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  1. Genres
  2. ›Memoir

Best Memoir Books

Personal memoirs and autobiographies

388 summaries

Showing 73–96 of 388

  1. Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began

    Art Spiegelman

    ★ 4.4 (121k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    In this graphic memoir's haunting conclusion, a son confronts his aging, Holocaust-survivor father's past in Auschwitz and their difficult present in the Catskills, grappling with inherited trauma through the unforgettable metaphor of mice and cats.

  2. The Complete Persepolis

    Marjane Satrapi

    ★ 4.4 (120k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Through black-and-white graphic panels, Marjane Satrapi tells about her childhood in revolutionary Iran, her adolescence in Vienna, and her return, showing a nation's trouble through one girl's coming-of-age.

  3. A Moveable Feast

    Ernest Hemingway

    ★ 4.0 (118k) average on GoodreadsLifestyle

    In this posthumous memoir, Ernest Hemingway vividly recaptures the intoxicating poverty and creative camaraderie of his youth among literary giants in 1920s Paris, a time when he discovered his voice while living on the edge of starvation and brilliance.

  4. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

    Azar Nafisi

    ★ 3.6 (118k) average on GoodreadsBiography
  5. All Creatures Great and Small

    James Herriot

    ★ 4.3 (115k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Journey alongside a young, compassionate veterinarian as he navigates the humorous, heartwarming, and often challenging realities of treating creatures great and small amidst the rugged beauty of rural Yorkshire.

  6. American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

    Chris Kyle

    ★ 4.0 (111k) average on GoodreadsBiography
  7. Holidays on Ice

    David Sedaris

    ★ 3.9 (109k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    From a cynical Macy's elf to absurd French Easter bunnies and competitive family Christmases, Sedaris skewers the 'most wonderful time of the year' with his signature wit and misanthropic charm.

  8. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

    Haruki Murakami

    ★ 3.9 (106k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Haruki Murakami reflects on his life through long-distance running, sharing the discipline, insights, and quiet struggles that shaped him into a celebrated novelist.

  9. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

    James McBride

    ★ 4.1 (104k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    A journalist discovers the remarkable life of his white mother, who survived the Holocaust and became a respected figure in a Black community, showing how love crosses racial lines and how identity is complex.

  10. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

    Amy Schumer

    ★ 3.7 (104k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Amy Schumer hilariously bares her soul through candid essays about love, life, and everything in between, proving that vulnerability can be the funniest and most powerful thing of all.

  11. Seriously... I'm Kidding

    Ellen DeGeneres

    ★ 3.7 (103k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    In this collection of hilarious and poignant anecdotes, Ellen DeGeneres shares the embarrassing moments and lighthearted observations that have shaped her journey from comedian to beloved talk show host.

  12. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

    Donald Miller

    ★ 3.9 (102k) average on GoodreadsSpirituality

    Donald Miller, once burned out by zealous faith, embarks on a raw, often humorous journey to rediscover a God as complex and unresolved, yet ultimately beautiful, as jazz itself, proving that authentic spirituality thrives outside rigid resolutions.

  13. My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

    Chelsea Handler

    ★ 3.8 (101k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Chelsea Handler hilariously recounts her uninhibited adventures in the world of one-night stands, revealing the awkward, outrageous, and sometimes surprisingly meaningful encounters with a diverse cast of men.

  14. How to Be a Woman

    Caitlin Moran

    ★ 3.7 (99k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Caitlin Moran humorously examines the difficult and often contradictory reality of being female, from puberty's awkwardness to modern womanhood's confusing demands.

  15. A Stolen Life

    Jaycee Dugard

    ★ 3.9 (97k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Abducted at eleven, Jaycee Dugard's memoir recounts eighteen years living in a hidden backyard camp, raising two daughters fathered by her captor, and her difficult return to a world she barely knew.

  16. Twelve Years a Slave

    Solomon Northup

    ★ 4.2 (95k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    A free black man's harrowing twelve-year odyssey from Northern liberty to the brutal cotton plantations of the South, exposing the raw, dehumanizing machinery of American slavery.

  17. In a Sunburned Country

    Bill Bryson

    ★ 4.1 (90k) average on GoodreadsLifestyle

    Join Bill Bryson as he humorously travels across Australia, meeting its resilient people and dangerous animals, all while discovering interesting history with his usual wit.

  18. Bad Feminist

    Roxane Gay

    ★ 3.9 (86k) average on GoodreadsPolitics

    In a collection of sharp, funny, and deeply personal essays, Roxane Gay dissects pop culture, politics, and her evolving identity as a woman of color, challenging the rigid confines of modern feminism.

  19. The Blind Side

    Michael Lewis

    ★ 4.2 (84k) average on GoodreadsBusiness

    A homeless, illiterate giant finds family, purpose, and a multi-million dollar destiny on the football field as the protector of a quarterback's blind side, forever changing the game and his own improbable life.

  20. The Magnolia Story

    Chip Gaines

    ★ 4.2 (82k) average on GoodreadsBusiness

    Chip and Joanna Gaines's journey from a chance meeting and early business challenges to building a design company and renovating homes, one fixer-upper at a time.

  21. Life

    Georges Perec

    ★ 3.9 (82k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    In a Paris apartment building, an artist's grand painting opens a window into the peculiar lives of its residents, revealing decades of intertwined fates, strange hobbies, and lingering secrets, all seen through the building's walls.

  22. Open

    Andre Agassi

    ★ 4.3 (81k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Andre Agassi's 'Open' tells the story of a child tennis prodigy who grew to resent the sport that imprisoned him, battling fame, personal struggles, and injuries to find his own path to redemption and love.

  23. Infidel

    Ayaan Hirsi Ali

    ★ 4.2 (78k) average on GoodreadsPolitics

    From a childhood marked by civil war, female mutilation, and strict Islamic dogma, Ayaan Hirsi Ali develops the will to escape a forced marriage and become a champion for free speech and women's rights, even while facing death threats and political ostracization.

  24. My Life in France

    Julia Child

    ★ 4.2 (78k) average on GoodreadsLifestyle

    Julia Child's "My Life in France" follows her path from a cooking beginner to a famous chef, detailing her discovery of French food and culture.

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