Memory and storytelling are inherently interwoven, for without one there cannot be the other. Our memories infiltrate and shape our ability to tell stories, while the stories we tell help to keep memories alive.
It’s important to distinguish the literary concept of a memoir from that of an autobiography. While in both instances, the subject doesn’t need to have a celebrity status, the former serves as a non-fiction narrative whereby the author recounts a series of memories from a particular period in their life. On the other hand, an autobiography is a complete retelling of the author’s life, career, experiences and more from beginning to end.
A memoir might appeal to your literary preferences over that of an autobiography for a myriad of reasons. Brilliant memoirs allow you to submerge yourself in the lives of vastly different individuals. Rather than offering an almost factual retelling, you’re plunged into the full spectrum of emotion experienced by the writer during an intensely tumultuous period in their life.
For this very same reason, memoirs aren’t always the easiest read. More often than not, they have been written as a form of catharsis for the author. They tend to capture universal experiences through a distinctly personal lens which evokes intense sympathy from the reader.
The reader may also recognise a part of themselves in the narrative as a result – whether the story’s subject be trauma, grief, illness, childhood, romance, failure, success or anything else under the sun. As a result, we tend to be left with the feeling that we’re not alone in our struggles, no matter how different our lives look from the outside.
The narrative form of memoirs can sometimes err on the side of stream-of-consciousness storytelling, which can be bewildering for some and fascinating for others. Either way, in reading about the struggles and subsequent surmounting of obstacles from the perspective of inspirational authors, we are left enthralled, introspective and motivated.
If you’re looking to step into the shoes of a captivating individual from history, we’ve got you covered. Keep scrolling for a selection of some of the best memoirs of all time.
How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
A powerful female tale of the struggle to find and maintain a sense of identity within the confines of a patriarchally rigid Rastafarian upbringing, Sinclair’s moving memoir is a story about resilience in the face of oppression.
Buy now £10.11, Amazon
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Though the extent to which writer and musician Michelle Zauner’s brilliant memoir can be considered a light read remains up for debate, you don’t have to be a fan of the band Japanese Breakfast (which she heads up) to delve into her simultaneously joyful and gut-wrenching account of a highly complicated mother-daughter relationship forever changed by a devastating cancer diagnosis.
Buy now £6.99, Amazon
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Known for her incisive societal commentary and introspective wit, Joan Didion is one of the greatest American writers of all time. In this deeply personal memoir, she recalls the horrifying winter of 2003. Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, watched their only daughter Quintana fall desperately ill just a few days before Christmas.
Following a battle with pneumonia, complete sceptic shock and a medically induced coma, Quintana was placed on life support. Just a few days later before New Year’s Eve, Didion’s partner of 40 years suffered a fatal coronary. While Quintana later pulls through, The Year of Magical Thinking sees Didion attempt to make sense of the unthinkable after a series of life-altering events occur within the space of a few short weeks.
Buy now £8.74, Amazon
Just Kids by Patti Smith
A coming-of-age story which focuses on Patti Smith’s relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, we are taken on a journey through the tail-end of the Swinging Sixties into the Seventies in an enthralling narrative featuring iconic names and historical places. The spellbinding portrait of New York is powered by the wide-eyed juvenile perspectives of artists and changemakers looking to make their mark.
Buy now £11.45, Amazon
Educated by Tara Westover
Tara Westover was born into an Idaho family which practices a radical form of Mormonism. Taught to prepare for the end of the world from the minute she was able to understand the concept, Westover didn’t even have a birth certificate until she was nine years old. At 16, she leaves home with the express desire to escape her father’s radicalism, her brother’s violence and seek a real education.
Buy now £9.99, Amazon
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Though this is technically a collection of short stories, it reads rather like a collective memoir. Covering themes including coming of age in a world where urban society reigns supreme, cultural heritage, identity, power and powerlessness, addiction, grief, and the power of storytelling, Alexie may be covering life as a Native American, but the scope at which he accomplishes this work of art is universal.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy
Shocking, enthralling and deeply moving, Jeanette McCurdy details the horrors of childhood stardom in her best-selling, tell-all memoir. The darkly comic narrative reveals the true nature behind McCurdy’s journey into stardom through the morosely unhealthy and abusive behaviour of her own mother. After her mother dies from cancer, McCurdy discovers therapy for the first time and embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery.
Buy now £17.59, Amazon
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Kalanithi’s heart-breaking memoir chronicles his transformation from doctor to patient. The 36-year-old is on the brink of completing an arduous decade of neurosurgeon training only to discover that he has inoperable lung cancer. A devastating yet wonderfully life-affirming treatise on confronting our own mortality, it’s a memoir which belongs on all bookshelves.
Buy now £9.99, Amazon
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
An incredibly unique memoir about grief which overlaps with the field of ornithology, Helen Macdonald buys an £800 goshawk whom she names Mabel on a Scottish quayside.
Following the loss of her father, Macdonald ruminates on her grief while recounting the experience of training the wildest of birds.
