biographies to read 2023

The Best New Biographies of 2023

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Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies.

The books included in this list have all been released as of writing, but biography lovers still have plenty to look forward to before the year is out. A few to keep your eye out for in the coming months:

The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell (HarperOne, September 26)
Einstein in Time and Space by Samuel Graydon (Scribner, November 14)
Overlooked: A Celebration of Remarkable, Underappreciated People Who Broke the Rules and Changed the World by Amisha Padnani (Penguin Random House, November 14).

Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far!

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

Ellen and William Craft were a Black married couple who freed themselves from slavery in 1848 by disguising themselves as a traveling white man and an enslaved person. Author Ilyon Woo recounts their thousand-mile journey to seek safety in the North and their escape from the United States in the months following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel

Written over a period of 11 years with exclusive journalistic access to the subject, author Michael Finkel explores the motivations, heists, and repercussions faced by the notorious and prolific art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Of special focus is his relationship with his girlfriend and accomplice, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus.

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

While recently published, King: A Life is already considered to be the most well-researched biography of Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. published in decades. New York Times bestselling journalist Jonathan Eig explores the life and legacy of Dr. King through thousands of historical records, including recently declassified FBI documents.

Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters by Lynnée Denise

This biography is part of the Why Music Matters series from the University of Texas. It reflects on the legendary blues singer’s life through an essay collection in which the author (also an accomplished musician) seeks to recreate the feeling of browsing through a box of records.

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power by Leah Redmond Chang

Historian Leah Redmond Chang’s latest book release focuses on three aristocratic women in Renaissance Europe: Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. As a specific focus, she examines the juxtaposition between the immense power they wielded and yet the ways they remained vulnerable to the patriarchal, misogynistic societies in which they existed.

Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

Anna May Wong was a 20th-century actress who found great acclaim while still facing discrimination and typecasting as a Chinese woman. University of California professor Yunte Huang explores her life and impact on the American film industry and challenges racist depictions of her in accounts of Hollywood history in this thought-provoking biography.

Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown

Written by Rhodes Scholar and University of Pennsylvania medical student Jasmine Brown, this collective biography shares the experiences and accomplishments of nine Black women physicians in U.S. history — including Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black American woman to earn a medical degree in the 1860s, and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty

Two years after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s death, this biography presents a comprehensive history of Larry McMurtry’s life and legacy as one of the most acclaimed Western writers of all time.

The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by Leta McCollough Seletzky

Journalist Leta McCollough Seletzky examines her father, Marrell “Mac” McCollough’s complicated legacy as a Black undercover cop and later a member of the CIA. In particular, she shares his account as a witness of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel.

Are you a history buff looking for more recommendations? Try these.

Best History Books by Era
Books for a More Inclusive Look at American History
Fascinating Food History Books

8 Grim and Gruesome Medical Horror Books

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

The best memoirs and biographies of 2023

The rise of Madonna, Barbra Streisand in her own words, plus the stormy relationship of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor are among this year’s highlights

F or most writers, a memoir is a once in a lifetime event, but not for the poet and novelist Blake Morrison. Having already written memoirs about his late mother and father, he has turned his attention to his siblings in Two Sisters (Borough). The book details the life of Gill, his younger sister who died in 2019 from heart failure caused by alcohol abuse, alongside his half-sister Josie, the product of his father’s affair with a married neighbour, whose real parentage went unacknowledged for years. Morrison’s account of their struggles is tender, vivid and achingly sad.

O Brother (Canongate) is another brutal and brilliant sibling memoir in which the Kill Your Friends author John Niven recalls the life and death of his charismatic, troubled brother, Gary, who took his own life in 2010. It’s with both humour and pathos that he recalls his and Gary’s early life growing up in Irvine, Ayrshire, their diverging adult trajectories and the “Chernobyl of the soul” felt by Niven and his family after his brother’s suicide.

From siblings to parents and grandparents: Before the Light Fades (Virago) by Natasha Walter reveals how the author’s mother, Ruth, took her life at the age of 75, leaving a note that read: “Please be happy for me. It is a logical, positive decision.” Her death inspires Walter to investigate her family’s history of activism, tracing a fascinating path from her German grandfather Georg, who protested against the rise of the Nazis in the early 1930s, via her mother’s campaigning – Ruth was a member of the anti-war group Committee of 100, founded by Bertrand Russell – through to her own direct action with Extinction Rebellion.

Having detailed the trauma endured by her Jewish grandparents and their siblings during the second world war in her 2020 memoir House of Glass, Hadley Freeman turns the microscope on herself in Good Girls (4th Estate), detailing an adolescence blown apart by anorexia. The book is both a fearless account of her hospitalisation and eventual recovery and an important study of this most slippery and misunderstood disorder.

The Pulitzer-winning Stay True (Picador) , by New Yorker writer Hua Hsu, is a powerful and beautifully written meditation on guilt, memory and male friendship as the author reflects on the death of his “flagrantly handsome” college friend, Ken, who was murdered in 1998 after leaving a house party. A similarly thoughtful portrait of friendship, Jonathan Rosen’s The Best Minds (Penguin) tells of Michael Laudor, Rosen’s childhood friend with whom he shared a dream of being a writer. In adulthood, Laudor developed schizophrenia, for which he spent time in a psychiatric institution, and, in 1998, committed a shocking murder. In telling Laudor’s story, Rosen paints a bleak picture of how initially hopeful new attitudes towards mental illness fed into a system where those in desperate need of help slipped through the cracks.

In the clear-eyed and courageous How to Say Babylon (4th Estate), the poet Safiya Sinclair documents her traumatic childhood as the daughter of a militant Rastafarian who struck fear into his wife and children and made it clear to Safiya that she should grow into “the humbled wife of a Rastaman. Ordinary and unselfed. Her voice and vices not her own.” In her teens, Sinclair took refuge in poetry and, in defiance of her father, forged her own path. A domineering father also features in Noreen Masud’s lyrical, melancholy A Flat Place (Hamish Hamilton), in which the author travels to some of Britain’s starkest landscapes, including Morecambe Bay, Orford Ness and Orkney, while reflecting on themes of exile, heritage and her troubled childhood in Lahore, Pakistan.

Cover of Wish I Was Here by M John Harrison

Subtitled “an anti-memoir”, Wish I Was Here (Serpent’s Tail) sees the Viriconium author M John Harrison sifting through old notebooks and observing how his character and writing have evolved in a career spanning half a century, all the while rejecting the concept of memoir as another form of fiction. Along with providing snapshots from his life, this delightfully oddball and original book functions as a writing manual in which Harrison reveals his own battles on the page. “The problem of writing,” he says, “is always the problem of who you were, the problem of who to be next.”

A beguiling blend of memoir and biography, the Observer art critic Laura Cumming’s Thunderclap (Chatto & Windus) recalls the life of her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming, and that of Carel Fabritius, the 17th-century Dutch artist who was killed aged 32 in the Delft “thunderclap”, an explosion at a municipal gunpowder magazine that caused the roof of his home to collapse. Wrapped around their stories is the author’s own artistic journey, from her early days in London visiting and revisiting Fabritius’s A View of Delft in the National Gallery. Cumming’s luminous descriptions of individual paintings are worth the price of the book alone.

Wifedom (Penguin), by the former human rights lawyer Anna Funder, similarly weaves together memoir and biography to tell the story of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, the first wife of George Orwell who died at the age of 39. Having spent a summer reading Orwell, Funder noticed how little he mentioned Eileen, even though she had joined him on research trips and collaborated with him on works including Nineteen Eighty-Four. And so Funder shifted her attention “from the work to the life, and from the man to the wife”, in the process creating a nuanced portrait of a charismatic, pragmatic woman who, for better or worse, sacrificed her talent for the man she loved.

Cover of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan

Less a straightforward biography than a series of portraits, Red Memory (Faber), by the Guardian’s former China correspondent Tania Branigan, collates remarkable eyewitness accounts of China’s Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of upheaval, paranoia and persecution beginning in 1966. Among Branigan’s interviewees is 60-year-old Zhang Hongbing, who, as a teenager, denounced his mother to the Communist party, leading to her arrest and execution. Zhang takes Branigan to her grave where, between sobs, he chastises his mother for failing to teach him about independence of thought.

Cover of Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg

Jonny Steinberg’s richly detailed Winnie & Nelson (William Collins) documents the relationship of the late anti-apartheid activist and first South African president Nelson Mandela and his second wife, the former social worker Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who died in 2018. Both fought racism at great personal cost, though, as this insightful biography reveals, they also inflicted immeasurable cruelty on one another.

Mary Gabriel’s Madonna: A Rebel Life (Coronet) chronicles, in enthralling detail, Madonna Louise Ciccone’s path from terrifyingly ambitious trainee dancer to pop colossus, all the while placing her in a wider social and cultural context. This is not just the story of massive sales and reinvention but that of a young woman devastated by the loss of her ultra-religious mother and fearlessly battling patriarchal systems, the conservative right and the Catholic church. Another exhaustive portrait of an era-defining star comes courtesy of its subject. Barbra Streisand’s My Name Is Barbra (Century) clocks in at 992 pages, and charts every step of the winding road from Brooklyn to Hollywood.

If both those books reveal the hard graft behind fame, Erotic Vagrancy (Riverrun), by Roger Lewis, tells of the excess. A twin biography of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the actors famed for their on-off relationship and lavish lifestyle, the title is borrowed from a furious Vatican statement drafted during the filming of 1963’s Cleopatra in Italy, which accused the pair of “erotic vagrancy”. Lewis’s magnificently entertaining book – a doorstopper at more than 650 pages – brims with outrageous anecdotes attesting to the couple’s obsession with one another and their chaotic and decadent ways (they once hired a yacht for their dogs). Burton and Taylor are seemingly monstrous – infantile, vulgar, narcissistic – but, as depicted here, they are nothing less than mesmerising.

Best books of the year
Best books of 2023
Biography books
Autobiography and memoir

Best Biographies

The best biographies of 2023: the national book critics circle shortlist, recommended by elizabeth taylor.

Winner of the 2023 NBCC biography prize

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans

The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman

The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle Shortlist - G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

1 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

2 the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, 3 mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, 4 metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, 5 up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.

I t’s a pleasure to have you back , Elizabeth—this time to discuss the National Book Critics Circle’s 2023 biography shortlist. You’ve been chair of the judging panel for a while, so you’re in a great position to tell us whether it has been a good year for biography.

That comes through in the shortlist, I think. There’s a real range here. I think any reader is bound to find something to appeal to their tastes.

Shaping a shortlist seems quite like arranging a bouquet. A clutch of peony, begonia, or orchid stems…each may be lovely, an exemplar in its own way. We aspire to assemble a glorious arrangement—a quintet of blooms that reflect the wildly varied human experiences represented in the verdant garden of biography.

Let’s talk about G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century first, then, shall we? It is your 2023 winner of the NBCC’s prize for best biography; it also won a Pulitzer Prize . It’s also, and correct me if I’m wrong, the most traditional of the biographies that made the list.

G-Man is traditional in as much as Beverly Gage captures the full sweep of Hoover’s life, cradle to grave: 1895 to 1972. In that way, structurally G-Man sits aside the epics of David McCullough ( Truman , John Adams ) and Ron Chernow ( Grant , Alexander Hamilton ).

Unlike those valorized national leaders, Hoover answered to no voters. The quintessential ‘Government Man,’ a counselor and advisor to eight U.S. presidents , of both political parties, he was one of the most powerful, unelected government officials in history. He reigned over the Federal Bureau of Investigations from 1924 to 1972. Hoover began as a young reformer and—as he accrued power—was simultaneously loathed and admired. Through Hoover, Gage skilfully guides readers through the full arc of 20th-century America, and contends: “We cannot know our own story without understanding his.”

In G-Man , Yale University professor Gage untangles the contradictions in Hoover’s aspirations and cruelty, and locates the paradoxical American story of tensions and anxieties over security, masculinity, and race.

“This year, many biographies were deeply rooted in American soil that required years of research to till”

Hoover lived his entire life in Washington D.C., and Gage entwines his story in the city’s evolution into a global power center and delves deeply into the dark childhood that led him to remain there for college. Critical to understanding Hoover, Gage demonstrates, was his embrace of the Kappa Alpha fraternity; its worldview was informed by Robert E. Lee and the ‘Lost Cause’ of the South , in which racial equality was unacceptable. He shaped the F.B.I. in his image and recruited Kappa Alpha men to the Bureau.

For Hoover, Gage writes, Kappa Alpha was a way to measure character, political sympathies, and, of course, loyalty. One of those men was Clyde Tolson, and Gage documents their trips to nightclubs, the racetrack, vacations, and White House receptions. Hoover did not acknowledge that he and Tolson were a couple, but in the end their separate burial plots were a few yards from one another.

While Hoover feels very much alive on the page, Gage captures the full sweep of American history, chronicling events from the hyper-nationalism of the early part of the century, moving into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., making use of newly unclassified documents. When Hoover’s F.B.I. targeted Nazis and gangsters, there was clarity about good guys and bad guys. But by the mid-century, as the nation began to fracture, he regarded calls for peace and justice as threats to national security. Among the abuses of power committed by Hoover’s F.B.I., for instance, was the wiretapping and harassment of King.

