Best autobiographies and memoirs that everyone should read in 2025

This is a powerful and important memoir that everyone should read. The first volume of seven books in Maya Angelou’s autobiographical series recounts the writer and poet’s childhood with her grandmother in the American South in the 1930s. A coming-of-age story against a backdrop of racism and segregation, the metaphor of a bird struggling to escape its cage is threaded throughout the book.

Exploring trauma – Angelou was sexually assaulted at just eight years old – and the power of a refuge in literature, it’s often been described as autobiographical fiction, owing to her beautiful and poetic prose. She begins the book as a young girl who is a victim of racism, but ends as a young woman equipped to challenge prejudice. As well as being a profound and moving story of growing up as a Black girl in the mid-20th century, it offers a harrowing view of the Jim Crow segregation laws, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Great Depression.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £2.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £12.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk

Debuting at the top of the New York Times bestseller list upon its release in 2018, this powerful and shocking memoir reads like a novel. The book details Tara Westover’s childhood in a strict Mormon family. Home-schooled and never taken to a doctor, she didn’t even have a birth certificate until she was nine years old.

Up until the millennium, Westover’s father was preparing for the end of the world. She evocatively recounts helping her father with his brutal job at a scrapyard, where losing fingers was common, and her mother’s venture into herbal remedies and oils, her only freedom from deference to her husband. Originally bound by strict Mormon beliefs, Westover’s story is one of emancipation through education. Escaping her family’s radicalism and violence, she left home at 16 to pursue education, eventually securing good enough marks to study at Cambridge University. This memoir is as terrifying as it is empowering, highlighting the dark side of fundamentalism and American society.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £12.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com

Actor and comedian Rob Delaney was arguably at the peak of his career in the late 2010s thanks to the black-comedy sitcom Catastrophe. Behind the scenes, however, he was grieving his late son, Henry. Delaney’s memoir is a detailed, heartbreaking and honest account of this period. It tells the story of his son’s birth, glorious first year, diagnosis with a brain tumour, treatment at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital and his death.

Delaney’s writing of pain and heartbreak is unflinching and brutal, but his humour shines through and provides moments of levity. Large parts of Delaney’s book are love letters to his “beautiful boy” and to the NHS, which cared for Henry around the clock (as an American, Delaney is full of wonder at the existence of the free health service). Though this is an account of every parent’s worst nightmare, Delaney’s gift is detailing the love that binds people amid tragedy.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

Ask any woman under the age of 35, and they’ll likely have read, loved, and raved about this memoir from Dolly Alderton. The journalist and author was The Sunday Times’s dating columnist and co-presenter (alongside Pandora Sykes) of The High Low podcast – I’m still mourning its end.

Her collection of coming-of-age stories shot her to global fame. This book chimed with millennials and Gen Z in its candid exploration of growing up in the suburbs, university years, house shares, dating and friendships. A nod to Nora Ephron’s seminal Heartburn, recipes are peppered throughout, while lessons learned from her childhood through to her thirties will resonate with readers.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com

First published in 1994, this book profiles Nelson Mandela’s early childhood, coming-of-age, education, decades spent in prison and becoming South Africa’s first democratically elected president. Recounting apartheid through one man’s perspective, it’s hugely enlightening regarding South Africa’s political past. Tracing Mandela’s route into law and his political awakening, he details his role in the then-outlawed African National Congress (ANC).

As well as explaining the political and social aspects of apartheid in South Africa in the mid-20th century, it narrates the underground and guerrilla tactics adopted to fight the government, with Mandela masquerading as a chauffeur to evade detection. He recalls his 27-year imprisonment, recounting backbreaking labour, uninhabitable cells and civil disobedience. What shines through in the book is a man willing to sacrifice his life for racial equality, making the final few passages covering his presidential election even more affecting.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £6.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com

Crying in H Mart opens with Michelle Zauner’s viral New Yorker essay of the same name. Following the loss of her mother to cancer soon after the deaths of her grandmother and aunt, Zauner finds herself regularly going to H Mart, the Asian supermarket chain in the US, where every aisle is tinged with nostalgia.

