Best biographies and memoirs of the year so far
Putting together the best biographies and memoirs of the year so far is a thrill—it’s also hard. But this list—the best of the best—represents the wide and varied lives and experiences of humanity. From a public relations hitman to RuPaul, to one of today’s greatest literary luminaries, Salman Rushdie, to a sociopath (yes, you read that right), these are some of our favorites.
Our top pick, All the Worst Humans, is a shocking confessional with House of Cards Vibes that confirms how seedy and power/money hungry the world can be. It’s perfect summer nonfiction reading, which is why it’s our #3 in our overall Best Book of the Year So Far list.
Be sure to check out our full list of biographies and memoirs, our nonfiction picks, the complete list of the Best Books of the Year So Far (and our full reviews).
All the Worst Humans will make your jaw drop: it’s a juicy, salacious memoir that confirms just how seedy the world is when money, politics, and power come into play. With the vibes of Michael Lewis’s propulsive Liar’s Poker, Elwood dishes on his decades as a public relations hitman, a hired gun known for pulling off (or hiding) the treacherous, outlandish requests of “dictators, tycoons, and politicians,” as the catchy subtitle promises. From relaying how he helped Qatar land their first FIFA World Cup by sabotaging the United States’ bid, to how he babysat Gaddafi’s son during a Las Vegas boondoggle filled with drugs, guns, and women, Elwood sets dynamite to his career. And that’s what makes this memoir so page-turning; it’s not just his astonishing stories of danger, manipulation, and questionable ethics—but his determination to expose it all, ultimately confronting the choices he made, and revealing how easily we (anyone, politicians, reporters, governments, and countries) can be puppets in a fragile world of egos and power grabs. A wild, oh-my-god-ride that you won’t be able to stop talking about. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
If you’ve ever wondered what goes through the mind of a sociopath, Patric Gagne’s chillingly addictive memoir is for you. Readers are voyeurs into her confusion and compulsions as she comes of age, desperate to feel anything, leading her to act out in increasingly scary ways—from stabbing a neighbor kid in the neck with a pencil, to locking classmates in the bathroom just to see what happens (and that’s just the beginning). Gagne feels no fear, guilt, or shame, and I’ll admit that I wish I could live life with a little less of those emotions—although not on the scale of her tortured experience. Her apathy also comes at a high cost, as she struggles to connect with her parents, find love, and resist the urge to lie, hurt, cheat, and steal. By the end, I was rooting for this self-aware sociopath, seeing her humanity, and understanding why certain people just seem off. As Gagne writes, we all unknowingly live among millions of sociopaths. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
In 2022, the literary luminary (Booker Prize winner, best-selling and Knighted author, etc.), Salman Rushdie was attacked and stabbed on stage at an event in Pittsburgh. He lost the sight of one eye—he describes the aftermath as a “soft boiled egg”—and this lightening rod of a memoir tackles that horrific night, how art is critical not just to him as an individual, but our greater world, and what sustains him. Like Rushdie’s novels, there’s a verve and command of language that is at once wry, all-knowing, and deeply honest. Knife is a powerful read and one that, I suspect, we’ll be hearing about for months—and years—to come. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
With an unshakeable kindness and clarity, RuPaul Charles invites readers into his life, offering the stories of his childhood, coming out, discovering drag, and finding his place among his family and in the world. RuPaul’s voicey joie de vivre makes this memoir stand out—and despite the moments of hardship (poverty, an absent father, addiction, heartbreak), it’s his almost primal understanding of his own agency that will leave you in awe (“I would do the only rational thing I could do: I would act as if I was already famous”). To call him a groundbreaking artist doesn’t even scratch the surface of what RuPaul has achieved, but The House of Hidden Meanings is less about his stardom and far more about becoming himself—a self that he knew in his gut was “preordained.” Easy to read, impossible to put down, this memoir is so much fun. And because of RuPaul’s relentless self-awareness and desire, it’s an inspiration. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
History readers are in for a real treat with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s latest. Goodwin is legendary for her presidential biographies, winning a Pulitzer Prize for No Ordinary Time (about how the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt shaped the nation’s response to the Great Depression and WWII), and awards for Team of Rivals (Abraham Lincoln), The Bully Pulpit (Theodore Roosevelt, Howard Taft), and many more. Now she turns the spotlight around to herself, and her late husband, former presidential speechwriter Richard “Dick” Goodwin. She writes conversationally, providing readers with an insider’s view to history (which to me, evoked that great old TV show, Pop-Up Video) as they experienced it first-hand, while digging through boxes of Dick’s files and memories from his 50-year career (“Oh, look, there's Ruth Bader Ginsburg in your law school photo.”) You’ll revel in these stories of their incredible lives. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Whiskey Tender is a reminder of just how good memoirs can be: emotional and intense, shocking and quotidian, with wild moments that are rendered with the perfect balance of outrageous intrigue and unfiltered honesty. While Deborah Jackson Taffa admits early on that her “story is as common as dirt,” her ability to articulate the complexities of her family’s history—living on the Quechan reservation and leaving it, and their run-ins with violence, oppression, poverty, and addiction—is far from common. With both grace and inquisition, she searches for understanding and how to make sense of her Native American and Spanish bloodlines, and how her family chased assimilation only to later reject the implausibility of the American dream. Whiskey Tender is a special memoir that “celebrate(s) our survival as a culture, as well as the hope, strength, and grace of my family” and then some. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