Beyond Hoover’s malfeasance, Gage emphasizes that Hoover was no maverick. He tapped into a dark part of the national psyche and had public opinion on his side. Through Hoover, Americans could see themselves, and, as Gage argues, “what we valued and refused to see.”

A biography like this does make you realize how deeply world events might be impacted or even partially predicted by the family background or the personalities of a small number of key individuals.

We should step through the rest of the books on your 2023 biography shortlist. Let’s start with Kerri K. Greenidge’s The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family , which is the story not only of the Grimké Sisters Sarah and Angelina, two well-known abolitionists, but Black members of their family as well.

I was eager to read The Grimkés as I had admired Greenidge’s earlier biography, Black Radical , about Boston civil rights leader and abolitionist newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter. Greenidge, a professor at Tufts University, brings her unique, perceptive eye to African American civil rights in the North.

Now Greenidge’s The Grimkés sits on my bookshelf next to The Hemingses of Monticello , the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Annette Gordon-Reed who exposed the contradictions of one of the most venerated figures in American history, Thomas Jefferson. In the Grimke family, Greenidge has found a gnarled family tree, deeply rooted in generations of trauma.

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke have been exalted as brave heroines who defied antebellum Southern piety and headed northward to embrace abolition. Greenridge makes the powerful case that, in clinging to this mythology, a more troubling story is obscured. In the North, as the Grimké sisters lived comfortably and agitated for change, they enjoyed the financial benefits of their slaveholding family in South Carolina.

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After the Civil War, they learned that their brute of a brother had fathered at least two sons with a woman whom he had enslaved. The sisters provided some financial assistance in the education of these two young men, one attended Harvard Law School and the other Princeton Divinity School—and did not let their nephews forget it.

Not only does Greenidge provide a revisionist history of the Grimke sisters, but she also takes account of the full Grimké family and extends their story beyond the 19th century. She delves into the dynamics of racial subordination and how free white men who conceive children — whether from rape or a relationship spanning decades with enslaved women—destroy families. Generations of children are haunted by this history. Poignantly, Greenidge evokes the life and work of the sisters’ grandniece Angelina (‘Nana’) Weld Grimké , a talented—and troubled—queer playwright and poet, who carried the heavy weight of the generational trauma she inherited.

This sounds like a family saga of the kind you might be more likely to find in fiction.

Let’s turn to Mr B . : George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans, the story of the noted choreographer. Why did this make your shortlist of the best biographies of 2023?

The perfect match of biographer and subject! A dancer who trained with Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York and is now dance critic for The New Yorker, Homans has written a biography of the man known as ‘the Shakespeare of Dance.’ In felicitous prose, Homans channels the dancer’s experience onto the page, from the body movements that can produce such beauty to the aching tendons and ligaments. Training is transformation, Homan writes, and working with Balanchine was a kind of metamorphosis tangled with pain. She evokes the dances so vividly that one can almost hear the music.

“At the heart of biography is the quest to understand the interplay between individual and social forces”

Homans captures Balanchine in a constant state of reinvention, tracing his life from Czarist Russia to Weimar Berlin , finally making his way to post-war New York where he revitalized the world of ballet by embracing modernish, founding New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine was genius whose personal history shape-shifted over the years. Homans grounds Mr. B in more than a hundred interviews, and draws from archives around the world.

Homans captures Balanchine’s charisma and cultural importance, but Mr. B. is no hagiography. Homans grasps the knot of sex and power over women used in his work. He married four times, always to dancers. They were all the same kind of swan-necked, long-waisted, long-limbed women, and although Homans does not write this, his company often sounds more like a cult than art.

And, of course, there is the matter of weight, which Homans dealt with directly, as did Balanchine. He posted a sign: ‘BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PAY—YOU MUST WEIGH.’

I don’t think I’ve ever considered reading a ballet biography before, but it sounds fascinating.

The next book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist brings us to Oxford, England. This is Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman.

At the outset of World War II , a quartet of young women, Oxford students—Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley—were “bored of listening to men talk about books by men about men,” as Mac Cumhaill, a Durham University professor, and Wiseman, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, write. In their marvelous group biography, MacCumhaill and Wiseman vivify how the friendships of these women congealed to bring “philosophy back to life.”

As their male counterparts departed for the front lines, this brilliant group of women came together in their dining halls and shared lodging quarters to challenge the thinking of their male colleagues. In the shadows of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, these friends rejected the logical positivists who favoured empirical scientific questions. They didn’t really create a distinct philosophical approach as much as they shared an interest in the metaphysics of morals.

Brilliant. A book that is ostensibly ‘improving’ but which turns out to be absolutely chock-full of gossip sounds perfect to me. Let’s move on to the fourth book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist, which is Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs.

A biography about writing biography ! Very meta, and very much in the interdisciplinary tradition of American Studies. In his gorgeous braid of cultural history, Cornell University professor Sachs entwines the lives and work of poet and fiction writer Herman Melville (1819-1891) and the philosopher and literary critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), illuminating their coextending concerns about their worlds in crisis.

While Melville is now firmly ensconced in the American canon, most appreciation and respect for him was posthumous. The 20th-century Melville revival was largely sparked by a now overlooked Mumford, once so prominent that he appeared on a 1936 Time magazine cover.

Sachs brilliantly provides the connective tissue between Melville and his biographer Mumford so that these writers seem to be in conversation with one another, both deeply affected by their dark times.

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As Mumford grappled with tragedies wrought by World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic and urban decay, Melville had dealt with the bloody Civil War , slavery , and industrialization. In a certain way, this book is about the art of biography itself, two writers wrestling with modernity in a bleak world. In delving into Melville’s angst, Mumford was thrust into great turmoil. Sachs evokes so clearly and painfully this bond that almost did Mumford in, and writes that “Melville, it turns out, was Mumford’s white whale.”

There’s a real sense of range in this shortlist. But do you get a sense of there being certain trends in biography as a genre in 2023?

In many ways, this is a golden era for biography. There are fewer dull but worthy books, more capacious and improvisational ones. More series of short biographies that pack a big punch. We see more group biographies and illustrated biographies. But just as figures and groups once considered marginal are being centered, records that document those lives are vanishing.

The crisis in local news and the homogenization of national and international news will soon be a crisis for biographers and historians. Where would historians be without the ‘slave narratives’ from the Federal Writers Project , or the Federal Theatre Project ? Reconstruction of public events—federal elections, national tragedies, and so on—may be possible, but we lose that wide spectrum of human experience. We need to preserve these artifacts and responses to events as they happen. Biographies are time-consuming labors of love and passion, and are often expensive to produce. We need to ensure that we are generating and saving the emails, the records, the to-do lists of ordinary life.

The affluent among us will always be able to commission histories of their companies or families, but are those the only ones that will endure?

June 30, 2023

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Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is a co-author of American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation with Adam Cohen, with whom she also cofounded The National Book Review. She has chaired four Pulitzer Prize juries, served as president of the National Book Critics Circle, and presided over the Harold Washington Literary Award selection committee three times. Former Time magazine correspondent in New York and Chicago and long-time literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, she is working on a biography of women in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras for Liveright/W.W. Norton.

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The Best Memoirs of 2023

These ten books explore what it means to be a person..

The beauty of memoir is its resistance to confinement: We contain multitudes, so our methods of introspection must, too. This year’s best memoirs perfectly showcase such variety. Some are sparse, slippery — whole lives pieced together through fragmented memories, letters to loved ones, recipes, mythology, scripture. Some tease the boundary between truth and fiction. Others elevate straightforward narratives by incorporating political theory, philosophy, and history. The authors of each understand that one’s life — and more significantly, one’s self — can’t be contained in facts. After all, the facts as we remember them aren’t really facts. It’s their openness and experimentation that allow, at once, intimacy and universality, provoking some of our biggest questions: How does a person become who they are? What makes up an identity? What are the stories we tell ourselves, and why do they matter? These books might not spell out the answers for you, but they’ll certainly push you toward them.

10. Hijab Butch Blues , by Lamya H

NYC-based organizer Lamya H (a pseudonym) has described her memoir as “unapologetically queer and unapologetically Muslim .” What this looks like is a book that isn’t so much grappling with or reconciling two conflicting identities, but rather lovingly examining the ways each has supported and strengthened the other. Lamya provides close, queer readings of the Quran, drawing connections between its stories and her own experiences of persecution as a brown girl growing up in an (unnamed) Arab country with strict colorist hierarchies. Beginning with her study of the prophet Maryam — whose virgin pregnancy and general rejection of men brings a confused 14-year-old Lamya real relief during Quran class — Lamya draws on various religious figures to track her political, spiritual, and sexual coming of age, jumping back and forth in time as she grows from a struggling child into a vital artist and activist.

9. Better Living Through Birding , by Christian Cooper

On May 25, 2020, birder Christian Cooper was walking the Central Park Ramble when he asked a white woman on the same path to leash her dog. She refused, he started recording, and after both he and his sister posted the video on social media , the whole world saw her call 911 and falsely claim that an African American man was threatening both her and her dog. Cooper quickly found himself at the center of an urgent conversation about weaponized whiteness and police brutality against Black men in the U.S., amplified by another devastating video circulating that same day: George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. Many will pick up Cooper’s memoir for his account of the interaction that captured international attention and forever changed his life — and it is a powerful, damning examination — but it is far from the main event. By the time it shows up, Cooper has already given us poignant recollections of growing up Black and gay (and in the closet) in 1970s Long Island, a loving analysis of science fiction, a behind-the-scenes look at the comic-book industry as it broke through to the mainstream, and most significantly, an impassioned ode to and accessible education on recreational birding. (The audiobook comes with interstitial birdsong!) Recalling his time at Harvard, Cooper turns repeatedly to his love of his English classes, and this background comes through in his masterful writing. An already prolific writer in the comic-book space, his memoir marks his first (and hopefully not last) foray into the long-form territory.

8. Love and Sex, Death and Money , by McKenzie Wark

McKenzie Wark is one of the sharpest, most exciting voices writing at the intersections of capitalism, community, gender, and sex — more broadly, everything in this title — and she is also criminally underread. In her epistolary memoir Love and Sex … , she looks at a lifetime of transitions — journeys not only through her gender, but also politics, art, relationships, and aging — and reflects on all the ways she has become the woman she is today, in letters to the people who helped shape her. Wark’s first letter is, fittingly, directed to her younger self. She acknowledges their infinite possible futures and that, in this way, this younger Wark on the brink of independence is the one most responsible for setting her on the path to this specific future. In theory, it’s a letter to offer clarity, even guidance, to this younger self, but really it’s a means of listening to and learning from her. Her letters to mothers, lovers, and others are as much, if not more, about Wark as they are about the recipients, but that self-reflection doubles as a testament to the recipients’ power. What comes across most strongly is Wark’s belief in ongoing evolution and education, and it’s hard not to leave inspired by that possibility.

7. A Man of Two Faces , by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen’s memoir maintains the singular voice of his fiction: audacious, poetic, self-aware. Written in nonlinear second-person stream of consciousness — its disjointedness represented on the page by paragraphs volleying from left to right alignment across the page — A Man of Two Faces recounts his life as a Vietnamese refugee in the U.S. When his family moves from wartime Vietnam to San Jose, California, 4-year-old Nguyen is placed in a different sponsor home than the rest of his family. The separation is brief, but it sets a tone of alienation that continues throughout his life — both from his parents, who left their home in pursuit of safety but landed in a place with its own brand of violence, and from his new home. As he describes his journey into adulthood and academia, Nguyen incorporates literary and cultural criticism, penetrating analyses of political history and propaganda, and poignant insights about memory and trauma.

6. Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere , by Maria Bamford

It’s safe to say alt-comedian Maria Bamford’s voice isn’t for everyone. Those who get her anti-stand-up stand-up get it and those who don’t, don’t. Her absurdist, meta series Lady Dynamite revealed the work of a woman learning to recognize and love her brilliant weirdness, and in Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult , she channels that weirdness into a disarmingly earnest, more accessible account of both fame and mental illness. Centered on Bamford’s desperate pursuit of belonging, and the many, often questionable places it’s led her — church, the comedy scene, self-actualization conferences, 12-step groups, each of which she puts under the umbrella of the titular “cults” — Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult is egoless, eye-opening, uncomfortable, and laugh-out-loud funny. These are among the best qualities — maybe even prerequisites — of an effective mental-illness memoir, and Bamford’s has earned its keep in the top tier. If you’re thinking of skipping it because you haven’t connected with Bamford’s work before: don’t.

5. In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation , by Isabel Zapata

In Isabel Zapata’s intimate, entrancing memoir In Vitro , the Mexican poet brazenly breaks what she calls “the first rule of in vitro fertilization”: never talk about it. Originally published in Spanish in 2021, and with original drawings woven throughout, In Vitro is a slim collection of short, discrete pieces. Its fragments not only describe the invasive process and its effects on her mind and body, but also contextualize its lineage, locating the deep-seated draw of motherhood and conception, analyzing the inheritances of womanhood, and speaking directly to her potential child. All together, it becomes something expansive — an insightful personal history but also a brilliant philosophical text about the very nature of sacrifice and autonomy.

