Top 100 Memoir Books

📘 Tuesdays with Morrie

Mitch Albom’s memoir follows his weekly visits to former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz as Schwartz confronts terminal ALS, exploring life, death, and personal growth through their poignant teacher‑student bond.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 I'm Glad My Mom Died

Jennette McCurdy’s candid memoir chronicles her rise as a child star, her battles with eating disorders, addiction, and her strained bond with her mother, ultimately revealing how she reclaimed agency over her life.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Born a Crime

A candid memoir of Trevor Noah’s childhood in apartheid‑era South Africa, blending humor, heart, and social insight as he navigates a world where he was never meant to exist.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 On Writing

On Writing blends Stephen King’s memoir with practical guidance, offering a personal look at his path to success and essential lessons for aspiring writers.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Shoe Dog

Phil Knight, founder of Nike, recounts the early years of the company—from importing shoes from Japan to building a global brand—sharing the challenges, partnerships and personal moments that fueled its rise.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 When Breath Becomes Air

Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s poignant memoir chronicles his battle with stage IV metastatic lung cancer and his reflections on life, medicine, and mortality.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Everything I Know About Love

Dolly Alderton's memoir traces the highs and lows of early adulthood—how she navigates love, friendship, work, and heartbreak in a witty, relatable way that celebrates being enough.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

A candid memoir by psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb that blurs the line between therapist and patient, revealing the universal quest for meaning, love, and healing within personal and clinical journeys.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Just Mercy

Justice lawyer Bryan Stevenson recounts his battle against wrongful convictions, life‑sentence juvenile cases, and systemic bias while seeking reform of America’s criminal justice system.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 Girl, interrupted

Eighteen‑year‑old Susanna Kaysen is admitted to McLean Hospital in 1967, where she documents life in the psychiatric ward, exploring mental illness, recovery, and the cultural landscape of the late 1960s.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Crying in H Mart

"Crying in H Mart" chronicles Michelle Zauner’s intimate journey through family, food, grief, and identity as an Asian‑American woman and Korean‑American singer, revealing how her mother’s cancer prompted a profound reconnection with Korean culture and culinary heritage.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The Diary of a Young Girl- Anne Frank

Anne Frank's diary, a powerful testimony of the Holocaust and the human spirit's resilience.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Eat, Pray, Love

Elizabeth Gilbert recounts a year of self‑discovery after leaving her life in the United States, traveling through Italy, India and Indonesia to seek pleasure, devotion, and balance.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Travel Memoir

📘 Educated

A memoir of a woman who overcomes a strict survivalist Mormon upbringing in rural Idaho to pursue higher education, ultimately earning a PhD in history at Cambridge.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me is a memoir‑essay in letter form, where Ta‑Nehisi Coates addresses his teenage son about the history, violence, and ongoing reality of being Black in America.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Angela's Ashes

Frank McCourt's memoir recounts a harsh childhood in Depression‑era Brooklyn and Limerick, where poverty, a neglectful father, and a mother named Angela shape his survival through storytelling.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Just kids

Patti Smith’s memoir charts her life in New York City, from the bohemian scenes of Max’s Kansas City and the Hotel Chelsea to a creative partnership with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in Brooklyn.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 I Was Never Broken

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 When I was Puerto Rican

Esmeralda Santiago recounts her upbringing in rural Puerto Rico and her family's migration to New York, capturing the cultural clash and her personal growth from barrio life to academic success.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The Noonday Demon

Andrew Solomon’s acclaimed nonfiction journey into depression blends personal narrative, case studies, and scientific inquiry to illuminate the illness’s complexities, treatments, and cultural impact worldwide.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 El hombre en busca de sentido

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 My life with a criminal

John Kiriamiti’s memoir chronicles his rise from teenage pickpocket to notorious robber in 1960s‑70s Kenya, highlighting love, family, betrayal and the path toward redemption.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The Basketball diaries

Jim Carroll’s 1978 memoir chronicles his teenage years in New York City through a series of personal diaries written between ages twelve and sixteen.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Finding Me

