed a memoir was in the works that would confront this harrowing existential experience: “When somebody sticks a knife into you, that’s a first-person story. That’s an ‘I’ story.” Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder is promised to be his raw, revelatory and deeply psychological confrontation with the violent incident. Like the sword of Damocles, brutality has long stalked Rushdie ever since the 1989 fatwa issued against the author, following the publication of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses . The answer to such barbarity, Rushdie is poised to argue, is by finding the strength to stand up again.

The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019–2022 by Peter Schjeldahl (Release: May 14)

Peter Schjeldahl (1942-2022), longstanding art critic of The New Yorker , confronted his mortality when he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer in 2019. The resulting essay collection he then penned, The Art of Dying , is a masterful meditation on one life preoccupied entirely with aesthetics and criticism. It’s a discursive tactic for a memoir that avoids discussing Schjeldahl’s coming demise while equally confirming its impending visit by avoiding it. Acknowledging that he finds himself “thinking about death less than I used to,” Schjeldahl spends most of the pages revisiting familiar art subjects—from Edward Hopper ’s output to Peter Saul ’s Pop Art—as vehicles to re-examine his own remarkable life. With a life that began in the humble Midwest, Schjeldahl says his birthplace was one that ultimately availed him to write so plainly and cogently on art throughout his career. Such posthumous musings prove illuminating lessons on the potency of American art, with whispered asides on the tragedy of death that will come for all of us.

Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers (Release: June 11)

Joni Mitchell has enjoyed a remarkable revival recently, even already being one of the most acclaimed and enduring singer/songwriters. After retiring from public appearances for health reasons in the 2010s, Mitchell, 80, has returned to the spotlight with a 2021 Kennedy Centers honor , an appearance accepting the 2023 Gershwin Prize and even a live performance at this year’s Grammy Awards . It’s against this backdrop of public celebration of Mitchell that NPR music critic Ann Powers retraces the life story and musical (re)evolution of the singer, from folk to jazz genres and rock to soul music, across five decades for the American songbook. “What you are about to read is not a standard account of the life and work of Joni Mitchell,” she writes in the introduction. Instead, Powers’ project is one showing how Mitchell’s many journeys—from literal road trips inspiring tracks like “All I Want” to inner probings of Mitchell’s psyche, such as the song “Both Sides Now”—have always inspired Mitchell’s enduring, emotive and palpable output. These travels hold the key, Powers says, to understanding an enigmatic artist.

• SEE ALSO : ‘Under the Bridge’ Review: A Miniseries That Interrogates the True Crime Genre

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Doris Kearns Goodwin and husband Dick Goodwin lived, observed, created and chronicled the 1960s

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Book Review

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

By Doris Kearns Goodwin Simon & Schuster: 480 pages, $35 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.

“An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s” isn’t precisely the book that presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin set out to write.

Dominating this often fascinating volume is both the colossal presence and the sudden absence of Richard “Dick” Goodwin, Doris’ late husband, whose speechwriting talents defined some of the most memorable moments of the 1960s. The couple’s aim was to co-write a book based on his extraordinary archive — 300 boxes! — of personal papers and curios, from voluminous speech drafts to a shattered police club from the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Husband and wife spent years perusing and discussing those treasures, an effort short-circuited by his death in 2018, at 86, of cancer. Amid her grief and a move from their rambling home in Concord, Mass., to a Boston condo, Goodwin took up the project on her own.

She describes the result as a hybrid of history, biography and memoir. At its most poignant, “An Unfinished Love Story” is, as the title indicates, an account of personal loss. It also turns out to be a reflection on the process of constructing history, suggesting how time, perspective and stories left unwritten can shape our view of the past.

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Goodwin, the author of award-winning biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and others, has a nice touch as a storyteller. Here she successfully navigates the awkward feat of weaving together the couple’s gently probing conversations, her husband’s archival documentation, other historical sources and her own reporting.

“An Unfinished Love Story” offers a bird’s-eye view of familiar events, and of a decade marked by both idealism and political violence. “Too often,” Goodwin writes, with her characteristic optimism, “memories of assassination, violence, and social turmoil have obscured the greatest illumination of the Sixties, the spark of communal idealism and belief that kindled social justice and love for a more inclusive vision of America.”