4. The Night Parade , by Jami Nakamura Lin

When Jami Nakamura Lin was 17 years old, she checked herself into a psych ward and was diagnosed bipolar. After years experiencing disorienting periods of rage, the diagnosis offers validation — especially for her historically dismissive parents — but it doesn’t provide the closure that mainstream depictions of mental illness promise. In The Night Parade , intriguingly categorized as a speculative memoir, Lin explains that if a story is good, it “collapses time”; in other words, it has no beginning or end. Chasing this idea, Lin turns to the stories of her Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan heritage, using their demons, spirits, and monsters to challenge ideas of recovery and resituate her feelings of otherness. Intertwined in this pursuit is her grappling with the young death of her father and the birth of her daughter after a traumatic miscarriage. Extensively researched — citing not only folklore but also scholars of history, literary, and mythology — and elevated by her sister Cori Nakamura Lin’s lush illustrations, The Night Parade is both an entirely new perspective on bipolar disorder and a fascinating education in mythology by an expert who so clearly loves the material. It might be Lin’s first book, but it possesses the self-assurance, courage, and mastery of a seasoned writer.

3. Doppelganger , by Naomi Klein

After the onset of the COVID pandemic, as the U.S. devolved into frenzied factions, sociopolitical analyst Naomi Klein found herself in the middle of her own bewildering drama: A substantial population, especially online, began to either confuse or merge her with Naomi Wolf, a writer who’d gone from feminist intellectual to anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist. Klein’s initial bemusement becomes real concern verging on obsession as she fixates on her sort-of doppelgänger and starts questioning the stability of her identity. Klein becomes entangled in the world of her opposite, tracing the possible pipelines from leftism to alt-right and poking at the cracks in our convictions. Throughout, she nails the uncanniness of our digital existence, the ways constant performance of life both splinters and constrains the self. What happens when we sacrifice our humanity in the pursuit of a cohesive personal brand? And when we’re this far gone, is there any turning back?

2. The Woman in Me , by Britney Spears

Throughout the yearslong campaign to release Britney Spears from a predatory conservatorship , the lingering conspiracy theories questioning its success , and the ongoing cultural discourse about the ways public scrutiny has harmed her, what has largely been missing is Spears’s own voice. In her highly anticipated memoir, she lays it all out: her upbringing in a family grappling with multiple generations of abuse, the promise and betrayal of stardom, her exploitation and manipulation by loved ones, and the harrowing, dehumanizing realities of her conservatorship . These revelations are tempered by moments of genuine joy she’s found in love, motherhood, and singing, though it’s impossible to read these recollections without anticipating the loss — or at least the complication — of these joys. Most touching are her descriptions of her relationships with her sons; her tone is conversational, but it resonates with deep, undying devotion. It’s an intimate story, and one that forces questions about our treatment of mental illness, the ethics of psychiatric practices, the relationships between public figures and their fans, and the effects of fame — especially on young women. Justice for Britney, forever.

1. Pulling the Chariot of the Sun , by Shane McCrae

When Shane McCrae was 3 years old, his white maternal grandparents told his Black father they were taking Shane on a camping trip. It wasn’t the first time they’d done so, but this time, they never returned. What followed was a life full of instability, abuse, and manipulation, while his grandparents — including a grandfather who had, more than once, trawled cities for Black men to attack — convinced McCrae his father had abandoned him and that his Blackness was a handicap. It’s clear McCrae is first and foremost a poet; the rhythm of his prose and his hypnotic evocation of sensory memory reveals the way a lifetime of lies affected his grasp on his past. Maybe he can’t trust the facts of his past, but he certainly knows what it felt like, what it looked like. As he excavates and untangles muddied memories, contends with ambivalent feelings about his grandmother and mother, and ultimately comes to terms with their unforgivable robbery of a relationship with both his father and his true, full self, McCrae’s pain bleeds through his words — but so too does a gentle sense of acceptance. We are lucky to bear witness.

vulture section lede
celebrity memoirs
britney spears
maria bamford
year in culture
best of 2023

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Best Biographies of 2023

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by Patti Hartigan

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by Walter Isaacson

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The best biographies to read in 2023

Nik Rawlinson

Discover what inspired some of history’s most familiar names with these comprehensive biographies

The best biographies can be inspirational, can provide important life lessons – and can warn us off a dangerous path. They’re also a great way to learn more about important figures in history, politics, business and entertainment. That’s because the best biographies not only reveal what a person did with their life, but what effect it had and, perhaps most importantly, what inspired them to act as they did.

Where both a biography and an autobiography exist, you might be tempted to plump for the latter, assuming you’d get a more accurate and in-depth telling of the subject’s life story. While that may be true, it isn’t always the case. It’s human nature to be vain, and who could blame a celebrity or politician if they covered up their embarrassments and failures when committing their lives to paper? A biographer, so long as they have the proof to back up their claims, may have less incentive to spare their subject’s blushes, and thus produce a more honest account – warts and all.

That said, we’ve steered clear of the sensational in selecting the best biographies for you. Rather, we’ve focused on authoritative accounts of notable names, in each case written some time after their death, when a measured, sober assessment of their actions and impact can be given.

Best biographies: At a glance

Best literary biography: Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley | £20
Best showbiz biography: Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood | £6.78
Best political biography: Hitler by Ian Kershaw | £14

How to choose the best biography for you

There are so many biographies to choose from that it can be difficult knowing which to choose. This is especially true when there are several competing titles focused on the same subject. Try asking yourself these questions.

Is the author qualified?

Wikipedia contains potted biographies of every notable figure you could ever want to read about. So, if you’re going to spend several hours with a novel-sized profile it must go beyond the basics – and you want to be sure that the author knows what they’re talking about.

That doesn’t mean they need to have been personally acquainted with the subject, as Jasper Rees was with Victoria Wood. Ian Kershaw never met Adolf Hitler (he was, after all, just two years old when Hitler killed himself), but he published his first works on the subject in the late 1980s, has advised on BBC documentaries about the Second World War, and is an acknowledged expert on the Nazi era. It’s no surprise, then, that his biography of the dictator is extensive, comprehensive and acclaimed.

Is there anything new to say?

What inspires someone to write a biography – particularly of someone whose life has already been documented? Sometimes it can be the discovery of new facts, perhaps through the uncovering of previously lost material or the release of papers that had been suppressed on the grounds of national security. But equally, it may be because times have changed so much that the context of previous biographies is no longer relevant. Attitudes, in particular, evolve with time, and what might have been considered appropriate behaviour in the 1950s would today seem discriminatory or shocking. So, an up-to-date biography that places the subject’s actions and motivations within a modern context can make it a worthwhile read, even if you’ve read an earlier work already.

Does it look beyond the subject?

The most comprehensive biographies place their subject in context – and show how that context affected their outlook and actions or is reflected in their work. Lucy Worsley’s new biography of Agatha Christie is a case in point, referencing Christie’s works to show how real life influenced her fiction. Mathew Parker’s Goldeneye does the same for Bond author Ian Fleming – and in doing so, both books enlarge considerably on the biography’s core subject.

READ NEXT: Best reading lights to brighten up your page

1. Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood by Jasper Rees: Best showbiz biography

Price: £6.78 | Buy now from Amazon

It’s hardly surprising Victoria Wood never got around to writing her own autobiography. Originator of countless sketches, songs, comedy series, films, plays, documentaries and a sitcom, she kept pushing back the mammoth job of chronicling her life until it was too late. Wood’s death in 2016 came as a surprise to many, with the entertainer taking her final bow in private at the end of a battle with cancer she had fought away from the public eye.

In the wake of her death, her estate approached journalist Jasper Rees, who had interviewed her on many occasions, with the idea of writing the story that Wood had not got around to writing herself. With their backing, Rees’ own encounters with Wood, and the comic’s tape-recorded notes to go on, the result is a chunky, in-depth, authoritative account of her life. It seems unlikely that Wood could have written it more accurately – nor more fully – herself.

Looking back, it’s easy to forget that Wood wasn’t a constant feature on British TV screens, that whole years went by when her focus would be on writing or performing on stage, or even that her career had a surprisingly slow start after a lonely childhood in which television was a constant companion. This book reminds us of those facts – and that Wood wasn’t just a talented performer, but a hard worker, too, who put in the hours required to deliver the results.

Let’s Do It, which takes its title from a lyric in one of Wood’s best-known songs, The Ballad of Barry & Freda, is a timely reminder that there are two sides to every famous character: one public and one private. It introduces us to the person behind the personality, and shows how the character behind the characters for which she is best remembered came to be.

Key specs – Length: 592 pages; Publisher: Trapeze; ISBN: 978-1409184119

Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood

2. the chief: the life of lord northcliffe, britain’s greatest press baron by andrew roberts: best business biography.

Lord Northcliffe wasn’t afraid of taking risks – many of which paid off handsomely. He founded a small paper called Answers to Correspondents, branched out into comics, and bought a handful of newspapers. Then he founded the Daily Mail, and applied what he’d learned in running his smaller papers on a far grander scale. The world of publishing – in Britain and beyond – was never the same again. The Daily Mail was a huge success, which led to the founding of the Daily Mirror, primarily for women, and his acquisition of the Observer, Times and Sunday Times.

By then, Northcliffe controlled almost half of Britain’s daily newspaper circulation. Nobody before him had ever enjoyed such reach – or such influence over the British public – as he did through his titles. This gave him sufficient political clout to sway the direction of government in such fundamental areas as the establishment of the Irish Free State and conscription in the run-up to the First World War. He was appointed to head up Britain’s propaganda operation during the conflict, and in this position he became a target for assassination, with a German warship shelling his home in Broadstairs. Beyond publishing, he was ahead of many contemporaries in understanding the potential of aviation as a force for good, as a result of which he funded several highly valuable prizes for pioneers in the field.

He achieved much in his 57 years, as evidenced by this biography, but suffered both physical and mental ill health towards the end. The empire that he built may have fragmented since his passing, with the Daily Mirror, Observer, Times and Sunday Times having left the group that he founded, but his influence can still be felt. For anyone who wants to understand how and why titles like the Daily Mail became so successful, The Chief is an essential read.

Key specs – Length: 556 pages; Publisher: Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 978-1398508712

The Chief: The Life of Lord Northcliffe Britain's Greatest Press Baron

3. goldeneye by matthew parker: best biography for cinema fans.

The name Goldeneye is synonymous with James Bond. It was the title of both a film and a video game, a fictional super weapon, a real-life Second World War plan devised by author Ian Fleming, and the name of the Jamaican estate where he wrote one Bond book every year between 1952 and his death in 1964. The Bond film makers acknowledged this in 2021’s No Time To Die, making that estate the home to which James Bond retired, just as his creator had done at the end of the war, 75 years earlier.

Fleming had often talked of his plan to write the spy novel to end all spy novels once the conflict was over, and it’s at Goldeneye that he fulfilled that ambition. Unsurprisingly, many of his experiences there found their way into his prose and the subsequent films, making this biography as much a history of Bond itself as it is a focused retelling of Fleming’s life in Jamaica. It’s here, we learn, that Fleming first drinks a Vesper at a neighbour’s house. Vesper later became a character in Casino Royale and, in the story, Bond devises a drink to fit the name. Fleming frequently ate Ackee fish while in residence; the phonetically identical Aki was an important character in You Only Live Twice.

Parker finds more subtle references, too, observing that anyone who kills a bird or owl in any of the Bond stories suffers the spy’s wrath. This could easily be overlooked, but it’s notable, and logical: Fleming had a love of birds, and Bond himself was named after the ornithologist James Bond, whose book was on Fleming’s shelves at Goldeneye.

So this is as much the biography of a famous fictional character as it is of an author, and of the house that he occupied for several weeks every year. So much of Fleming’s life at Goldeneye influenced his work that this is an essential read for any Bond fan – even if you’ve already read widely on the subject and consider yourself an aficionado. Parker’s approach is unusual, but hugely successful, and the result is an authoritative, wide-ranging biography about one of this country’s best-known authors, his central character, an iconic location and a country in the run-up to – and immediately following – its independence from Britain.

Key specs – Length: 416 pages; Publisher: Windmill Books; ISBN: 978-0099591740

Goldeneye: Where Bond was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica

4. hitler by ian kershaw: best political biography.

The latter portion of Adolf Hitler’s life, from his coming to power in 1933 to his suicide in 1945, is minutely documented, and known to a greater or lesser degree by anyone who has passed through secondary education. But what of his earlier years? How did this overlooked art student become one of the most powerful and destructive humans ever to have existed? What were his influences? What was he like?

Kershaw has the answers. This door stopper, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, is an abridged compilation of two earlier works: Hitler 1889 – 1936: Hubris, and Hitler 1936 – 1946: Nemesis. Yet, abridged though it may be, it remains extraordinarily detailed, and the research shines through. Kershaw spends no time warming his engines: Hitler is born by page three, to a social-climbing father who had changed the family name to something less rustic than it had been. As Kershaw points out, “Adolf can be believed when he said that nothing his father had done pleased him so much as to drop the coarsely rustic name of Schicklgruber. ‘Heil Schicklgruber’ would have sounded an unlikely salutation to a national hero.”

