The 25 best memoirs and biographies
The 25 highest-ranked memoirs and biographies in our ranking of 2,816, scored on how much readers love them, their prize, best-list and bestseller record, and current buzz. We rank 290 memoirs and biographies in all. How we rank
- 1
Between the World and Me95.3Must-Read ScoreBetween the World and Me
Written as a letter to his 15-year-old son, this is Ta-Nehisi Coates explaining what it means to live in a Black body in America.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2015)#1 New York Times bestseller (4 weeks at #1)107 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2015Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) finalist (2016) - 2
Educated: A Memoir93.1Must-Read ScoreEducated: A Memoir
Tara Westover grew up on a mountain in Idaho with survivalist parents who didn't believe in schools, doctors or the government.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (19 weeks at #1)184 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2018NBCC Award (Memoir) finalist (2018) - 3
When Breath Becomes Air91.4Must-Read ScoreWhen Breath Becomes Air
At thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi was about to finish a decade of training as a neurosurgeon at Stanford when he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (13 weeks at #1)92 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2016Pulitzer Prize (Biography) finalist (2017) - 4
I'm Glad My Mom Died91.3Must-Read ScoreI'm Glad My Mom Died
Jennette McCurdy was six when her mother put her in her first audition, and she spent the next decade as a child actor, eventually starring on Nickelodeon's iCarly, all to make her mother happy.
Why it made the listGoodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) winner (2022)#1 New York Times bestseller (8 weeks at #1)151 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2022 - 5
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York91.2Must-Read ScoreThe Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Robert Moses never won an election, yet for forty years he was the most powerful man in New York.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1975)Modern Library 100 Best NonfictionTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 6
The Passage of Power90.5Must-Read ScoreThe Passage of Power
The fourth volume of Robert Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson covers 1958 to 1964.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Biography) winner (2012)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2012)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 7
King: A Life90.2Must-Read ScoreKing: A Life
The first major biography of Martin Luther King Jr.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2024)NBCC Award (Biography) finalist (2023)Goodreads Choice (history biography) finalist (2023) - 8
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer90.1Must-Read ScoreAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
The definitive biography of J.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2006)NBCC Award (Biography) winner (2005)#1 New York Times bestseller (5 weeks at #1) - 9
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea89.6Must-Read ScoreNothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Journalist Barbara Demick spent years interviewing North Koreans who escaped, and here she follows six of them, all from the city of Chongjin, across fifteen years that included the death of Kim Il-sung and a famine that killed perhaps a million people.
Why it made the listBaillie Gifford Prize winner (2010)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 10
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets89.3Must-Read ScoreSecondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich spent years recording ordinary Russians talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaos that followed: veterans, shopkeepers, former Party members, refugees, grieving mothers, people who mourned communism and people who cheered its fall.
Why it made the listBaillie Gifford Prize finalist (2016)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 11
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood88.9Must-Read ScoreBorn a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah was born in apartheid South Africa to a Black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father, at a time when their relationship was a crime, so for years he couldn't be seen in public with his father, or sometimes even his mother.
Why it made the list273 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2016 - 12
Master of the Senate88.8Must-Read ScoreMaster of the Senate
Book three of Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson covers Johnson's twelve years in the Senate, from 1949 to 1960.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2003)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2002)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1) - 13
Things in Nature Merely Grow88.0Must-Read ScoreThings in Nature Merely Grow
Novelist Yiyun Li and her husband had two sons and lost them both to suicide: Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, and James in 2024, at nineteen.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Memoir) winner (2026)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2025)Goodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) finalist (2025) - 14
Becoming87.9Must-Read ScoreBecoming
Michelle Obama's memoir of her life, from growing up in a working-class family on Chicago's South Side, through Princeton, Harvard Law School and a corporate law career, to meeting a summer associate named Barack Obama.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (20 weeks at #1)129 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2018 - 15
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft87.2Must-Read ScoreOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King's book about writing is two things at once.
Why it made the listTIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 16
Greenlights86.8Must-Read ScoreGreenlights
Matthew McConaughey has kept diaries for 35 years, full of notes on success and failure, joy and sorrow, and the things that made him laugh out loud.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)306 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2020 - 17
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice86.7Must-Read ScoreNobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Virginia Roberts Giuffre was a teenager when she was recruited into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's network of abuse, and she became the most outspoken of their victims, the woman whose decision to speak publicly helped send both to prison.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (5 weeks at #1)31 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2025Goodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) finalist (2025) - 18
Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-6386.6Must-Read ScoreParting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63
The first volume of Taylor Branch's monumental history of the civil rights movement, covering 1954 to 1963: from the Montgomery bus boycott that made a young Martin Luther King Jr.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (History) winner (1989)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1988)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (1989) - 19
A Bright Shining Lie86.5Must-Read ScoreA Bright Shining Lie
John Paul Vann was an Army officer who arrived in Vietnam in 1962 as an adviser, quickly saw that the war was being lost and lied about, and secretly fed the truth to young reporters, among them Neil Sheehan.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1989)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1988)Pulitzer Prize (History) finalist (1989)Pulitzer Prize (Biography) finalist (1989) - 20
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X86.5Must-Read ScoreThe Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
In 1990, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Les Payne set out to interview everyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X: his siblings, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam figures, FBI informants and political leaders around the world.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2021)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2020)NBCC Award (Biography) finalist (2020) - 21
The Glass Castle86.3Must-Read ScoreThe Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls grew up moving from one desert town to another with her brilliant, charming, alcoholic father, who promised to build the family a solar-powered glass castle, and her free-spirited artist mother, who refused to take care of anyone.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (8 weeks at #1)136 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2011 - 22
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood86.1Must-Read ScorePersepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Marjane Satrapi was ten years old when the 1979 Islamic Revolution swept Iran.
Why it made the listNYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 23
Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice86.0Must-Read ScoreLiliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice
In 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza, a twenty-year-old architecture student in Mexico City, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, who was never brought to justice.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Memoir) winner (2024)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2023) - 24
Angela's Ashes85.7Must-Read ScoreAngela's Ashes
Frank McCourt was born in Brooklyn during the Depression, but his family moved back to Limerick, Ireland, where they lived in desperate poverty: a flooded slum, little food, children dying of illness, and a charming father who drank away every wage.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1997)#1 New York Times bestseller (22 weeks at #1) - 25
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space85.7Must-Read ScoreChallenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart seventy-three seconds after launch, killing all seven crew, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire teacher chosen to be the first ordinary citizen in space.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2024)Goodreads Choice (history biography) finalist (2024)