While Zauner states her book is a story about her mother, it’s just as much about her own life, grief and where it takes her. Her mother, who emigrated to the US before she was born, was an anchor to Zauner’s Korean heritage. With her gone, food is a portal. Zauner writes about how her upbringing was smothered by her mother’s love for her, resulting in a recognisable tussle between teenager and parent. But, at age 25, and on the cusp of success as a musician (Zauner is lead singer in the band Japanese Breakfast), she gets the call to say her mother is sick. Written in beautiful and intimate prose, Crying in H Mart explores the complexity of mother-daughter relationships and the idea of belonging.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £4.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £4.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com

Patti Smith’s memoir has introduced the musician to new generations of fans, while enlightening existing admirers about her coming-of-age in Seventies New York. Documenting her relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe, the book follows their chance meeting, romance and lifelong friendship until Mapplethorpe’s untimely death. Set against the backdrop of New York, Smith’s book captures the cultural significance of the era, from Andy Warhol’s Factory to William S Burrough’s art and Sam Shepard’s plays.

Arriving in New York as a poor poet with aspirations to be among the greats (Blake, Baudelaire and Rimbaud are regularly referenced), Smith meets Mapplethorpe while working in a bookstore. As well as exploring their love story, this book is an engrossing look into the making of an artist, as Smith dabbles in music journalism before embracing the burgeoning punk movement.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £7.07, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £7.99, Apple.com

Spare is the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time. Lifting the lid on more than two decades of royal family history, viral passages from the book included claims of a physical altercation with Prince William, drug use, Prince Harry’s time in Afghanistan and his relationship with Meghan Markle. Whether or not you’re a royalist, Prince Harry’s book has enough wild revelations, salacious gossip and strange confessions to keep even the biggest republicans hooked.

Ghostwritten by JR Moehringer, the book takes an almost Shakespearean tone as Harry reflects on his struggles in the royal family. It’s a strangely compelling and riveting read - you’ll also come away knowing far too much about the royal’s frostbitten genitalia. Some chapters offer straightforward rants about his family, while others are a cringey love letter to his wife. Offering a peek behind the curtain of the world’s most famous family, Prince Harry’s narration of the audiobook is a must-listen.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £14.99, Apple.com

This is the second instalment of Deborah Levy’s “living autobiography” series and arguably the best. Exploring the challenges and costs of self-reinvention after her divorce, it’s a meditation on what it is to be a modern woman. After the breakdown of her marriage, she moved with her two young daughters to a flat in North London and attempted to make a new home.

Coinciding with work success (her book Hot Milk had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize), she engages with Simone de Beauvoir’s critiques of being a wife and mother in The Second Sex. At the age of 50, cast adrift from the traditional marriage unit, she looks back on decades of habitual family-making, while, as a single mother, going it alone with a screwdriver or dealing with a lavatory that won’t flush. Levy writes profoundly on the female struggle of balancing work success with family duties.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £4.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk

Miriam Margolyes’s memoir is a rollicking ride through the actor’s life, covering her blissful upbringing and time in the Cambridge Footlights to hilarious sexual escapades and gossip about Hollywood A-listers like Warren Beatty and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Touching on the highs and lows of her life, Margolyes is candid about her stint as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter franchise and her work in Call the Midwife, while also exploring her 53-year relationship with her partner Heather Sutherland. Unsurprisingly, the book is hilarious, but it’s equally a fascinating and emotional portrait of a life well-lived.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.49, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.49, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

This autobiography is the first of two volumes from former US president Barack Obama. The book covers huge ground, from Obama’s upbringing and education at Harvard to his hard-fought campaign to become an Illinois state senator and, of course, his election as the USA’s first Black president.