There’s no skimping on context, either, with each chapter given space to explore the political, economic and social influences on Hitler’s development and eventual emergence as leader. Kershaw pinpoints 1924 as the year that “can be seen as the time when, like a phoenix arising from the ashes, Hitler could begin his emergence from the ruins of the broken and fragmented volkisch movement to become eventually the absolute leader with total mastery over a reformed, organisationally far stronger, and internally more cohesive Nazi Party”. For much of 1924, Hitler was in jail, working on Mein Kampf and, by the point of his release, the movement to which he had attached himself had been marginalised. Few could have believed that it – and he – would rise again and take over first Germany, then much of Europe. Here, you’ll find out how it happened.

If you’re looking for an authoritative, in-depth biography of one of the most significant figures in modern world history, this is it. Don’t be put off by its length: it’s highly readable, and also available as an audiobook which, although it runs to 44 hours, can be sped up to trim the overall running time.

Key specs – Length: 1,072 pages; Publisher: Penguin; ISBN: 978-0141035888

5. Stalin’s Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow by Deyan Sudjic: Best historical biography

Boris Iofan died in 1976, but his influence can still be felt today – in particular, through the architectural influences evident in many mid-century buildings across Eastern Europe. Born in Odessa in 1891, he trained in architecture and, upon returning to Russia after time spent in Western Europe, gained notoriety for designing the House on the Embankment, a monumental block-wide building containing more than 500 flats, plus the shops and other facilities required to service them.

“Iofan’s early success was based on a sought-after combination of characteristics: he was a member of the Communist Party who was also an accomplished architect capable of winning international attention,” writes biographer Deyan Sudjic. “He occupied a unique position as a bridge between the pre-revolutionary academicians… and the constructivist radicals whom the party saw as bringing much-needed international attention and prestige but never entirely trusted. His biggest role was to give the party leadership a sense of what Soviet architecture could be – not in a theoretical sense or as a drawing, which they would be unlikely to understand, but as a range of built options that they could actually see.”

Having established himself, much of the rest of his life was spent working on his designs for the Palace of the Soviets, which became grander and less practical with every iteration. This wasn’t entirely Iofan’s fault. He had become a favourite of the party elite, and of Stalin himself, who added to the size and ambition of the intended building over the years. Eventually, the statue of Lenin that was destined to stand atop its central tower would have been over 300ft tall, and would have had an outstretched index finger 14ft long. There was a risk that this would freeze in the winter, and the icicles that dropped from it would have been a significant danger to those going into and out of the building below it.

Although construction work began, the Palace of the Soviets was never completed. Many of Iofan’s other buildings remain, though, and his pavilions for the World Expos in Paris and New York are well documented – in this book as well as elsewhere. Lavishly illustrated, it recounts Iofan’s life and examines his work in various stages, from rough outline, through technical drawing, to photographs of completed buildings – where they exist.

Key specs – Length: 320 pages; Publisher: Thames and Hudson; ISBN: 978-0500343555

Stalin's Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow

6. agatha christie: a very elusive woman by lucy worsley: best literary biography.

Agatha Christie died in 1976 but, with more than 70 novels and 150 short stories to her name, she remains one of the best-selling authors of all time. A new biography from historian Lucy Worsley is therefore undoubtedly of interest. It’s comprehensive and highly readable – and opinionated – with short chapters that make it easy to dip into and out of on a break.

Worsley resists the temptation to skip straight to the books. Poirot doesn’t appear until chapter 11 with publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which Christie wrote while working in a Torquay hospital. Today, Poirot is so well known, not only from the books but from depictions in film and television, that it’s easy to overlook how groundbreaking the character was upon his arrival.

As Worsley explains, “by choosing to make Hercule Poirot a foreigner, and a refugee as well, Agatha created the perfect detective for an age when everyone was growing surfeited with soldiers and action heroes. He’s so physically unimpressive that no-one expects Poirot to steal the show. Rather like a stereotypical woman, Poirot cannot rely upon brawn to solve problems, for he has none. He has to use brains instead… There’s even a joke in his name. Hercules, of course, is a muscular classical hero, but Hercule Poirot has a name like himself: diminutive, fussy, camp, and Agatha would show Poirot working in a different way to [Sherlock] Holmes.” Indeed, where Holmes rolls around on the floor picking up cigar ash in his first published case, Poirot, explains Worsley, does not stoop to gather clues: he needs only his little grey cells. Worsley’s approach is thorough and opinionated, and has resulted not only in a biography of Christie herself, but also her greatest creations, which will appeal all the more to the author’s fans.

As with Matthew Parker’s Goldeneye, there’s great insight here into what influenced Christie’s work, and Worsley frequently draws parallels between real life events and episodes, characters or locations in her novels. As a result of her experiences as a medical volunteer during the First World War, for example, during which a rigid hierarchy persisted and the medics behaved shockingly, doctors became the most common culprit in her books; the names of real people found their way into her fiction; and on one occasion Christie assembled what today might be called a focus group to underpin a particular plot point.

Worsley is refreshingly opinionated and, where events in the author’s life take centre stage, doesn’t merely re-state the facts, but investigates Christie’s motivations to draw her own conclusions. This is particularly the case in the chapters examining Christie’s disappearance in 1926, which many previous biographers have portrayed as an attempt to frame her husband for murder. Worsley’s own investigation leads to alternative conclusions, which seem all the more plausible today, when society has a better understanding of – and is more sympathetic towards – the effects of psychological distress.

Key specs – Length: 432 pages; Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton; ISBN: 978-1529303889

Buy now from Waterstones

13 New Memoirs We Can't Wait to Read in 2023

A collection of six diverse books laid out on a green background, each offering a unique story or perspective, from environmental activism to personal memoirs.

These promising reads belong at the top of your TBR list.

A bevy of noteworthy new memoirs are headed our way this year – and we picked out the best of the best. From inspirational environmental narratives and heartfelt meditations on mental health to highly anticipated tell-alls, here are the upcoming memoirs you don’t want to miss.

By Mya-Rose Craig

Nature and family intertwine in Mya-Rose Craig’s moving new memoir, Birdgirl . The 20-year-old author is an avid birder and environmentalist, and in her memoir, she chronicles her family’s travels around the world as they search for birds and marvel at the fragile beauty of nature . Craig also opens up about her mother’s mental health struggles and documents the many ways that being together in nature has helped her family thrive. Indeed, Craig encourages all of us to spend more time outdoors – both to restore balance in our personal lives and to spur us into action against the climate crisis. “An excellent mix of travelogue, memoir, and advocacy” ( Kirkus , starred review), Birdgirl soars.

Publication date: March 28, 2023

While You Were Out

By meg kissinger.

In this intimate and unflinching new memoir, investigative journalist Meg Kissinger draws on her family’s experiences with mental illness to explore America’s deeply flawed attitudes toward mental health and its failing healthcare system. Kissinger is an award-winning reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist who’s dedicated her career to exposing the inadequacy of care for people suffering from mental illness. In While You Were Out , she turns her attention to her own family’s struggles with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Growing up in the 1960s Chicago suburbs, Meg and her family kept their mental health battles and two siblings’ deaths by suicide a closely guarded secret. Years later, the author is ready to open up about her heartache, grief, and her family’s steadfast devotion as she shines a light on promising new mental health treatments and strategies. “We found ways to help and support each other and ourselves,” Kissinger explains. “I hoped our family’s story could offer insight, solace, and inspiration.”

Publication date: September 5, 2023

Being Henry: The Fonz...and Beyond

By henry winkler.

Henry Winkler, launched into prominence by his role as “The Fonz” in the beloved Happy Days , has transcended the role that made him who he is. Brilliant, funny, and widely-regarded as the nicest man in Hollywood, Henry shares in this achingly vulnerable memoir the disheartening truth of his childhood, the difficulties of a life with severe dyslexia, the pressures of a role that takes on a life of its own, and the path forward once your wildest dream seems behind you.

Publication date: October 31, 2023

Good for a Girl

By lauren fleshman.

Lauren Fleshman is a top-tier distance runner, having won five NCAA championships at Stanford and two national championships as a professional athlete. Good for a Girl is both a love letter to competitive sports and a striking rebuke of the way the sports industry treats women and young girls. Blending personal memoir with a stirring manifesto, Fleshman cites sports physiology and psychology alongside her own experiences to expose gender disparities in athletics and lays out a path for the sports world to inspire a new wave of female participants. A New York Times bestseller, Good for a Girl is a must-read new sports book that doubles as a rousing “call to action for the coaches, parents, and young women of future athletic generations” ( The Atlantic ).

Publication date: January 10, 2023

Hijab Butch Blues

Faith, family, community, identity, culture… Each plays a vital role in this radical new coming-of-age LGBTQ memoir . Lamya H was born in South Asia and moved to the Middle East as a child. Throughout her early years, she searched for her identity and a place to belong. Lamya H then moved to the U.S. for college, where she began a new chapter as an openly queer devout Muslim. In Hijab Butch Blues , the author draws parallels between her journey and famous stories from the Quran to craft a series of heartfelt essays on queerness, community, devotion, and the immigrant experience . “Hopeful and uplifting” ( Kirkus ), Hijab Butch Blues makes an ideal memoir book club pick and is not to be missed.

Publication date: February 7, 2023

Forager: Field Notes on Surviving a Family Cult

By michelle dowd.

In this “inspiring and insightful tale of resilience in the face of adversity” ( Booklist ), Michelle Dowd vividly relates her experience growing up in an utterly oppressive environment. The author was born into a doomsday cult known as the Field, run by her domineering grandfather. As a child, she was told to distrust outsiders and bow to her family’s extreme religious demands. It was a time of hardship, isolation, and abuse. As a result, Dowd had no choice but to learn how to take care of herself and – crucially – how to live off the land. In Forager , Dowd chronicles her coming-of-age story , sharing the foraging skills she learned and tracing the way in which her capacity for survival ultimately led to her freedom.

Publication date: March 7, 2023

A Living Remedy

By nicole chung.

In her bestselling All You Can Ever Know , Nicole Chung movingly documented her search for the parents that gave her up for adoption . In Chung’s new memoir, the author writes about her adoptive parents and the many hardships they endured – from stretching their paychecks to keep food on the table to living under the shadow of overwhelming medical bills. Chung’s sorrow and rage come to a head when her father passes away at 67, and she realizes that his limited access to healthcare contributed to his death. Beautifully told, A Living Remedy is a “tender personal story with powerful social and political ramifications” ( BookPage ).

Publication date: April 4, 2023

You Could Make This Place Beautiful

By maggie smith.

Think of this lyrical new memoir by award-winning poet Maggie Smith as a literary spiral. At its center, is the collapse of Smith’s marriage, a very personal sadness. Smith then traces that emotional episode outward, leading us along the spiral’s widening curve into an exploration of what it means to be a woman, a mother, a worker, and a traveler on the road of life. We discover a bit about ourselves as we follow Smith on her journey. In You Could Make This Place Beautiful , the author boldly reminds her readers that you can “survive deep loss, sink into life’s deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new” (Glennon Doyle, New York Times bestselling author).

Publication date: April 11, 2023

The Forgotten Girls

By monica potts.

Growing up in rural Arkansas, Monica Potts and her best friend Darci dreamed about where their lives would lead. The gifted young students seemed destined for bright futures. Reality, however, played out quite differently. Potts left for college and followed her dream of becoming a journalist and writer. Years later, while reporting on rampant poverty in her home state, she caught back up with Darci. Her childhood friend was now a single mother raising two kids, unemployed, addicted to meth, and on the brink of homelessness. How did their lives take such starkly different paths? The Forgotten Girls is a powerful and enlightening portrait of poverty, addiction, and broken dreams in the land of opportunity.

Publication date: April 18, 2023

A book cover with a black border blending into an old-fashioned photo depicting a bustling street scene in a historic chinatown. the title "mott street" is prominently displayed in calligraphic white font at the top, with the subtitle "a chinese american family's story of exclusion and homecoming" by ava chin in smaller white lettering against the photograph's background.

Mott Street

By ava chin.

Ava Chin grew up with her mom in Queens, New York, without knowing her father or indeed much about her family. Determined to learn more about her roots, Chin began an extensive search and soon discovered how her ancestors were affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese immigrants from citizenship for six decades. Her relatives built their lives out of one building on Mott Street in New York City’s Chinatown. In Mott Street , Chin carefully unravels their stories of survival and reinvention, creating a stunning family tree and an epic portrait of the Chinese American experience.

Publication date: April 25, 2023

Women We Buried, Women We Burned

By rachel louise snyder.

Turmoil and resiliency defined Rachel Louise Snyder’s formative years. At the age of eight, she lost her mother. Then her father uprooted the family and moved everyone into a cultish evangelical community thousands of miles away. Snyder rebelled, was forced out of school and home, and at the age of 16 found herself living out of her car and fending for herself. And yet, she endured, first working her way through college and then transforming into a fierce women’s advocate and an award-winning reporter on domestic violence. In Women We Buried, Women We Burned , Snyder chronicles her story. It’s a memoir of violence and loss, yes, but also of survival, transformation, and hope .

Publication date: May 23, 2023

Confident and contemplative, a person poses against a red backdrop for the cover of their memoir titled 'pageboy'.

