hardcover
Hardcover

The New York Times's 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years

The New York Times' Book critics far and wide have selected the top best memoirs published since 1969.

A Childhood

A Childhood
ByHarry Crews(Illustrations),Michael McCurdy(Illustrator)

1978 • 20 Readers • 192 pages 3.9

A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950

2000 • 7 Readers • 592 pages

A Life's Work

A Life's Work
ByRachel Cusk

2001 • 39 Readers • 224 pages 4.6

All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw

All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw
ByTheodore Rosengarten,Nate Shaw

1974 • 10 Readers • 600 pages

Always Unreliable

#1 of 4 in Unreliable Memoirs

Always Unreliable
ByClive James

1980 • 5 Readers • 537 pages

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

#1 of 3 in Frank McCourt

1996 • 405 Readers • 368 pages 3.8

Autobiography of a Face

1994 • 65 Readers • 256 pages 3.9

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

2015 • 132 Readers • 447 pages 4.3

Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me
ByTa-Nehisi Coates

2015 • 930 Readers • 166 pages 4.5

Boyhood

#1 of 3 in Scenes from Provincial Life

Boyhood
ByJ.M. Coetzee

1997 • 20 Readers • 166 pages 4.7

Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration

1991 • 55 Readers 4.4

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys

2014 • 45 Readers • 432 pages 4.2

Cockroaches

Cockroaches
ByScholastique Mukasonga

2006 • 18 Readers • 4h 4.2

Conundrum

Conundrum
ByJan Morris

1974 • 26 Readers • 192 pages 4

Country girl

Country girl
ByEdna O'Brien

2013 • 3 Readers • 357 pages

Dancing With Cuba

Dancing With Cuba
ByAlma Guillermoprieto,Esther Allen(Translator)

2004 • 6 Readers • 304 pages

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

1995 • 236 Readers • 461 pages 4

Experience

Experience
ByMartin Amis

2000 • 14 Readers • 416 pages

Fierce Attachments: A Memoir

1987 • 32 Readers • 224 pages 4.3

Fun home

Fun home
ByAlison Bechdel

2018 • 496 Readers • 240 pages 4

Giving up the Ghost

Giving up the Ghost
ByHilary Mantel

2003 • 26 Readers • 272 pages 4

Growing Up

Growing Up
ByRussell Baker,Gilbert Riswold

1982 • 15 Readers • 352 pages 3.2

Heavy

Heavy
ByKiese Laymon

2018 • 200 Readers • 256 pages 4.6

H is for Hawk

H is for Hawk
ByHelen Macdonald

2014 • 274 Readers • 324 pages 3.8

Hitch-22

Hitch-22
ByChristopher Hitchens

2010 • 12 Readers • 473 pages 2.5

Hold Still

Hold Still
BySally Mann

2015 • 27 Readers • 482 pages 3.8

Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir

1993 • 13 Readers • 160 pages 3.5

Life

Life
ByKeith Richards,James Fox

2010 • 17 Readers • 564 pages 3.8

Lives Other Than My Own

Lives Other Than My Own
ByEmmanuel Carrère

2011 • 3 Readers • 243 pages

Men We Reaped: A Memoir

2013 • 146 Readers • 272 pages 4.4

Minor Characters

Minor Characters
ByJoyce Johnson

1983 • 11 Readers • 262 pages 4

My Lives

My Lives
ByEdmund White

2005 • 6 Readers • 368 pages

Negroland

Negroland
ByMargo Jefferson

2015 • 54 Readers • 248 pages 3.6

Palimpsest

Palimpsest
ByGore Vidal

1995 • 9 Readers • 435 pages 4

Patrimony

Patrimony
ByPhilip Roth

1991 • 18 Readers • 240 pages 3.3

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

#1 of 2 in Persepolis

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
ByMarjane Satrapi,Mattias Ripa(Translator)

2000 • 624 Readers • 165 pages 4.4

Personal History

Personal History
ByKatharine Graham

1997 • 40 Readers • 642 pages 4.3

Priestdaddy

Priestdaddy
ByPatricia Lockwood

162 Readers 4

Slow Days, Fast Company

1977 • 90 Readers • 178 pages 4.5

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

1995 • 139 Readers • 346 pages 4

The Liars' Club

The Liars' Club
ByMary Karr

1995 • 118 Readers • 320 pages 3.7

The Memory Chalet

2010 • 17 Readers • 226 pages 4.5

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

198 • 112 Readers • 243 pages 3.3

The Year of Magical Thinking

2005 • 625 Readers • 5h 1m 4

Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism

1995 • 43 Readers • 306 pages 4

This Boy's Life: A Memoir

1989 • 58 Readers • 288 pages 4

Travels with Lizbeth

Travels with Lizbeth
ByLars Eighner

2013 • 9 Readers • 298 pages 3

Wave

Wave
BySonali Deraniyagala

2013 • 2 Readers • 245 pages

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

2011 • 132 Readers • 242 pages 4.3