Combining the personal and the political, Obama explores his mixed-race identity and the strong influences of his mother and maternal grandparents, as well as the challenges of balancing public politics, marriage and fatherhood. Offering a fascinating insight into the Oval Office, he recounts world events such as the financial crisis and challenges in the Middle East and North Africa. Obama is refreshingly frank in giving a sense of what it’s like to be president, while his journey itself is inspirational and uplifting.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £8.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £8.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £16.99, Apple.com

American humorist and essayist David Sedaris is at his best in this series of autobiographical essays. Whether he’s exploring his move from New York to Paris and attempting to learn French from a sadistic teacher; ranting about posh restaurants; recounting his childhood guitar lessons (his tutor Mr Mancini is a highlight); or reflecting on his idiosyncratic family, this book is laugh-out-loud funny, thanks to Sedaris’s pitch-perfect comedic timing. The collection of essays is perfect for dipping into when you have a spare moment, but you might find yourself unable to put it down.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.49, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.49, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

Made up of diary entries written during her eight years as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, Tina Brown’s memoir is a gossipy and anecdotal account of the fashion and social circles in 1980s New York. Detailing what goes into editing one of the world’s most historic fashion magazines, as well as the personal struggles of a working woman, the memoir is a compelling read.

Written with wit and wisdom, the book takes readers behind the scenes of Demi Moore’s famed pregnant cover shoot and follows Brown as she jumps from party to party. There are appearances from everyone from Donald Trump to Princess Diana, too. Brown’s account of being at the helm of the glossy magazine is a masterclass in salacious storytelling.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk

This powerful memoir from the late journalist Deborah Orr details her upbringing in the Scottish steel town of Motherwell. The book’s title has a double meaning; Orr explores her complex relationship with her mother and her longing for independence. Feeling like an outsider, she has no friends and is kept within arm’s reach by her mother, Winifred (Win).

Domineering, traumatised by the war and often cruel, Win opposes Orr leaving for university, and their tumultuous relationship creates the tension in the book. Meanwhile, Orr questions the power imbalance between her subservient mother and dominant father and how traditional gender roles were encouraged in her family. This is a searing account of working-class identity and how family and upbringing can leave a lasting impression on your life.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.49, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk

One of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British feminism, journalist Caitlin Moran brings wit, humour and punchiness to her 2011 memoir. Documenting her early life, adolescence and mid-thirties, Moran weaves through themes of feminism and truths of womanhood, commenting on everything from the feminist importance of bras to Brazilian waxes, abortion, workplace sexism, the pressure to have children and eating disorders.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £4.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £4.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £6.99, Apple.com

Adults of a certain generation will immediately recognise Jennette McCurdy, who played Cat in the Nickelodeon show iCarly and starred alongside Ariana Grande in Sam & Cat. Not unlike many other child stars of the era, her time on the show and beyond was not an easy ride. In her boldly titled memoir, she recounts her dysfunctional childhood in the shadow of her narcissistic mother, whose own acting career was a non-starter.

Despite her comic roles on screen, McCurdy was depressed and anxious, suffering from disordered eating and alcohol abuse. In the book, McCurdy says her mother forced her to diet and wouldn’t let her shower alone until she was in her late teens. It wasn’t until her mother died in 2013 that she understood the abuse she had suffered. This could be a depressingly sad memoir in anyone else’s hands, but McCurdy’s dark humour balances the bleakness of her story. Ultimately, it’s about abuse that’s masquerading as love. McCurdy’s narration of the audiobook is particularly engrossing, too.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £11.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £11.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £12.99, Apple.com

If you’ve laughed at her eponymous BBC sitcom or her previous autobiography, Is It Just Me?, then cast your expectations aside, as Miranda Hart’s latest memoir takes a somewhat unexpected turn. For a decade, she had to put her career on hold, owing to a long-overdue diagnosis of Lymes disease. I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You recounts years of mysterious pain and fatigue downplayed by doctors, and the relief at finally having an answer.

While there are moments of the confessional, hapless Hart we all know and love, the book is largely everything she has learnt from being chronically ill. She references and quotes many of the self-help books in which she found solace, which equally might reassure readers going through something similar. In the darkness of trying times, she also recounts finding love, letting her guard down and getting the happy ending she deserves.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

A bible for chefs and foodies across the world, Kitchen Confidential made a star of Anthony Bourdain in 2000, topping bestseller lists and launching his media career. A memoir of the late chef’s time in the kitchen, it offers an unfiltered look at the less appetising moments of the high-end restaurant world (his 1999 New Yorker essay and precursor to the book was titled “Don’t Eat Before Reading This”).