By Elliot Page

The hit 2007 movie Juno elevated Elliot Page to the center stage, earning him an Oscar nomination and increased scrutiny from the media and the public. Yet while society sought to cast him in the role of a Hollywood star, Page was determined to come to terms with his identity in his own way. The actor publicly came out as transgender in December 2020 and has since become a committed advocate for trans youth and a vocal opponent of anti-trans legislation. In Pageboy , Page candidly shares his life story, pulling no punches when it comes to love, sex, Hollywood, and finding your true self.

Publication date: June 6, 2023

A Place for Us

By brandon j. wolf.

Brandon J. Wolf left his hometown in rural Oregon for Orlando, Florida and the chance to find his community. The move was transformative; back home he endured racism and homophobia, while in Orlando he felt accepted and free. On June 12, 2016, Wolf and his friends were enjoying a night out at the Pulse nightclub when a gunman barged in, killing 49 people and wounding 53 more. Wolf survived the horrific terror attack, and the experience propelled him into activism. A Place for Us traces Wolf’s struggle to find his place in an often hostile world and his emergence as a nationally recognized public speaker and advocate for LGBTQ+ civil rights and gun-safety reform. “One of the most powerful voices of his generation, Brandon Wolf tells a story of race, place, and the struggle for belonging that will drive you to tears and expand your capacity for hope, as well as your appreciation for the power of community” (Joy-Ann Reid, host of The ReidOut ).

Publication date: July 1, 2023

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Through the Groves, by Anne Hull

In her nearly two decades as a national reporter for The Washington Post, Anne Hull earned a reputation (and a Pulitzer!) for rigor and artistry in capturing some of the most urgent stories of our time. In her debut book, she directs her characteristically incisive gaze at her own history, weaving an atmospheric and aching account of her childhood in the sweltering heat of Central Florida and the tumult of the ’60s. Hull grew up riding shotgun in her father’s Ford truck through orange groves her family had worked—without competition or disturbance—for generations. But in 1967, change was in the air; Walt Disney had just broken ground on a new park, Californian “seedless clementines” had recently hit the market, and her father’s drinking was destabilizing her home. Hull captures a richly ambivalent portrait of a world on the brink of disappearing and a family in the midst of radical transformation: afternoons spent chasing the “marshmallow fluff of DDT,” springtime orange blossoms so pungent they burned their scent into clothes, men’s bodies ravaged by pesticide inhalation, and women bucking convention. Hypnotic and tender, this book reminds us that even if we leave our homes, our homes never leave us.

The Wreck, by Cassandra Jackson

Long before Cassandra Jackson was born, her name was already on a tombstone. In the 1960s, a car accident took the lives of her father’s first wife, his mother, his brother-in-law, his sister, and his three-year-old niece, after whom she was named. Growing up, Jackson was taught to never ask questions about “the wreck” or about the dead family her father only spoke about in his sleep. Only as an adult, facing the possibility of her own infertility, does Jackson finally go in search of definitive answers. In archives and fertility clinics alike, she encounters the specter of generational trauma and medical racism, wondering if her body, like her name, is a “haunted thing.” With mesmerizing lyricism and cutting insight, the author of The Toni Morrison Book Club teaches us that any hope for the future requires an honest confrontation with the past.

Losing Music, by John Cotter

At age 30, John Cotter began to notice a ringing noise, over time, escalated to a deafening roar and a daunting diagnosis: Ménière’s disease, an inner ear disorder for which there is “no reliable treatment and no consensus on its cause.” Over time, Cotter will lose the crisp edges of music, the sound of the ocean, his ability to fully communicate, his sense of balance, and his job as an adjunct professor. Like Anne Boyer’s The Undying and Meghan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom, Losing Music explodes an individual experience of illness into a cultural and medical reckoning; with a sociologist’s rigor and a poet’s lyricism, Cotter takes readers on an odyssey through the social history of disability, the brutal bureaucracy of the American healthcare system, and the intimate violence of living in a volatile body. But this memoir is just as much a love letter to sound itself as it is a chronicle of loss; your world will sound different after reading it.

Lesbian Love Story, by Amelia Possanza

“Are you a lesbian or something?” a male teammate asked Amelia Possanza on her explicitly queer adult recreational swim team. She was furious at his lack of recognition, but couldn’t really blame him: “If I had yet to find role models who could show me how to live, where would he have seen a lesbian?” Thus began Possanza’s rabid quest to uncover and animate lesbian stories; lesbians, she suspected, “would have something to teach us all about love.” Drawing from intensive archival research, interviews, and her own whimsical imagination, Possanza brings seven lesbians to life on the page; there are the historical heavy-hitters (hello, Sappho!) and the hidden heroes like Rusty Brown, the World War II hero and drag king renegade. At once a yearning search for a mirror in the fogged glass of history and an uproariously funny skewering of modern queer stereotypes, Lesbian Love Story will radically expand your understanding of lesbianism—and of love itself.

Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder

Today, Rachel Louise Snyder is an award-winning journalist, author, professor, and Guggenheim fellow best known for No Visible Bruises , her groundbreaking exploration of the domestic violence epidemic. But in 1985, she was a homeless high school dropout, surviving off of the scraps of food left by customers, and partying recklessly to keep the ghosts of her past and the gloom of her future at bay. With startling nuance and unexpected bursts of humor, Snyder lays bare the brutalities of her childhood: her mother’s death when she was 8, her father’s turn toward tyrannical evangelisms and abuse, her experimentations with drugs, and her emerging sense of herself as a woman in a violently patriarchal world. As an adult, survival becomes an international investigation rather than a personal struggle as she travels the globe reporting on child marriage, genocide, and gendered violence. For fans of Tara Westover’s Educated , Snyder provides a triumphant story of beating the odds and of radical self-definition—with a punk rock backdrop to boot!

Guinevere Turner When the World Didn’t End, by Guinevere Turner

On January 5, 1975, Guinevere Turner was 6 and the world was going to end. “All of us had been told to choose our favorite toy and put on our favorite clothes and then wait for the spaceship to come,” she writes. The “World People” were to be wiped off the earth, and Melvin Lyman’s loyal followers would be transported to Venus. When that spaceship didn’t come, the explanation was simple and the repercussions, immediate; some of the members’ souls weren’t ready, and daylight saving time must be abolished. Such was life in the Lyman family. Change was constant and arbitrary. Unworthiness was a given. Drawing from years of meticulously kept diaries, Turner resists the urge to let her “adult hindsight interfere or comment,” and allows us to see life inside the cult as she saw it: through the devastatingly innocent eyes of a child. The result is gripping, raw, and deeply human. It will leave you haunted.

Irma, by Terry McDonell

“After Bob goes down, it is just Irma and me.” So begins Terry McDonell’s tender account of his 1950s boyhood as the only son of a single mother. McDonell’s father, Bob, died serving as a fighter pilot in 1945 — before his son could know him. In his father’s absence, McDonell attempts to define his own manhood in opposition to the narrow example presented by his mother’s second husband: “A son hating his stepfather, searching for the character of his true father, is an old story. The center of the story, though, is not one of the fathers or even the son. It is the mother, Irma.” Through compulsively readable vignettes, McDonell assembles a kaleidoscopic view of his mother, his childhood, and his own reckoning with American masculinity.

Charley Burlock is the Associate Books Editor at Oprah Daily where she writes, edits, and assigns stories on all things literary. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from NYU, where she also taught undergraduate creative writing. Her work has been featured in the Atlanti c , the Los Angeles Review , Agni , the Apple News Today podcast, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a book about collective grief (but she promises she's really fun at parties).

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The 14 fall 2023 pop culture memoirs and biographies we're most excited to read

From Barbra to Peloton instructors, there's no shortage of great pop culture reads this fall.

Here at EW, we're pop culture junkies.

If there's a behind-the-scenes story or a personal hot take from a celeb, we are here for it. Chances are, if you're reading this you are too. And this fall, there is no shortage of engrossing, juicy new memoirs and biographies shedding light on all corners of the entertainment industry.

From Old Hollywood (Charlie Chaplin, Lena Horne, Greta Grabo) to the music industry (Barbra Streisand, Britney Spears, Geddy Lee) to the virtual gym (Cody Rigsby), pop culture figures across the gamut are telling their stories (or receiving new evaluation) in a slew of new titles hitting shelves this season.

Here are the 14 pop culture memoirs and biographies we're most excited about in fall 2023.

Ideal Beauty: The Life and Times of Greta Garbo by Lois W. Banner

Historian and biographer Lois Banner ( Marilyn: The Passion and The Paradox ) takes one of Hollywood's most enigmatic figures as her latest subject. Drawing on over a decade of research in archives across Sweden, Germany, France, and the United States, Banner examines the shadowy personal life of the woman most famous for stating, "I want to be alone." While Garbo captivated audiences with her beauty and mysterious persona, this book offers an insightful portrait of her private life, interrogating her feminism, sexuality, mental health, and more. Garbo rose to fame on the silent screen, but this new biography gives voice to her life in unparalleled fashion. (Sept. 5) — Maureen Lee Lenker

XOXO, Cody by Cody Rigsby

With XOXO Cody , the beloved Peloton instructor shows he has range. His memoir aims to make readers laugh and tear up in equal measure. He delivers his hot takes and humorous advice about living life right while also diving into the difficult moments in his life that shaped the adult he is. As he delves into growing up gay and his issues with his parents, Rigsby provides an opportunity for folks to get to know him better. XOXO Cody is inspiring and raw, but also a great reminder that laughing our way through something is a solid option. (Sept. 12) — Alamin Yohannes

Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones

Saturday Night Live alum Leslie Jones is known for her disarming frankness, and in her new memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones , the comic invites readers even deeper inside her brutally honest thoughts. Jones' sense of humor is intact even as she opens up about her experiences with childhood sexual abuse, abortion, and family tragedy, as well as the racism and sexism she's fought in stand-up comedy and from online trolls who made her life hell after she was cast in the women-led Ghostbusters . SNL fans will be especially interested in her tales from the show, including who she did and did not get along with, and hilarious details of an unaired sketch about killing Whoopi Goldberg . (Sept. 19) —Jillian Sederholm

Sondheim: His Life, His Shows, His Legacy by Stephen M. Silverman

Stephen Sondheim may have died in 2021, but his spirit lives on among the Broadway faithful. This month alone marks the premiere of the third Sondheim revival since his passing, as well as the premiere of Here We Are , a posthumous presentation of the Luis Buñuel-inspired musical he was working on until the end. Somewhere between a biography and a coffee-table book, Stephen M. Silverman's new title makes a perfect companion to our current age of Sondheim remembrance. The master of the modern musical is chronicled with textual highlights of his life story (with Sondheim's sardonic wit on display in frequent direct quotes), but also helpfully accompanied by many, many photos of his legendary Broadway career — and the actors, artists, and celebrities he crossed paths with along the way. (Sept. 19) — Christian Holub

Thicker Than Water by Kerry Washington

In her memoir, Kerry Washington bares it all. After a long-kept family secret is revealed, the actress and producer looks back at her life to share what she has overcome and learned over the years. From past traumas to wisdom she's received through her roles, Washington is bringing fans into her world like never before. Through these stories, she tells readers of her fight to redevelop her own understanding of family as she started her own. Thicker Than Water is a poignant and captivating exploration of how she became the woman she is today. (Sept. 26) — A.Y.

Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith

Though Jada Pinkett Smith has spent the last couple of years peeling back the layers on Red Table Talk , she still feels like people misunderstand her. In Worthy, she attempts to tell her story, her way. From Baltimore to Hollywood, and through suicidal ideation to self-acceptance and healing, Pinkett Smith recounts her journey to reflection and healing. (Oct. 4) — Yolanda Machado

Thank You: Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin by Sly Stone

In the late '60s, Sly Stone was the embodiment of cool, an impossibly stylish funk master and preternatural hitmaker. He was also a man who carted around a violin case filled with cocaine wherever he'd go. If his drug use could conjure magic in the studio, it also destroyed the Sly and the Family Stone frontman's relationships, wiped out his earnings, and made him a recluse. Now 80 years old and sober, the living legend is finally releasing his memoir, a cautionary tale and the story of one of rock's true great visionaries. (Oct. 17) — Jason Lamphier

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

Britney Spears is finally ready to tell her story the way she's never been able to before. One of the world's biggest and most misunderstood pop icons is releasing her memoir, The Woman In Me , a little over two years after revealing harrowing details in open court about how her life wasn't her own under the conservatorship of her father for over 13 years. Now that the court-ordered conservatorship has been dissolved, Spears' chronicles her "brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope," allowing her fans to finally see the woman behind the music. (Oct. 24) — Sydney Bucksbaum

Being Henry: The Fonz...and Beyond by Henry Winkler

The guy who played one of the coolest characters ever on-screen is also known as one of the nicest ever off it. So how exactly did mild mannered Henry Winkler transform himself into the Fonz? The Emmy-winning actor takes us inside his original Happy Days audition as part of a memoir that goes through Winkler's entire career — from The Lords of Flatbush through Barry . And yes, he explains in full detail why in the world he jumped that damn shark. (Oct. 31) —Dalton Ross

Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed by Donald Bogle

Donald Bogle, revered historian of Black Hollywood, tackles one of the most iconic Black Golden Age stars — Lena Horne. Using a combination of interviews, press accounts, studio archives, and historical research, Bogle offers up a lush portrait of Horne, from her professional triumphs and bitter disappointments to her activism and role in breaking barriers for Black performers and Black women throughout her career. Bogle tells Horne's story accompanied by stunning photographs in this coffee table-style book that allows for never-before-published images of Horne to shine. (Oct. 31) — M.L.L.

Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman

While Charlie Chaplin's life has been chronicled many times, biographer Scott Eyman ( John Wayne: The Life and Legend; Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise ) drills down on Chaplin's fall from grace and exile from America in the back half of the Little Tramp's career. In the wake of the Red Scare and Chaplin's own sexual scandals, he was denied re-entry into the United States in 1952 following a trip to Europe. Eyman examines the events leading to this exile, the political turmoil at play, and Chaplin's years making his final two films in London. It's both a fascinating historical study and a cautionary tale about the perils of hysteria and extremism pervading government practices. (Oct. 31) — M.L.L.

My Name Is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

For years now, Barbra Streisand has spoken of her long-gestating memoir, and it's finally here. In her inimitable way, Streisand tells the story of her life, from her childhood in Brooklyn to her legendary Broadway breakout in Funny Girl to her success in Hollywood as an actress and director. Full of her signature frankness and dry humor, the memoir gives fans an unprecedented look at Streisand's life, from her personal struggles to her professional triumphs, all with a reminder that through the decades, nobody was going to rain on her parade. (Nov. 7) — M.L.L.

My Effin' Life by Geddy Lee

Living in the limelight may be the universal dream for some, but for Rush frontman Geddy Lee, it's simply another chapter in his effin' excellent life. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer — who played bass, keyboards, and sang on the progressive rock band's biggest hits — holds nothing back in his highly-anticipated memoir. From being named after his grandfather who was murdered during the Holocaust to sharing intimate tales of life on the road with bandmates Alex Lifeson and the late Neil Peart, Lee puts aside the alienation and gets on with the fascination surrounding his extraordinary life in an honest, hilarious, and heartfelt way all his own. (Nov. 14) — Emlyn Travis

The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story by Sam Wasson

If he had only made The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola would already be remembered as one of the most successful American directors of all time. But his ambitions always went far beyond that, and the filmmaker promises he has one more masterpiece on the way in the form of the mysterious utopian magnum opus Megalopolis . This new book by Sam Wasson (who already proved himself one of the great modern chroniclers of the New Hollywood era with the Chinatown making-of story The Big Goodbye ) chronicles the road to heaven Coppola trod after descending to Hell with Apocalypse Now. The Vietnam War epic is already the subject of much reporting, but Wasson boasts unprecedented access to Coppola's personal archive — as well as a first-hand look at the making of a movie we can't wait to see. (Nov. 28) — C.H.

What to Read in 2023

Fiction, biographies, memoirs, mysteries and more to look forward to in the new year.

With 2022 behind us, it’s time to look ahead to what we’ll be reading in the new year. Below, we’ve organized forthcoming releases by category and included a few suggestions for what you might enjoy based on your favorite reading experiences of recent times. Publishers’ fall schedules will come into clearer view as the year progresses, so this list leans heavily on the first half of 2023. We’d be eager to hear what you’re looking forward to most, whether it’s on this list or not. Here’s to another 12 months of reading pleasure.

If you liked “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,” by Shehan Karunatilaka, read “Victory City,” by Salman Rushdie (Feb. 7)

In his first novel to be published since he was attacked and gravely injured at a public appearance in August, Rushdie flashes his usual ambition and flair. It begins in 14th-century India, where a 9-year-old girl named Pampa Kampana, grieving the death of her mother, becomes the vessel for a goddess. This spirit informs Pampa that she will play an important role in the history of a city called Bisnaga. The novel then follows Pampa through more than two event-filled centuries of magical developments and corrupt human behavior.

If you liked “Lessons in Chemistry,” by Bonnie Garmus, read “The Society of Shame,” by Jane Roper (April 4)

When Kathleen Held returns early from a trip to find her garage on fire and her politician husband outside in his underwear alongside his disheveled young staffer, the middle-aged wife and mother can’t imagine being more humiliated. But then photos of the scene surface, revealing a menstrual stain on the back of Kathleen’s pants. Practically overnight, her mishap launches a feminist movement — #YesWeBleed — forcing Kathleen to decide whether she should lean into her newfound fame or hide from the humiliation.

If you liked “Black Cake,” by Charmaine Wilkerson, read “The Covenant of Water,” by Abraham Verghese (May 2)

Verghese, the doctor-author behind the bestseller “Cutting for Stone” (2009), returns with a multigenerational family saga set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast. The characters are bound by their connection to the sea (hence the title) — but not in a good way: Someone from each generation dies in a water-related incident. Verghese explores the evolution of this family and its strange fate using his medical expertise, as well as deep research into time and place and his understanding of the human heart.

If you liked “Either/Or,” by Elif Batuman, read “The Late Americans,” by Brandon Taylor (May 23)

Taylor’s second novel, following his Booker Prize-finalist debut, “Real Life,” concerns relationships among a group of friends during a formative year in their lives, when they’re confronting hard truths about work, sex, creativity and independence. The book continues Taylor’s investigation of Midwestern social life. “Real Life” was set in an unnamed university town clearly modeled on Madison, Wis. “The Late Americans” is set in Iowa City — named, this time — where Taylor attended the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

If you liked “The Overstory,” by Richard Powers, read “Birnam Wood,” by Eleanor Catton (March 7)

Ten years ago, Catton won the Booker Prize for “The Luminaries,” a cerebral 800-page novel set in 19th-century New Zealand (the author’s home country). “Birnam Wood,” her long-awaited next act, is more of a lean, cinematic thriller. Its title is the name of an activist group that plants crops in out-of-the-way places. The group’s founder, Mira, becomes interested in a large abandoned farm, only to find that an American billionaire has his own plans for it as an end-times refuge. Psychological drama ensues.

More fiction coming in 2023

JANUARY | The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley In this TV comedy writer’s debut novel, a young Black lawyer navigates a new relationship and various forms of American anxiety • Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey A comic debut novel about a 29-year-old trying to hold things together after the end of her brief marriage • This Other Eden by Paul Harding The third novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Harding (“Tinkers”) is set on a Maine island that’s a pioneer in racial integration • Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell Winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize, this novel follows the adventures of an 80-year-old woman magically brought out of a deep depression

If you liked “River of the Gods,” by Candice Millard, read “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder,” by David Grann (April 18)

The most rousing adventure stories are rarely just about destinations and discoveries: They’re also about the human conflicts that play out along the way. In “The Wager,” Grann explores the tension between two sets of survivors of an 18th-century shipwreck who made their way back to dry land with two very different stories to tell. Though the tale Grann lays out is true, the book packs in all the twists you’d expect of a nautical thriller.

If you liked “Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019,” by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, read “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History,” by Ned Blackhawk (April 25)

In accounts of American history, Indigenous peoples are often treated as largely incidental — either obstacles to be overcome or part of a narrative separate from the arc of nation-building. Blackhawk, a professor at Yale University, challenges those minimalizations and exclusions, showing that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along. This book invites us to reconsider our received stories about events from independence through the Civil War and beyond.

If you liked “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America,” by Clint Smith, read “The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church,” by Rachel L. Swarns (June 6)

In a series of articles for the New York Times, Swarns probed slavery’s role in the financing of Georgetown University, prompting the American Jesuits to vow to raise $100 million to atone for their actions. Now Swarns, a journalist and professor, widens her lens to explore how slavery helped the Catholic Church expand in the United States over more than three centuries. She brings to life not just this essential history but also the lives of the enslaved individuals.

Current Affairs

If you liked “Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City,” by Andrea Elliott, read “We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America,” by Roxanna Asgarian (March 14)

Asgarian humanizes a sensational 2018 murder-suicide case involving two women and their six adopted children from Texas. She delves deeply into not only the stories of the people involved — including one sibling left behind — but also the flawed child-welfare system that allowed abuse and neglect to escalate to this shocking conclusion.

If you liked “His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, read “Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable,” by Joanna Schwartz (Feb. 14)

In an era of high-profile police misconduct, Schwartz lifts the lid on why cops so often evade accountability. Schwartz, a law professor at UCLA, relies on more than two decades of research to reveal the protections the legal system affords police who ignore the law and violate civil rights. She exposes the biases of Supreme Court decisions and of federal juries, and takes particular aim at qualified immunity, which prevents officers from incurring monetary damages for their abuses.

If you liked “Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation,” by Linda Villarosa, read “Poverty, by America,” by Matthew Desmond (March 21)

Desmond, who won a Pulitzer Prize for “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” returns with an impassioned polemic arguing that the poor remain poor in this country because it benefits the affluent. The better off among us, Desmond says, “knowingly and unknowingly” maintain a status quo that keeps many people trapped in financial distress. In addition to laying out his case through research and reporting, Desmond outlines steps he believes might help finally alleviate poverty.

More history and current affairs

FEBRUARY | Saying It Loud: 1966 — The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement by Mark Whitaker • Holding Fire: A Reckoning With the American West by Bryce Andrews • The Diary Keepers: World War II in the Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It by Nina Siegal • The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jake Bittle

Biography & Memoir

If you enjoyed “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century,” by Beverly Gage, read “King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig (May 16)

Eig’s biography is the first comprehensive treatment of King in more than a generation. Drawing on a wealth of new material, Eig casts King as a beloved, courageous icon who wore the robes of his humanity uneasily. Eig’s King is wracked by his doubts and frailties; he is still the fiery preacher and civil rights leader, but he’s dogged by government surveillance, conflicted by his complicated relationship with his wife and given to periods of dark reflection.

If you liked “Mike Nichols: A Life,” by Mark Harris, read “True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times,” by Robert Greenfield (April 11)

Shepard was among the most acclaimed playwrights of the 20th century, known for bleak family dramas like “Fool for Love,” “True West” and “Buried Child,” for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979. He also found renown as an actor, most notably in Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” and as Chuck Yeager, his Oscar-nominated role in “The Right Stuff.” This full-dress biography covers his upbringing, his groundbreaking work, and his storied relationships with Patti Smith and his longtime partner Jessica Lange.

If you liked “Finding Me,” by Viola Davis, read “Chita: A Memoir,” by Chita Rivera (April 25)

Rivera’s professional accomplishments are well documented: After originating several scene-stealing Broadway roles (Anita from “West Side Story” and Velma Kelly in “Chicago” among them), she won three Tony Awards and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Now, nearing 90, she gives fans a view of her personal life in a memoir that relays how D.C.-born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero became a legend, a journey that led her to collaborate with Bob Fosse, Leonard Bernstein, Liza Minnelli and other superstars.

More biography and memoir

JANUARY | Spare by Prince Harry The estranged member of Britain’s royal family writes the story of his life • Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson Anderson writes of her early years on Vancouver Island, her rise to become a superstar sex symbol and tabloid fodder, and her more recent life as a parent and activist

Mysteries & Thrillers

If you liked “City on Fire,” by Don Winslow, read “Small Mercies,” by Dennis Lehane (April 25)

Boston-born Lehane has long made the city his own in fiction, and his latest novel is set during a particularly tense moment — the summer of 1974, when a heat wave arrived as the city was planning to implement a court-ordered desegregation of its public schools. “Small Mercies” follows two slowly converging mysteries: the disappearance of an Irish American teenage girl and the death of a young Black man hit by a subway train.

If you liked “Anywhere You Run,” by Wanda M. Morris, read “All the Sinners Bleed,” by S.A. Cosby (June 6)

The next novel from the author of “Razorblade Tears” and “ Blacktop Wasteland ” is another Southern noir. Former FBI agent Titus Crowne returned to his hometown to take care of his family but ended up becoming Charon County’s first Black sheriff. Aspects of the job, such as protecting Confederate pride marchers, wear on him, but his expertise proves valuable after a student kills a teacher. The investigation leads Titus on a hunt that reveals sordid secrets and a serial killer.

If you liked “A Sunlit Weapon,” by Jacqueline Winspear, read “The White Lady,” by Jacqueline Winspear (March 21)

Of course, if you like one Winspear, you’ll like another Winspear. (You might also like “ All That Is Hidden ,” by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles, publishing March 14.) But this time Winspear has set aside her beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs for a new character, Elinor White, a former wartime spy who is enjoying a quiet life in Kent, England, when she gets pulled into a case involving organized crime in London. As in her many endearing novels, Winspear captures period details — of World War I and 1947 London — while spinning a captivating mystery with a strong and lovable female sleuth at its center.

More mysteries and thrillers

JANUARY | Exiles by Jane Harper • Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper • The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child • The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz

If you liked “Circe,” by Madeline Miller, read “The Iliad,” translated by Emily Wilson (September)

Wilson’s 2017 translation of “The Odyssey” quickly achieved canonical status, thanks to its combination of scholarly precision and elegant, accessible language. Wilson will bring similar artistry to Homer’s other great epic, the story of Achilles’ doomed petulance in the 10th year of the Trojan War. Where “The Iliad” can sometimes seem staid, Wilson is sure to enliven its most famous episodes — the death of Patroclus, Achilles’ brutal vengeance — while also helping readers feel the rhythms of the poem’s many other bloody battles and vociferous debates.