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Beautiful Boy

A father’s heartbreaking memoir of his son Nic’s crystal‑meth addiction and their fight for recovery, capturing the emotional toll and relentless search for treatment.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 How to Be an Antiracist

Ibram X. Kendi’s *How to Be an Antiracist* explains racism as a powerful system that creates false hierarchies and offers a guide—drawing on ethics, history, law, and science—to help readers confront and dismantle racial injustice in society and themselves.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 To Selena, with love

Chris Pérez shares a personal memoir of his life with the late Tejano superstar Selena, offering candid reflections on their relationship, her music career, and the impact of her untimely death.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 A Piece of Cake

Cupcake Brown’s memoir chronicles her rise from a life of abuse, addiction, and homelessness to resilience and redemption, chronicling her experiences in California’s inner cities.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Fear no evil

A memoir of Anatoly Shcharansky, a Soviet dissident and Jewish activist, detailing his nine-year imprisonment by the KGB from interrogation to release.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The color of water

James McBride’s memoir chronicles his upbringing among twelve siblings in Brooklyn’s Red Hook, revealing his mother’s hidden Jewish heritage and their shared journey of race, identity, and faith.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 Down and Out in Paris and London

George Orwell’s autobiographical essay, *Down and Out in Paris and London*, chronicles his years of poverty and unemployment in the city streets and hostels of Paris and London, revealing the harsh realities of 1930s street life.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Prozac nation

xxxv, 338 pages ; 21 cm

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Let me hear your voice

A mother's heartfelt memoir of her daughter's autism diagnosis and the family's relentless pursuit of effective treatment, culminating in success through intensive behavioral therapy.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 Twelve years a slave

A chilling memoir detailing Solomon Northup's harrowing experience as a captive on a Louisiana plantation for twelve years, from 1841 to 1853.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 I Was Never Broken : Volume 1

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 In the Dream House

A memoir that traces a violent lesbian relationship, dissects psychological abuse, and challenges queer stereotypes while weaving literary tropes and cultural critique into an innovative narrative structure.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 If You Tell

A true‑story memoir of Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek, three sisters who endured decades of abuse at the hands of their mother, Shelly, and ultimately overcame her terror to seek freedom and justice.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Travels with Charley

John Steinbeck journeys across the United States with his French poodle Charley, exploring the country’s sights, sounds, and people in a candid travelogue that reflects on American life and identity.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Travel Memoir

📘 84, Charing Cross Road

Helene Hanff’s witty correspondence with the bookshop at 84, Charing Cross Road in London sparks a charming long‑distance friendship, revealing the world of second‑hand books and the intellectual life of London.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Revelaciones / Revelations

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 走ることについて語るときに僕の語ること

Haruki Murakami revisits his lifelong love of running, weaving training, travel, and autobiography into a candid exploration of how the sport shapes his writing and life.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Talvez Voce Deva Conversar Com Alguem - Uma terapeuta o terapeuta dela e a vida de todos nos

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The Game [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2013] Neil Strauss

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Mémoires

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 First They Killed My Father

A gripping memoir of a child’s survival during the Khmer Rouge genocide, detailing Loung Ung’s journey from privilege in Phnom Penh to forced labor camps and ultimate resilience.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Know My Name

A powerful memoir by Chanel Miller in which she reclaims her identity beyond the Emily Doe moniker, detailing her experience with Brock Turner, the legal aftermath, and the broader cultural and judicial challenges faced by rape survivors.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The Thrill of the Chase

Forrest Fenn recounts his life and how he hid a treasure in the mountains north of Santa Fe, inviting readers to follow his clues and experience the thrill of the chase.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Man's search for meaning

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Fate Is the Hunter

Ernest K. Gann’s memoir chronicles his early career as a commercial airline pilot, offering a firsthand look at the challenges and adventures of pioneering aviation.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 Dispatches

First‑hand reportage of the Vietnam War, *Dispatches* captures the confusion and intensity of combat through Michael Herr’s vivid, poetic prose.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Beyond the Wand