Buy now £10.99, Waterstones
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
There’s nothing quite like the relationship between mother and daughter. Unbearably complicated, highly strung and often overwhelmingly rage-filled, Gornick’s 1987 memoir beautifully captures the endlessly frustrating and fulfilling nature of this familial bond by recounting regular walks taken with her mother through Manhattan.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
Considered by many to be the memoir which shot the narrative form into universal popularity, The Liar’s Club introduces us to a host of wild and dramatically Texan characters.
Written in 1995, Karr recounts growing up in a small industrial town in the Southeast of the Lone Star State throughout the 1960s. From our scrappy and inexplicably mean narrator to her argumentative sister, hard-drinking father and secret-keeping mother, Karr’s childhood is fascinatingly ramshackle and darkly comic.
Buy now £13.90, Amazon
Boyhood by J.M. Coetzee
A deeply historical novel which recounts the brutally narrow-minded nature of South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s, J.M. Coetzee recalls his childhood in a small country town.
Beyond the cultural and political ramifications of this memoir, Coetzee is celebrated for his intimate narrative which details everything from his burgeoning sexuality to his complicated relationship with his parents and increasing self-isolation.
Buy now £10.99, Waterstones
Conundrum by Jan Morris
An incredibly important memoir by one of Britain’s best-loved travel writers, Jan Morris covers her painstaking yet revelatory 10-year transition from man to woman.
One of the earliest memoirs to cover transsexuality with intimate honesty, we learn of Morris’ journey with hormone treatment and the experimental surgery that would bring her closer to her truest self.
Buy now £8.99, Amazon
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
A priest unlike any other, Lockwood’s married father converts from being a Lutheran minister to Catholicism – making him a rarity in the religious community. A lover of frequent guitar jams and action movies, he’s also different for a number of other reasons.
Lockwood recalls her childhood in Midwestern America with wry wit and remarkable authenticity. After an unexpected crisis hits, a grown-up Lockwood and her husband temporarily move back into her parents’ rectory.
Buy now £10.99, Waterstones
Boy Erased by Garrard Conley
Recently adapted into a motion picture starring Lucas Hedges, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, this is the story of Garrard Conley’s gut-wrenching experience with extreme conversion therapy after he is unwittingly outed to his parents at age 19.
Buy now £10.44, Amazon
The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward’s revelatory novel recounts the loss of five men in her life. Through the highly personal lens of unimaginable loss, Ward sheds light on the extreme injustice of growing up Black in the South in the early 2000s.
As relevant today as the day it was written, The Men We Reaped is an essential 21st-century memoir which reveals the horrors of historical and systemic violence.
Buy now £8.99, Amazon
Poor by Katriona O'Sullivan
Growing up in extreme poverty, Katriona O'Sullivan was the middle of five children. She became a mother at just 15 years old and was subsequently homeless. In the final five years of her teenage existence, O’Sullivan’s life was grisly, to say the least. This is the story of how she turned her life around.
Buy now £13.19, Amazon
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Whether you first came across Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis as a graphic novel or motion picture, chances are you were wildly emotionally affected by the author and illustrator’s illustrated biography.
The story follows the coming of age of a young Marjane, who is the child of radical Marxists and the grandchild of Iran’s last emperor. From her childhood in Iran during the Iranian Revolution and her eventual escape to France, Satrapi crafts a poignant, deeply moving and – at times – utterly hilarious work of art.
Buy now £10.11, Amazon
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
It is the most famous diary in the world, written by a teenager who died mere weeks before the liberation of the concentration camp in which she was imprisoned in 1945. And yet, Anne Frank's diary remains a bestseller, with more than 35 million copies sold worldwide.
The famous account vividly describes the horrors of living under Hitler's regime, secreted behind a false bookcase in the back of a Dutch warehouse. Edited by her father Otto and Miriam Pressler, the diary remains a testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit.
Buy now £8.27, Amazon
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Made into a Hollywood movie featuring Reese Witherspoon, Wild is the tale of 26-year-old Cheryl Strayed who decided to make sense of her crumbling life by hiking alone for two months up the west coast of America, a distance of some 1100 miles.
Recommended by everyone from the New York Times to Oprah, Cheryl's story of loss, perseverance and self-discovery has struck a chord with readers worldwide. An entertaining and inspiring read above overcoming life's clanging challenges, even with demons snapping at your heels.
Buy now £6.99, Amazon
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
In a nutshell: two best friends journey through their 20s experiencing everything from love to heartbreak to finding out who they truly are.
The perfect ode to your 20s, Dolly Alderton’s autobiographical work has been the inspiration for BBC’s latest drama series that brings together four friends who move to London together and rent a flat.
For those that thought the series was moving and emotional, prepare for the book to evoke every emotion possible. Littered amongst the wonderful prose are great pearls of wisdom including how to cure a hangover and the perfect Mac N Cheese recipe.
Buy now £9.96, Amazon