More poetry

JANUARY | Was It for This by Hannah Sullivan

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Spring preview

19 Works of Nonfiction to Read This Spring

New memoirs, a landmark biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., a look at the woman who helped halt the rise of a K.K.K. leader — and more.

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A composite image features several book covers of nonfiction titles coming this spring, with covers overlapping throughout the frame.

By J. Howard Rosier

Watch for deeply-researched philosophical histories, biographies that bring well-known stories to light and meditations on art and new ways to live. There’s plenty to love among the nonfiction coming to bookshelves this spring.

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock , by Jenny Odell

Odell’s best seller, “How to Do Nothing,” cautioned readers against an obsession with productivity. Now, she digs into the question of why human beings live on specific schedules. “When you start to think of time in more collective ways, trying to leave behind the individual time banks, it opens up the horizon of what’s possible in your and others’ time — together,” she said in a recent interview . The question of whether true leisure is possible remains open-ended, but the minutes pass by without notice in this well-researched book.

Random House, March 7

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence , by David Waldstreicher

As a young child, Wheatley was taken from West Africa and sold to a merchant family in Boston, and eventually became the most significant Black poet of the 18th century and a cornerstone of trans-Atlantic literature. Waldstreicher offers a thorough investigation of the world that made her, calling attention to the people, religious politics and feminism that shaped her life and work.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, March 7

The Teachers: A Year Inside America’s Most Vulnerable, Important Profession, by Alexandra Robbins

The people who teach our children are overworked, underpaid, unsupported and contemplating quitting altogether. Robbins follows three teachers across one school year — a math teacher in the South, a special-education teacher in the West and an elementary school teacher on the East Coast — to weave an infuriating and heartbreaking story. “Teachers” reads like a great liberal arts lesson, with plenty of research to back up the book’s implications.

Dutton, March 14

We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America , by Roxanna Asgarian

In March 2018, Jennifer and Sarah Hart, a white couple who had adopted six Black children, carried out a ghastly murder-suicide, driving an S.U.V. with their family off a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway. Asgarian, a journalist for The Texas Tribune, set out to discover more about the children and how they came into the Harts’ care. The resulting book is a damning indictment of the American foster care system.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, March 14

Poverty, by America , by Matthew Desmond

Desmond, a sociologist, received a Pulitzer Prize for his book, “Evicted,” about the housing crisis among America’s poor. In his latest, he looks at the causes of poverty in the United States, arguing that some people stay impoverished because it serves the interests of many others.

Crown, March 21

The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, by Jeff Sharlet

What might explain the allure of right-wing, militant thinking for millions of Americans? Sharlet, who has written at length about religious fundamentalism, conducted a yearslong study, talking with religious leaders, fervent advocates of gun ownership, QAnon believers and more. The central tension of this thought-provoking book is not whether the country will descend into chaos, but when.

Norton, March 21

Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope, by Sarah Bakewell

Bakewell illuminates the long tradition of humanism — which explores the moral dimensions of what it really means to be human — using the work of great philosophers, artists and writers. The beauty of her study is the range of her examples: We’re unlikely to see Charles Darwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Frederick Douglass, Matthew Arnold and E.M. Forster, to name a few, together anywhere else outside of an encyclopedia.

Penguin Press, March 28

Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, by Quinn Slobodian

The world is on high alert to threats against democracy, but Slobodian, a historian of ideas at Wellesley, calls attention to one of its biggest challengers: capitalism itself. “Capitalism works by punching holes in the territory of the nation-state,” he writes, going on to expose the lengths to which many free-market libertarians try to protect wealth “from the grasping hands of the populace seeking a more equitable present and future.”

Metropolitan Books, April 4

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy Egan

Egan tells the story of the Klan’s rise to prominence in the 1920s, focusing on D.C. Stephenson, a Grand Dragon who helped spread white terrorist views throughout the country and drove the group’s strategy. Stephenson seemed nearly unstoppable until Madge Oberholtzer, whom he kidnapped and tortured, provided essential testimony on her deathbed that helped bring him to justice.

Viking, April 4

George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy, by Sally Bedell Smith

Smith has written extensively about the British royal family, and now explores the consequences of King Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936. Edward’s younger brother, King George VI (the father of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret), never expected to rule, but his supportive and stable marriage steadied the British public throughout World War II and beyond. Elizabeth II gave Smith access to her parents’ diaries, letters and other effects for this new book.

Random House, April 4

A Living Remedy: A Memoir, by Nicole Chung

In her second memoir, Chung looks at the politics of class, race and home. Chung, who was adopted, grew up in a mostly white community on the West Coast, and didn’t realize until she left home how economically vulnerable her family was. As she established a career, she grappled with guilt about having surpassed her parents, and years later, she sees how economic inequality has profound consequences for the end of life — even though death is called an equalizing force.

Ecco, April 4

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by David Grann

In 1741, the Wager, a British ship during England’s war with Spain, wrecked off the coast of Patagonia. What happened next depends on whom you ask: The captain and his loyalists left the island and found themselves captive in Chile, while another party splintered off and spent their captivity in Brazil. To free themselves from mutiny charges, each party tells a conflicting story about the voyage. There is plenty of adventure in this new book, giving it the pacing of a thriller.

Doubleday, April 18

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir, by Lucinda Williams

The prolific songwriter and singer draws on her Southern upbringing — she was raised in a home with a musically talented mother dealing with mental illness and a father struggling to find his way as a writer — and deeply personal catalog in this new autobiography.

Crown, April 25

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, by Claire Dederer

An expansion of her essay “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?”, written in the wake of #MeToo, this book grapples with how to reconcile the legacies of artists whose behavior was reprehensible, from Michael Jackson to Pablo Picasso and beyond. Do geniuses get a free pass? Is female monstrosity different from male monstrosity? How should we balance moral outrage with an appreciation for the work? As Dederer poses these uncomfortable questions, she admits her own complicity, too.

Knopf, April 25

Ordinary Notes, by Christina Sharpe

In meditations that are historically attuned, riddled with moments of tenderness and brimming with righteous anger, Sharpe considers what it means for Black people to live and love in a society that resists change, refuses the responsibility of its previous racism — yet often feels compelled to ask for forgiveness.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, April 25

When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach, by Ashlee Vance

The spectacle of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other technology scions shooting themselves into space may give you the idea that the whole experience is an ego trip, but Vance, the author of a best-selling biography of Musk , encourages readers to think bigger. He follows four companies — Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs and Rocket Lab — in this interplanetary land grab, all with the hope of making Earth’s lower orbit the next site of technological innovation.

Ecco, May 9

King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig

Eig’s monumental work, the first major biography of Martin Luther King Jr. in decades, challenges the image of him as a peaceful advocate of incremental change. There’s plenty of new detail, including from recently declassified F.B.I. files, allowing King to emerge as a complex, humane figure.

Farrar, Straus & Giroux, May 16

A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again, by Joanna Biggs

In this trenchant and wide-ranging book, Biggs writes about starting over after divorce while seeking wisdom from a canon of great female authors. In Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, George Eliot, Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Ferrante and others, Biggs finds inspiration, advice and cautionary tales that shade her experience.

Ecco, May 16

Quietly Hostile: Essays, by Samantha Irby

It’s always entertaining to see Irby — a first-rate, self-deprecating mind — riff on the oddities of her own life. Things have been going pretty well for her lately (marriage, high-profile writing gigs, Hollywood calling for story ideas), and what’s most endearing about this new collection is that the voice is always brazenly, unapologetically hers. (The list of her pandemic panic buys alone is enough to send you reeling.)

Vintage, May 16

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, “Knife,” addresses the attack that maimed him in 2022, and pays tribute to his wife who saw him through .

Recent books by Allen Bratton, Daniel Lefferts and Garrard Conley depict gay Christian characters not usually seen in queer literature.

What can fiction tell us about the apocalypse? The writer Ayana Mathis finds unexpected hope in novels of crisis by Ling Ma, Jenny Offill and Jesmyn Ward .

At 28, the poet Tayi Tibble has been hailed as the funny, fresh and immensely skilled voice of a generation in Māori writing .

Amid a surge in book bans, the most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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The Best New Biographies and Memoirs to Read in 2024

This year sees some riveting and remarkable lives—from artist ai weiwei to singer-songwriter joni mitchell—captured on the page..

A life story can be read for escapist pleasure. But at other times, reading a memoir or biography can be an expansive exercise, opening us up to broader truths about our world. Often, it’s an edifying experience that reminds us of our universal human vulnerability and the common quest for purpose in life.

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Biographies and memoirs charting remarkable lives—whether because of fame, fortune or simply fascination—have the power to inspire us for their depth, curiosity or challenges. This year sees a bumper calendar of personal histories enter bookshops, grappling with enigmatic public figures like singer Joni Mitchell and writer Ian Fleming , to nuanced analysis of how motherhood or sociopathy shape our lives—for better and for worse.

Here we compile some of the most rewarding biographies and memoirs out in 2024. There are stories of trauma and recovery, art as politics and politics as art, and sentences as single life lessons spread across books that will make you rethink much about personal life stories. After all, understanding the triumphs and trials of others can help us see how we can change our own lives to create something different or even better.

Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini

A book cover with an line drawing illustration of an Asian warrior

Ai Weiwei , the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic of his homeland China, mixes fairy tales with moral lessons to evocatively retrace the story of his life in graphic form. Illustrations are by Italian artist Gianluca Costantini . “Any artist who isn’t an activist is a dead artist,” Weiwei writes in Zodiac , as he embraces everything from animals found in the Chinese zodiac to mystical folklore tales with anamorphic animals to argue the necessity of art as politics incarnate. The meditative exercise uses pithy anecdotes alongside striking visuals to sketch out a remarkable life story marked by struggle. It’s one weaving political manifesto, philosophy and personal memoir to engage readers on the necessity of art and agitation against authority in a world where we sometimes must resist and fight back.

Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

A book cover with the words Alphabet diagonally set and Diaries horizontally set

Already well-known for her experimental writings, Sheila Heti takes a decade of diary entries and maps sentences against the alphabet, from A to Z. The project is a subversive rethink of our relationship to introspection—which often asks for order and clarity, like in diary writing—that maps new patterns and themes in its disjointed form. Heti plays with both her confessionals and her sometimes formulaic writing style (like knowingly using “Of course” in entries) to retrace the changes made (and unmade) across ten years of her life. Alphabetical Diaries is a sometimes demanding book given the incoherence of its entries, but remains an illuminating project in thinking about efforts at self-documentation.

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison

A book cover with a collage of photographs

Unlike her previous work The Empathy Exams , which examined how we relate to one another and on human suffering, writer Leslie Jamison wrestles today with her own failed marriage and the grief of surviving single parenting. After the birth of her daughter, Jamison divorces her partner “C,” traverses the trials and tribulations of rebound relationships (including with “an ex-philosopher”) and confronts unresolved emotional pains born of her own life living under the divorce of her parents. In her intimate retelling—paired with her superb prose—Jamison charts a personal history that acknowledges the unending divide mothers (and others) face dividing themselves between partners, children and their own lives.

Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring by Brad Gooch

A book cover with a photo of a man sitting in a chair; he's spreading his legs and covering his mouth with his hand

Whether dancing figures or a “radiant baby,” the recognizable cartoonish symbols in Keith Haring ’s art endure today as shorthand signs representing both his playfulness and politicking. Haring (1958-1990) is the subject of writer Brad Gooch ’s deft biography, Radiant , a book that mines new material from the archive along with interviews with contemporaries to reappraise the influential quasi-celebrity artist. From rough beginnings tagging graffiti on New York City walls to cavorting with Andy Warhol and Madonna on art pieces, Haring battled everything from claims of selling out to over-simplicity. But he persisted with work that leveraged catchy quotes and colorful imagery to advance unsavory political messages—from AIDS to crack cocaine. A life tragically cut short at 31 is one powerfully celebrated in this new noble portrait.

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul Charles

In The House of Hidden Meaning , celebrated drag queen, RuPaul , reckons with a murky inner world that has shaped—and hindered—a lifetime of gender-bending theatricality. The figurative house at the center of the story is his “ego,” a plaguing barrier that apparently long inhibited the performer from realizing dreams of greatness. Now as the world’s most recognizable drag queen—having popularized the art form for mainstream audiences with the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race —RuPaul reflects on the power that drag and self-love have long offered across his difficult, and sometimes tortured, life. Readers expecting dishy stories may be disappointed, but the psychological self-assessment in the pages of this memoir is far more edifying than Hollywood gossip could ever be.

Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne

A book cover with text on the bottom and a photograph of a young girl's face on top

Patric Gagne is an unlikely subject for a memoir on sociopaths. Especially since she is a former therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. Still, Gagne makes the case that after a troubled childhood of antisocial behavior (like stealing trinkets and cursing teachers) and a difficult adulthood (now stealing credit cards and fighting authority figures), she receives a diagnosis of sociopathy. Her memoir recounts many episodes of bad behavior—deeds often marked by a lack of empathy, guilt or even common decency—where her great antipathy mars any ability for her to connect with others. Sociopath is a rewarding personal exposé that demystifies one vilified psychological condition so often seen as entirely untreatable or irreparable. Only now there’s a familiar face and a real story linked to the prognosis.