Through humor and candid moments, Tom Felton offers a backstage look at growing up in the Harry Potter spotlight, sharing the highs, lows, and friendships of his decade on set.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Running with Scissors

Augusten Burroughs recounts his turbulent adolescence spent in a decaying Victorian home run by a psychiatrist, where ordinary rites of childhood give way to a surreal blend of family eccentricity, escape from school, and the early years of a future author.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 All Boys Aren't Blue

A coming‑of‑age memoir where George M. Johnson shares his childhood, teen, and college experiences as a Black queer man, addressing identity, family, and social challenges.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Neither trumpets nor drums

Salvador H. Laurel, former Vice‑President and brief Prime Minister under President Corazon Aquino, recounts the 1986 EDSA Revolution and the challenges of the Marcos era in this firsthand memoir of Philippine politics.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 Have a little faith

Mitch Albom guides readers through an eight‑year journey that bridges Jewish and Christian faith, exploring how two men—an aging rabbi and a reformed Dallas pastor—use belief to survive, heal, and inspire.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 A princess remembers

The memoirs of Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, tracing her privileged childhood, marriage to the maharaja, and her political career after Indian Independence.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Diarios de Motocicleta

An expanded diary of 23‑year‑old Che Guevara’s motorcycle journey across South America, with unpublished photos, maps, and reflective prefaces from his daughter and a prominent poet.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Travel Memoir

📘 A Muslim Woman's Diary

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 And I don't want to live this life

Biography of Deborah Spungen, mother of Nancy Spungen, chronicling a turbulent family life marked by mental illness, violence and the tragic death of her daughter.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 The Hut Six Story

A first‑hand account of Bletchley Park's cryptographic work and the people who built its success, written by code‑breaker Gordon Welchman.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 THE KAOBOYS OF R&AW Down Memory Lane

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 What My Bones Know

An intimate memoir of Stephanie Foo’s journey through complex PTSD, combining personal experience, scientific insight, and family history to explore how trauma shapes mind, body, and identity.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The Liars' Club

In the Gulf‑swamp town of Leechfield, Texas, a group of oil workers called the Liars’ Club spin tall tales, while a young woman confronts her family’s hidden past, unmasking lies that threaten her sanity.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 Lean In

Lean In, written by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, dissects why women’s leadership prospects have stalled and offers practical, research-backed steps to overcome bias, negotiate better, and build fulfilling careers.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Freedom Writers' Diary

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Lab Girl

Hope Jahren’s memoir chronicles her journey from rural Minnesota to the world’s frontiers of plant science, blending vivid anecdotes of laboratory discovery with a heartfelt friendship that shapes her career.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 The surrender experiment

Michael A. Singer recounts his own journey from quiet hippie years and computer engineering to pursuing enlightenment, offering meditation and self‑realization guidance.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 From Here to Eternity

Mortician Caitlin Doughty travels the world to uncover funeral rituals from Zoroastrian sky burials to Bolivian wish‑granting skulls, challenging U.S. embalming practices and offering fresh insights into how cultures honor the dead.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Travel Memoir

📘 Chinese Cinderella

A poignant memoir of Adeline Yen Mah’s lonely childhood in a wealthy Chinese family during the 1940s, where she faces neglect from a stepmother and the weight of expectations while striving for love and acceptance.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 Yes Please

Amy Poehler’s memoir‑essay collection blends humor, candid anecdotes, and poetic reflections on acting, comedy, and womanhood, offering an intimate look at her creative life.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 10% Happier

Night‑line anchor Dan Harris confronts a sudden panic attack and sets out on a skeptical journey into meditation, science, and spirituality—discovering a practical, science‑backed way to lift stress and find lasting happiness.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 In Search of Our Mother's Garden

In Search of Our Mother's Garden: A Collection of Nonfiction Essays by Alice Walker

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Mommie Dearest

An intimate biography by Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter, detailing the actress’s troubled relationships, alcoholism, and the harsh reality hidden behind Hollywood fame.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Visage volé