While arguing for this rosier perspective, the book provides nuance and detail on matters such as the origins of the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress, Robert F. Kennedy’s private agonies over whether to challenge LBJ for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, and Jackie Kennedy’s emotional struggles after her husband’s 1963 assassination. In a 1966 letter from Hawaii, Jackie addresses Dick Goodwin, her close friend, as a fellow “lost soul” and complains of “memories that drag you down into a life that can never be the same.” That is a sentiment that Doris Kearns Goodwin understands.

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She and the then-married Goodwin — with his “curly, disheveled black hair,” “thick, unruly eyebrows” and “pockmarked face” — met at Harvard in 1972, where she taught a popular course on the American presidency. He had left the Johnson administration in 1965, three years before she joined it, and had become disillusioned with the Vietnam War. Despite having penned her own antiwar piece for the New Republic, she would become an LBJ confidante, an aide on his presidential memoirs and a lifelong admirer.

Not just a speechwriter but a policy advisor and political strategist, Dick Goodwin enjoyed a Zelig-like march through 20th century American history. President of the Harvard Law Review and law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, Goodwin worked for two presidents, John F. Kennedy and Johnson, and several would-be presidents, including Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy. He later wrote the concession speech that Al Gore delivered after the Supreme Court stopped the recount of the 2000 presidential election vote in Florida.

According to his widow, Goodwin idolized the coolly self-possessed JFK, fused with LBJ, regarded McCarthy as “the most original mind” he’d encountered in politics and adored RFK, his best friend of the bunch. (No mention is made here of the seamier side of these politicians’ lives, or how their sexual indiscretions bear on their legacies.)

Nearly every Democratic leader seems to have sought the services of the brilliant, cigar-smoking, workaholic Goodwin. But, as “An Unfinished Love Story” makes clear, he was more than a pen for hire. Goodwin had passionately held views about civil rights, the alleviation of poverty and other issues. As Johnson’s principal speechwriter, he helped fashion both the title and the programs of the Great Society. He was responsible for LBJ’s single most powerful speech, on behalf of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which coopted the anthem of the civil rights movement: “We Shall Overcome.”

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Goodwin left the Johnson administration, against the president’s wishes, to pursue a solo writing career. Over time, his public stance against American involvement in Vietnam pitted him against his former boss. “It’s like being bitten by your own dog,” Johnson said of Goodwin’s defection.

Goodwin was, at heart, deeply loyal, his widow suggests, even if he sometimes chose loyalty to principles over personal attachments. On the other hand, when a previously hesitant Bobby Kennedy entered the 1968 Democratic primary race against McCarthy, friendship prevailed, and Goodwin switched sides, as he had earlier warned McCarthy he would. The RFK assassination, following victory in the California Democratic primary (and Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder earlier that year), was shattering for Goodwin, as for so many others.

“An Unfinished Love Story” is at its most moving when it touches on the Goodwins’ long, happy, occasionally contentious marriage; its bumpy origins (after becoming a widower, he wasn’t as ready to commit as she was); and his emotional farewell. Always attuned to relationships, Goodwin is an astute chronicler of her own.

Beyond underlining the brighter side of the 1960s, the archive and the conversations it prompted changed the couple’s views of the two presidents they served. She gained a deeper appreciation of the impact of Kennedy’s idealism, she writes, while her husband moderated his long-standing bitterness toward Johnson. Embedded in that rapprochement is an unstated hope: that more knowledge and informed debate might somehow ease our country’s current political polarization as well.

Julia M. Klein is a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia.

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The Most Popular Nonfiction Books of 2024 So Far, According to Goodreads

Always books. Never boring.

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Goodreads editors have crunched some more numbers to give us a list of 51 of the most popular nonfiction books of 2024 (so far). To do so, they looked at which titles their members had saved under the Read or Want to Read sections on the site, which boasts more than 150 million members.

They’ve organized the list into categories that may overlap a bit: Essays, History & Biography, Memoirs, Science, and General Nonfiction.

A sampling of Goodreads’ 51 most popular nonfiction books of 2024 is below:

There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe

My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul

History & Biography

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton

Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong by Katie Gee Salisbury

Science, Technology & Health 

Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation by Jen Gunter

Burn Book: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher

General Nonfiction

Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out by Shannon Reed

Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks by Crystal Wilkinson

To see the complete list, visit Goodreads.com.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in  Breaking in Books .

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