The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies

The traumas of the 20th century hit Eastern Europe hard – a region of changing borders, uncertain identity, and shattering of moral norms. The journalist and communism expert selects books that capture the spirit of the age.

Via five engrossing memoirs, the Zimbabwe-born journalist Georgina Godwin talks wistfully about her country; amongst the older generation, she says, there is a feeling that Rhodesia was sold down the river by Britain and things needn't have turned out the way they did.

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.

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.

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.

We have much to learn from the lives of women who came before us, says Dorothy Byrne, the British TV journalist and producer who is now president of a women's college at the University of Cambridge. She recommends five of her favourite memoirs, all by women and notable for their searing truthfulness about everyday life.

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.

Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Margo Jefferson 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 Private Eye satirist and author Craig Brown recommends five entertaining published diaries, from Andy Warhol to Harpo Marx – and tells us why parody is a pickpocket

Living with a long-term condition or disability is difficult, says Polly Atkin, the author of Some of Us Just Fall. Those affected often feel isolated, misunderstood, or frustrated by their interactions with the medical establishment. But books about chronic illness will remind you that you are not alone; here, she recommends five memoirs that offer insight into the "kingdom of the unwell."