Latifa’s memoir chronicles the harsh realities of Taliban rule in Kabul and her courageous clandestine school for Afghan girls, revealing her struggle for freedom and hope.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 What My Mother and I Don't Talk About

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 The saddest girl in the world

A moving true account of Donna’s journey from abuse and rejection to finding safety in foster care, illuminating the challenges and resilience of abused children.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 A place to stand

Jimmy Santiago Baca’s memoir traces his rise from an illiterate 21‑year‑old drug dealer to a recognized poet, detailing his New Mexico upbringing, orphanage years, prison experience and transformative journey through solitary confinement.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Kitne Ghazi Aaye, Kitne Ghazi Gaye

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 If I die in a combat zone box me up and ship me home

A candid, first‑hand look at the Vietnam War and the American military through the eyes of a late‑sixties foot soldier, offering personal insights into combat, life on the ground, and the broader conflict.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Flight Into Fear

Flight Into Fear recounts the terrifying hijacking of Indian Flight IC 814, detailing the eight days the crew and 188 passengers endured onboard and during the aircraft’s forced journey to Kandahar.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 One L

See https://openlibrary.org/works/OL26908W/One_L

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 Rabbit-proof fence

Doris Pilkington, writing under the name Nugi Garimara, recounts how the 1,834‑km Rabbit‑Proof Fence became a powerful symbol of home and security for three Aboriginal girls who escaped removal and returned to their families.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Three thousand stitches

A candid biography of Sudha Murthy, detailing her unwavering commitment to uplift Indian sex workers and devadasis toward self‑sustainability and dignity.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Down the rabbit hole

Holly Madison tells the true story of her rise from small‑town Oregon to Playboy’s most famous girlfriend, the highs and harsh realities inside the Mansion, and her journey toward healing and empowerment.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Everything Happens for a Reason

After a stage IV colon cancer diagnosis, Duke Divinity professor Kate Bowler confronts the limits of her prosperity‑gospel faith, learning that life’s true meaning lies beyond control, in the beauty of uncertainty and human connection.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Extreme Ownership

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 No Disrespect

A candid guide by Sister Souljah that empowers young African‑American girls to maintain integrity amid societal pressures, exploring themes of sexual identity, autonomy, and relationships.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Grandma Ellen and me

A tender collection of childhood memories from Mabel R. Miller about her great-grandmother, Ellen White, portraying her as a loving, joyful figure who brought religion and everyday life to heart.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Family Memoir

📘 Always Running

A memoir recounting Luis J. Rodriguez's experiences as a member of a street gang in Los Angeles.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Smoke gets in your eyes

Caitlin Doughty chronicles her life and work as a mortician, offering candid, often humorous insights into the funeral industry and the emotional realities of handling death.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 A Mother's Reckoning

A heartfelt memoir by Dylan Klebold’s mother, Sue Klebold, exploring grief, shame, and the psychological clues she missed after the 1999 Columbine tragedy, while offering insights to help families recognize childhood distress.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Catch and Kill

Ronan Farrow’s investigative nonfiction uncovers a network of sexual predators, celebrity conspiracies, and state‑level intimidation that silenced victims and threatened journalists.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Professional Memoir

📘 El Diario de Ana Frank

A diary chronicling the life of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who hid in an attic during the Nazi occupation of Holland.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Diário de um mago

A candid account of Paulo Coelho’s spiritual awakening during his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, blending travel observations with personal occult insights.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Travel Memoir

📘 Journal of a Solitude

May Sarton's reflective journal explores the complexities of solitude, love, and inner conflict in her life as an American woman poet and writer.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Klan-Destine Relationships

Daryl Davis, a Grammy‑awarded pianist, embarks on a courageous mission to meet and build a friendship with a Ku Klux Klan leader, using music to confront racism and seek personal understanding.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 Communion

In Communion, Whitley Strieber recounts the extraordinary encounters he and his family experienced with intelligent non‑human beings in an upstate New York cabin.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir

📘 The Cancer Journals

A powerful and poetic account of breast cancer survivor Audre Lorde's experience and transformation.

Genre: Memoir Subgenre: Personal Memoir