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

Updated 2 months 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	0	0 reads
A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950 Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.	0	0 reads
A Life's Work Rachel Cusk	5	7 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	3.82	28 reads
Autobiography of a Face Lucy Grealy	3.92	10 reads
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life William Finnegan	4.35	53 reads
Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates	4.54	413 reads
Boyhood J.M. Coetzee	0	2 reads
Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration David Wojnarowicz	4.25	6 reads
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys Viv Albertine	4.18	12 reads
Cockroaches Scholastique Mukasonga	4.5	2 reads
Conundrum Jan Morris	3.5	2 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	4.02	85 reads
Experience Martin Amis	0	0 reads
Fierce Attachments: A Memoir Vivian Gornick	4.25	5 reads
Fun home Alison Bechdel	4	216 reads
Giving up the Ghost Hilary Mantel	5	2 reads
Growing Up Russell Baker Gilbert Riswold	4.5	2 reads
Heavy Kiese Laymon	4.63	34 reads
H is for Hawk Helen Macdonald	3.92	90 reads
Hitch-22 Christopher Hitchens	2.67	4 reads
Hold Still Sally Mann	5	4 reads
Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir Anatole Broyard	3	2 reads
Life Keith Richards James Fox	3.67	4 reads
Lives Other Than My Own Emmanuel Carrère	0	0 reads
Men We Reaped: A Memoir Jesmyn Ward	4.5	26 reads
Minor Characters Joyce Johnson	0	0 reads
My Lives Edmund White	0	0 reads
Negroland Margo Jefferson	4	4 reads
Palimpsest Gore Vidal	0	0 reads
Patrimony Philip Roth	3.5	2 reads
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood Marjane Satrapi Mattias Ripa (Translator)	4.34	285 reads
Personal History Katharine Graham	4.33	7 reads
Priestdaddy Patricia Lockwood	3.93	46 reads
Slow Days, Fast Company Eve Babitz	5	6 reads
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother James McBride	4.04	33 reads
The Liars' Club Mary Karr	3.82	28 reads
The Memory Chalet Tony Judt	4.33	4 reads
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts Maxine Hong Kingston	3.39	22 reads
The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion	4.06	199 reads
Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism Temple Grandin	3.8	9 reads
This Boy's Life: A Memoir Tobias Wolff	4	16 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	4.42	32 reads