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

Updated 23 days ago
49 Books
nytimes

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

Details	Rating	Readers Count
A Childhood	3.88	4 reads
A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950 Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.	0	0 reads
A Life's Work Rachel Cusk	4.64	11 reads
All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw Theodore Rosengarten Nate Shaw	0	0 reads
Always Unreliable Clive James	0	1 read
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir Frank McCourt	3.84	243 reads
Autobiography of a Face Lucy Grealy	3.86	17 reads
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life William Finnegan	4.28	64 reads
Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates	4.54	537 reads
Boyhood J.M. Coetzee	4.67	5 reads
Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration David Wojnarowicz	4.44	12 reads
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys Viv Albertine	4.15	14 reads
Cockroaches Scholastique Mukasonga	4.17	3 reads
Conundrum Jan Morris	4	5 reads
Country girl Edna O'Brien	0	0 reads
Dancing With Cuba Alma Guillermoprieto Esther Allen (Translator)	0	0 reads
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance Barack Obama	4	124 reads
Experience Martin Amis	0	0 reads
Fierce Attachments: A Memoir Vivian Gornick	4.33	9 reads
Fun home Alison Bechdel	4.03	320 reads
Giving up the Ghost Hilary Mantel	4	6 reads
Growing Up Russell Baker Gilbert Riswold	3.2	5 reads
Heavy Kiese Laymon	4.55	48 reads
H is for Hawk Helen Macdonald	3.85	128 reads
Hitch-22 Christopher Hitchens	2.5	5 reads
Hold Still Sally Mann	3.83	8 reads
Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir Anatole Broyard	3.5	3 reads
Life Keith Richards James Fox	3.8	9 reads
Lives Other Than My Own Emmanuel Carrère	0	0 reads
Men We Reaped: A Memoir Jesmyn Ward	4.43	35 reads
Minor Characters Joyce Johnson	4	1 read
My Lives Edmund White	0	1 read
Negroland Margo Jefferson	3.57	10 reads
Palimpsest Gore Vidal	4	1 read
Patrimony Philip Roth	3.33	3 reads
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood Marjane Satrapi Mattias Ripa (Translator)	4.37	403 reads
Personal History Katharine Graham	4.33	10 reads
Priestdaddy Patricia Lockwood	4.03	68 reads
Slow Days, Fast Company Eve Babitz	4.46	15 reads
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother James McBride	3.96	69 reads
The Liars' Club Mary Karr	3.71	40 reads
The Memory Chalet Tony Judt	4.5	5 reads
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts Maxine Hong Kingston	3.3	40 reads
The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion	4.03	259 reads
Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism Temple Grandin	4	14 reads
This Boy's Life: A Memoir Tobias Wolff	4	21 reads
Travels with Lizbeth Lars Eighner	3	2 reads
Wave Sonali Deraniyagala	0	0 reads
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson	4.32	45 reads