At least as long ago as St Augustine wrote his Confessions, people have enjoyed books where people describe their own lives, their inner thoughts and struggles. Many memoirs chronicle difficult political realities, such as the Armenian genocide or living under Communism in Eastern Europe. The most acclaimed memoir on Five Books is Speak, Memory by the Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov.
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1
I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir
by Susan Kiyo Ito -
2
Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm
by David Mas Masumoto -
3
Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison
by Ahmed Naji, translated by Katharine Halls -
4
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir
by Safiya Sinclair -
5
Story of a Poem: A Memoir
by Matthew Zapruder
The Best Memoirs: The 2024 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by May-lee Chai
The Best Memoirs: The 2024 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by May-lee Chai
It’s been a “phenomenal” year for autobiographical writing, says May-lee Chai—the award-winning author and chair of the judges for this year’s National Book Critics Circle prize for autobiography. Here she offers us a tour of the five memoirs that made their 2024 shortlist.
Favourite Memoirs, recommended by Calvin Trillin
A successful sense of place is the most satisfying part of any book, argues American journalist and humorist Calvin Trillin. He picks out five of his favourite memoirs — and says that part of what he likes about them is that they’re short.
The Best Hiking Memoirs, recommended by Gail Simmons
Accounts of journeys on foot capture the imagination; partly this is a function of the satisfaction of following a linear journey from start to finish, and partly it is a quality inherent to walking itself—a freeing of the mind. Gail Simmons, who follows an old English pilgrimage route in her book Between the Chalk and the Sea, selects five hiking memoirs that celebrate the liberation that comes from putting one foot after another.
Notable Memoirs of 2023, recommended by Cal Flyn
Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn selects the best recent autobiographical writing in this round-up of notable memoirs of 2023—taking in new work from such literary giants as Janet Malcolm and Annie Ernaux, the writer other writers are raving about, and a humorous debut depicting life in a haunted antiquarian bookshop.
Eva Hoffman recommends the best Memoirs
To tell your own story is to confront and construct your deepest sense of self. The author of Lost in Translation tells us about five striking memoirs of identity, dislocation, and belonging.
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1
A Little Devil in America: Notes In Praise Of Black Performance
by Hanif Abdurraqib -
2
Gay Bar: Why We Went Out
by Jeremy Atherton Lin -
3
A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha
by Rodrigo Garcia -
4
A Ghost in the Throat
by Doireann Ní Ghríofa -
5
Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes
by Albert Samaha
The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by Marion Winik
The Best Memoirs: The 2022 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by Marion Winik
Autobiography is evolving; increasingly we find the field dominated by 'genre-fluid' books that plait memoir together with strands of cultural criticism, history, journalism or even poetry. Here, Marion Winik, the memoirist and critic, talks us through the five books that have been shortlisted in the National Book Critic's Circle autobiography category—and describes the face of memoir in 2022.
The Best Nature Memoirs, recommended by Victoria Bennett
Nature is intrinsic to our experience of being alive and reading about it allows us to connect not just with the natural world but with ourselves. Here Victoria Bennett, author of All My Wild Mothers, a memoir of grief and creating an apothecary garden, recommends five other nature memoirs, highlighting personal and reflective prose by writers including Lauret Savoy, Mary Oliver, and Jamaica Kincaid.
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1
Will
by Will Smith and Mark Manson -
2
Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement
by Tarana Burke -
3
This Much Is True
by Miriam Margolyes -
4
This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir
by Cecily Strong -
5
Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me
by Jamie Foxx and Nick Chiles
The Best New Celebrity Memoirs, recommended by Sharon Marcus
The Best New Celebrity Memoirs, recommended by Sharon Marcus
While it’s easy to dismiss celebrity memoirs as offering cheap, voyeuristic thrills into the lives of famous people we like the look of, when they’re done well, they can give insight into challenges we all grapple with as human beings. They can also be very funny. Sharon Marcus, professor of literature at Columbia University and author of The Drama of Celebrity, recommends the best new celebrity memoirs.
Margo Jefferson on Cultural Memoirs
The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic celebrates a form in constant flight from definition, that finds expression in hybrid texts and plays-within-plays, and that is as at home in high art as in pop culture.
The best books on Diaries and Autobiography, recommended by Craig Brown
The Private Eye satirist and author recommends five entertaining published diaries, from Andy Warhol to Harpo Marx – and tells us why parody is a pickpocket