Reading lists · August 9, 2026

The Best Memoirs to Read: 16 That Are Worth Your Time

The best memoirs and autobiographies to read — from Educated to Crying in H Mart — and what each one is actually about underneath the story.

On family

• Educated — Tara Westover. Ostensibly about education; actually about loyalty.
• Crying in H Mart — Michelle Zauner. Grief, food, and being between cultures.
• The Glass Castle — Jeannette Walls. Poverty told without self-pity.
• Know My Name — Chanel Miller. Extraordinary, and hard.

On work

• This Is Going to Hurt — Adam Kay. Funny until it is not.
• Kitchen Confidential — Bourdain. Still the best book about restaurants.
• When Breath Becomes Air — Paul Kalanithi. Neurosurgeon, terminal diagnosis.
• Between the World and Me — Coates. A letter to his son.

On becoming someone

• Born a Crime — Trevor Noah. Very funny, quietly furious.
• Just Kids — Patti Smith. Youth, New York, Robert Mapplethorpe.
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings — Maya Angelou.
• Wild — Cheryl Strayed. Grief with a rucksack.

Stranger shapes

• H Is for Hawk — Helen Macdonald. Grief and a goshawk.
• The Year of Magical Thinking — Didion. Precise about the imprecise.
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone — Lori Gottlieb. Therapist in therapy.
• In the Dream House — Carmen Maria Machado. Structurally astonishing.

Reading memoir

Memoir is the genre readers most often need to pace — several of these are genuinely heavy going and are better read alongside something light. There is nothing wrong with keeping two books on the go when one of them costs you something.

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