It seems like dishy finance reads are having a moment—Carrie Sun’s memoir of working at a hedge fund, Michael Lewis’s biography of Sam Bankman-Fried and now The Trading Game. In the case of Gary Stevenson, he shares how he went from rags to riches (so to speak) and how he became “the most profitable trader, in the whole world, and it’s a story about why, after all of that, I quit.” Describing deals as “bank robbery,” Stevenson lays bare the high-stakes world of risk and reward that dominated his time in the biz. If you’re a fan of the show Billions or loved the canonical Liars Poker, Stevenson’s memoir will hit like the rush of a deal. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
How about this for an opening line: “A pre-schoolers hands are the perfect size for razor blades. I know because I helped my schizophrenic drug-lord father chop, drop, and traffic kilos in kiddie-ride carcasses across flyover country.” If that doesn’t hook you, I don’t know what will. Dana, “Budgie” as her dad calls her, recounts growing up surrounded by drugs, her father’s mental illness and her mother’s severe depression, and how she made her way out of the poverty, drug-running, and manias of her parents. At times, this reads like fiction and reminded me of Demon Copperhead, while at others it was all too clearly a true and harrowing portrait of how a young woman overcame her childhood. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
In recent decades, nothing has changed our world more than the tech boom—and it’s clear from reading Burn Book, nobody has had more fun chronicling the movers and shakers than Kara Swisher. Swisher, a longtime journalist and podcaster, is whip smart and self-assured—whether she’s moving cross-country in hot pursuit of newsy scoops about the newfangled internet, challenging the tech titans long before they became billionaires (but just as they’re becoming legendary characters), or finding herself and her voice. This book is a real romp to read—snarky and dishy, packed with gossip about the “boy kings of the internet,” all from a woman who doesn’t back down to anyone. Her stories about every well-known tech entrepreneur are full of wit, nostalgia, and fire—and can only be told by the rare person, such as Swisher, who has had a front-row seat to witness it all. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, was a finalist for the National Book Award, an Editors’ Pick, and that essay collection—besides being a page-turner—has one of the best covers in recent memory. So, to say that we were excited for this memoir that explores his midwestern roots, basketball, and race in America, is an understatement. Using the proverbial “you”, Abdurraqib offers an unmistakable bite and urgency to his life story, which is not so much about basketball (though that forms the backbone—scratch that, backboard of this memoir) but the tightness of what it is to grow up in a community that knows all of your wins, your losses, your shots, and your scores. A moving and poignant memoir. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
I absolutely loved this memoir—it's funny, heart-breaking, and rich with cultural references that reminded me of my own childhood. Annabelle Tometich is Filipino-American, with a grandmother she adores but who is horribly racist towards her mother—a fierce woman whom she both loves and fears and who is just shy of nuts (she believes stealing mangos from her tree is a shootable offense)—and a father who is constantly engaged in battle with her mother when he’s at home at all. Tomatich struggles with imposter syndrome, feeling as though she doesn’t fit in with either side of her heritage, and wants nothing more than a life of normalcy—or at least the appearance of it. The Mango Tree is about family, coming of age, identity, and getting through it all with your sense of humor intact. Put this one to the top of your reading pile if you want a book with all the feels. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid electrifies the story of two people fighting for each other and their family, while waging a battle for civil rights, in her historical biography of Myrlie and Medgar Evers. Before they were on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, they were two students falling in love. Medgar found inspiration in his father, a Black man who refused to bow to prejudice, and from his time in the military, where he served in WWII. We meet Myrlie as a bright, ambitious teenager, just 17 years old, attending Alcorn A&M College. This book shines in the intimate conversations Reid has with Myrlie, who continued advocating for equality after her husband’s assassination. “It was the very qualities that I most admired in Medgar that frightened me,” Myrlie tells Reid, humanizing their bravery, which was not without a hefty price—but changed the course of America. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Memoirs of food and family can be so satisfying—a smell, a meal, or a cooking technique can conjure so much and so quickly (no wonder Proust’s madeleine sent him traipsing down memory lane). Chantha Nguon’s haunting memoir recounts “2 revolutions, 2 civil wars, and 1 wholesale extermination,” and life as a Cambodian refugee who lost everything and everyone during Pol Pot’s genocide in the 1970s. And one of the things that carried her through was her mother’s cooking, which gives her not only sustenance but employment. Throughout the memoir are recipes from her mother’s kitchen—a detail that makes this memoir even more visceral. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
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