Ian Fleming: The Complete Man by Nicholas Shakespeare

A book cover with a black and white portrait of a man with short hair wearing a white shirt

Nicholas Shakespeare is an acclaimed novelist and an astute biographer, delivering tales that wield a discerning eye to subjects and embrace a robust attention to detail. Ian Fleming (1908-1964), the legendary creator of James Bond, is the latest to receive Shakespeare’s treatment. With access to new family materials from the Fleming estate, the seemingly contradictory Fleming is seen anew as a totally “different person” from his popular image. Taking cues from Fleming’s life story—from a refined upbringing spent in expensive private schools to working for Reuters as a journalist in the Soviet Union—Shakespeare reveals how these experiences shaped the elusive world of espionage and intrigue created in Fleming’s novels. Other insights include how Bond was likely informed by Fleming’s cavalier father, a major who fought in WWI. A martini (shaken, not stirred) is best enjoyed with this bio.

Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

A book cover with the word KNIFE where the I is a blade

Salman Rushdie , while giving a rare public lecture in New York in August 2022, was violently stabbed by an assailant brandishing a knife . The attack saw Rushdie lose his left hand and his sight in one eye. Speaking to The New Yorker a year later , he confirmed a memoir was in the works that would confront this harrowing existential experience: “When somebody sticks a knife into you, that’s a first-person story. That’s an ‘I’ story.” Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder is promised to be his raw, revelatory and deeply psychological confrontation with the violent incident. Like the sword of Damocles, brutality has long stalked Rushdie ever since the 1989 fatwa issued against the author, following the publication of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses . The answer to such barbarity, Rushdie is poised to argue, is by finding the strength to stand up again.

The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019–2022 by Peter Schjeldahl (Release: May 14)

A book cover with what appear to be mock up book pages with black text on white

Peter Schjeldahl (1942-2022), longstanding art critic of The New Yorker , confronted his mortality when he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer in 2019. The resulting essay collection he then penned, The Art of Dying , is a masterful meditation on one life preoccupied entirely with aesthetics and criticism. It’s a discursive tactic for a memoir that avoids discussing Schjeldahl’s coming demise while equally confirming its impending visit by avoiding it. Acknowledging that he finds himself “thinking about death less than I used to,” Schjeldahl spends most of the pages revisiting familiar art subjects—from Edward Hopper ’s output to Peter Saul ’s Pop Art—as vehicles to re-examine his own remarkable life. With a life that began in the humble Midwest, Schjeldahl says his birthplace was one that ultimately availed him to write so plainly and cogently on art throughout his career. Such posthumous musings prove illuminating lessons on the potency of American art, with whispered asides on the tragedy of death that will come for all of us.

Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers (Release: June 11)

A book cover with a black and white photograph of a woman holding an acoustic guitar

Joni Mitchell has enjoyed a remarkable revival recently, even already being one of the most acclaimed and enduring singer/songwriters. After retiring from public appearances for health reasons in the 2010s, Mitchell, 80, has returned to the spotlight with a 2021 Kennedy Centers honor , an appearance accepting the 2023 Gershwin Prize and even a live performance at this year’s Grammy Awards . It’s against this backdrop of public celebration of Mitchell that NPR music critic Ann Powers retraces the life story and musical (re)evolution of the singer, from folk to jazz genres and rock to soul music, across five decades for the American songbook. “What you are about to read is not a standard account of the life and work of Joni Mitchell,” she writes in the introduction. Instead, Powers’ project is one showing how Mitchell’s many journeys—from literal road trips inspiring tracks like “All I Want” to inner probings of Mitchell’s psyche, such as the song “Both Sides Now”—have always inspired Mitchell’s enduring, emotive and palpable output. These travels hold the key, Powers says, to understanding an enigmatic artist.

The Best New Biographies and Memoirs to Read in 2024

SEE ALSO : ‘Under the Bridge’ Review: A Miniseries That Interrogates the True Crime Genre

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Mandisa, 'American Idol' singer and Grammy winner, dies at 47

Grammy-winning singer Mandisa, who rose to fame on season five of “American Idol,” has died, her representative said Friday. She was 47.

“We can confirm that yesterday Mandisa was found in her home deceased," her representative said in a statement to NBC News. “At this time we do not know the cause of death or any further details.”

“We ask for your prayers for her family and close knit circle of friends during this incredibly difficult time,” the statement concluded.

She was found dead in her Nashville home, according to The Tennessean .

A post on the artist's Facebook page said early Friday: “Mandisa was a voice of encouragement and truth to people facing life’s challenges all around the world. She wrote this song for a dear friend who had passed in 2017.”

“Her own words say it best. I’m already home / You’ve got to lay it down / ‘cause Jesus holds me now— / And I am not alone.”

The singer, whose full name is Mandisa Lynn Hundley, shot to stardom after placing ninth on “American Idol.” She went on to win a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album in 2014 for her album “Overcomer.”

Originally from Sacramento, California, Mandisa grew up singing in church and studied vocal performance at American River College, and continued her studies at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, according to her record label artist bio . After college, she worked as a session and backup vocalists for artists including Shania Twain and Trisha Yearwood before going on "American Idol."

In 2017, the singer told “Good Morning America” that she fell into a deep depression in 2014 and almost took her own life following the death of her close friend, Lakisha Mitchell , who had breast cancer.

“It got pretty bad — to the point where if I had not gotten off that road I would not be sitting here today,” Mandisa said. “I was this close to listening to that voice that told me, ‘You can be with Jesus right now, Mandisa. All you have to do is take your life.’"

“It almost happened. But God is what I say. He saved my life quite literally,” she added.

She revealed that in her dark state, she resorted to emotional eating and isolation.

“(Emotional eating) is what I have done my entire life,” she explained. “After losing over 120 pounds, which I talked about my first time here, I gained it all back and 75 more. I sunk into the deepest depression of my life after Kisha died.”

She said her friends ultimately intervened and she got help.

Mandisa had released six studio albums, the last being 2017’s “Out of the Dark.”

Tributes poured in following news of Mandisa’s passing.

“Her kindness was epic, her smile electric, her voice massive, but it was no match for the size of her heart,” Christian radio station K-LOVE Chief Media Officer David Pierce shared.

“Mandisa struggled, and she was vulnerable enough to share that with us, which helped us talk about our own struggles. Mandisa’s struggles are over, she is with the God she sang about now. While we are saddened, Mandisa is home. We’re praying for Mandisa’s family and friends and ask you to join us,” he added.

“Good Morning America” host Robin Roberts wrote on X : “My heart is heavy hearing about Mandisa. Incredibly blessed that she was there my first day back on ⁦ @GMA ⁩ following my long medical leave. Her beautiful music & spirit lifted me and countless others.”

Singer Matthew West , who recorded the 2007 duet “Christmas Makes Me Cry” with Mandisa, said: “I am so incredibly saddened to hear about the loss of my friend Mandisa. I will always cherish the memories of times we spent together hosting award shows, going on tour, and most of all helping her tell her story in the songwriting room.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Breaking News Reporter

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The Best New Biographies of 2023
Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies. ... Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far! Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from ...
The best memoirs and biographies of 2023
From siblings to parents and grandparents: Before the Light Fades (Virago) by Natasha Walter reveals how the author's mother, Ruth, took her life at the age of 75, leaving a note that read ...
Best Biographies & Memoirs of 2023
Best Books of 2023. QUICK ADD. Larry McMurtry: A Life. by Tracy Daugherty. Hardcover $35.00. Booklovers everywhere will love our lineup of best biographies and memoirs of 2023. From personal narratives of empowerment and self-realization such as Kerry Washington's Thicker than Water to biographies and memoirs of the great artists of our time ...
30 Best Biographies to Read Now 2024
Via Bookshop.org. 1. Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude (2020) In these tumultuous times, average citizens and leaders alike have been ...
The Best Biographies of 2023: The National Book Critics Circle
Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor—chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography.Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.
The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies of 2023
All together, it becomes something expansive — an insightful personal history but also a brilliant philosophical text about the very nature of sacrifice and autonomy. In Vitro: On Longing and ...
Best Biographies of 2023
FULL REVIEW >. get a copy. bookshelf. NONFICTION. APRIL 4, 2023. NONFICTION. BIOGRAPHY OF A PHANTOM. by Robert "Mack" McCormick ; edited by John W. Troutman. A worthwhile investigation into a true legend of the blues.
The best biographies to read in 2023
The best biographies to read in 2023. 1. Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood by Jasper Rees: Best showbiz biography. Price: £6.78 | Buy now from Amazon. It's hardly ...
The best biographies and memoirs of 2023
The best biographies of 2023, from Burton and Taylor to Mrs Orwell This year, marriage went under the microscope in engrossing tales of mutual obsession, catastrophic union and doublethink
100 Notable Books of 2023
100 Notable Books of 2023. Each year, we pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more.
Biographies and Memoirs To Read in 2023
From New York Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and bestselling author Nicholas D. Kristof, an intimate and gripping memoir about a life in journalism. This is a candid memoir of vulnerability and courage, humility and purpose, mistakes and learning — a singular tale of the trials, tribulations, and hope to be found in a life dedicated ...
New Memoirs We Can't Wait To Read in 2023
In You Could Make This Place Beautiful, the author boldly reminds her readers that you can "survive deep loss, sink into life's deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new" (Glennon Doyle, New York Times bestselling author). Publication date: April 11, 2023.
Best Memoirs of 2023
Losing Music, by John Cotter. $26 at milkweed.org. At age 30, John Cotter began to notice a ringing noise, over time, escalated to a deafening roar and a daunting diagnosis: Ménière's disease, an inner ear disorder for which there is "no reliable treatment and no consensus on its cause.". Over time, Cotter will lose the crisp edges of ...
The Best Books of 2023: Biography
10+ in stock. Usually dispatched within 2-3 working days. In the most eagerly-awaited memoir of 2023, Prince Harry tells his version of the story about the tragic death of his mother Princess Diana, life within the Royal Family and his marriage to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, with remarkable candour and directness.
2023 Biographies Books
avg rating 3.67 — 9,484 ratings — published 2021. Books shelved as 2023-biographies: Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture by Justine Picardie, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by...
14 fall 2023 pop culture memoirs and biographies we're excited to read
The 14 fall 2023 pop culture memoirs and biographies we're most excited to read. From Barbra to Peloton instructors, there's no shortage of great pop culture reads this fall. By EW Staff ...
Books to read in 2023
If you liked "The Overstory," by Richard Powers, read "Birnam Wood," by Eleanor Catton (March 7) Ten years ago, Catton won the Booker Prize for "The Luminaries," a cerebral 800-page ...
15 Memoirs and Biographies to Read This Fall
Friends, Lovers and the Terrible Thing: A Memoir, by Matthew Perry. Perry, who played Chandler Bing on "Friends," has been candid about his substance abuse and sobriety. In this memoir, he ...
19 Works of Nonfiction to Read This Spring (Published 2023)
New memoirs, a landmark biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., a look at the woman who helped halt the rise of a K.K.K. leader — and more.
The Best New Biographies and Memoirs to Read in 2024
Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini. 'Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir' by Ai Weiwei. Ten Speed Graphic. Ai Weiwei, the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic ...
Who was Alexei Navalny? Life of the Russian opposition leader
March 12, 2023 — "Navalny," a film about the attempt on the opposition leader's life, wins the Oscar for best documentary feature. April 26, 2023 — Appearing on a video link from prison during a hearing, Navalny says he was facing new extremism and terrorism charges that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life. He adds ...
Mandisa, 'American Idol' singer and Grammy winner, dies at 47
By Marlene Lenthang. Grammy-winning singer Mandisa, who rose to fame on season five of "American Idol," has died, her representative said Friday. She was 47. "We can confirm that yesterday ...
Dickey Betts, Allman Brothers Band co-founder, dies at 80
FILE - Dickey Betts, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, exits the funeral of Gregg Allman at Snow's Memorial Chapel, June 3, 2017, in Macon, Ga. Guitar legend Betts, who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band and wrote their biggest hit, "Ramblin' Man," died Thursday, April 18, 2024. He was 80.
The Photos That Defined 2023 in Russia
The Photos That Defined 2023 in Russia. Dec 22, 2023 - 04:34 pm. From the Wagner mutiny and drone attacks on Moscow to an anti-Israeli mob and the ongoing crackdown against journalists, there has ...
Красная книга Москвы
Летом 2023 года Дарья Осипова нашла на поверхности реки живую ослабшую особь Стерляди (Acipenser ruthenus).Этот вид впервые внесли в Красную книгу Москвы в 2022 году в связи с попытками реинтродукции.
Drone attacks in Moscow's glittering business district leave residents
A couple sit in a park in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, with the "Moscow City" business district in the background. The glittering towers of the Moscow City business district were once symbols of the Russian capital's economic boom in the early 2000s. Now they are a sign of its vulnerability, following a series of drone attacks ...