Beginning with his first memorable food experiences on holiday in France with his parents, the book goes on to describe the unpleasant, hazardous and gruelling work in a professional kitchen. Some stories are hilarious, others are horrifying – but all are gripping and effervescently told in gonzo style. Above all, Bourdain’s passion for food shines through, and it remains a refreshing reminder of the hard-working heroes behind the scenes. If you’re a fan, the audiobook narrated by Bourdain is a must-listen.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £7.09, Amazon.co.uk

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk

Diana Athill was 43 years old when she wrote Instead of a Letter, the first of a series of nine autobiographies – Athill died in 2019, aged 101, after a long and fascinating life. This book recounts her upbringing on a family estate in Norfolk. Cocooned from life’s troubles, thanks to her family’s inherited wealth, her parents then lose – or spend, as she wryly observes – all their money, before Athill’s life is then upended again by heartbreak.

The themes Athill explores with her frank and vivid prose are timeless and relatable, in the same way as a Jane Austen romantic comedy. Though Athill spent her career editing and publishing the books of authors like Jean Rhys and Philip Roth, her memoirs deserve to sit among the greats.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.39, Amazon.co.uk

Friends star Matthew Perry’s memoir is an engrossing listen, with the actor narrating the audiobook himself. Mirroring his character Chandler's sardonic, witty tone, the book is funny and self-effacing as it recounts Perry’s addiction to alcohol and opiates. It begins with him hospitalised after an explosion in his bowel, setting the tone for the rest of the book’s confessional tone.

His troubles didn’t begin with fame, but in his late teens, when he discovered drinking as a way to push down negative thoughts. His relentless quest for fame was another addiction, which he believed would solve all his problems. Bouncing between rehab, therapy sessions, detox programmes and romantic relationships, he relives moments of shame, happiness and success. By the end, you’re just rooting for him to get better, making the fact that the actor died only a year after his memoir’s publication even more poignant.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

It’s not often you hear about female spies during the Second World War, whether in fiction or memoir. Pippa Latour’s autobiography is a fresh and gripping autobiography, published posthumously last year. Latour was the last surviving Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the first female from the taskforce to write her story. The book reads like a spy thriller novel – testament to both Latour’s writing and incredible time undercover in France.

Recounting Latour’s unusual upbringing in the Belgian Congo, Tanzania and Kenya, the book details how she was parachuted into occupied France and posed as a soap-seller to collect valuable information for the Allied war effort. Hiding codes in her hair and Morse keys under her bicycle seats, she sends back vital information to Britain in the lead-up to D-Day. Even more remarkable is that Latour told no one, not even her family, of her war work - until she put pen to paper in old age, determined for the story of female SOE’s to not be lost.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £9.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

The late journalist AA Gill was a divisive figure who was loved for his sharp wit but derided for his controversial opinions. Severely dyslexic and dyscalculic, he phoned in his Sunday Times columns and dictated this memoir, which covers everything from the depths of alcohol addiction to becoming the darling of Fleet Street. Readers learn about Gill’s time at boarding school, then art school, and his relationship with his younger brother, who disappeared in the late Nineties.

This could easily become a pity party, but there’s only gratitude from Gill as he details coming out the other side of addiction. This makes it even more affecting that the journalist died of cancer a year after the publication of his memoir. Without a qualification to his name, his story of becoming one of the UK’s most esteemed television, travel and restaurant writers is hugely impressive.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.49, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.49, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com

Matthew McConaughey uses humour, vulnerability, and thoughtful introspection to tell the story of his life so far. From behind-the-scenes glimpses of his most iconic roles to deeply relatable encounters with fear, uncertainty, and self-discovery, Greenlights reads like a roadmap for living boldly. What sets this autobiography apart is its refusal to preach. Instead, it offers life lessons wrapped in wild stories, poetic journal entries, and unfiltered reflections.

It’s a reminder that success doesn’t have to come at the cost of soul, and that growth often lies in trusting the detours. McConaughey is a man who has clearly done the inner work, and his memoir manages to be both wildly entertaining and quietly profound – the kind of book that lingers long after the final page.

Read the ebook now:

• Kindle: £5.49, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £5.49, Apple.com

Listen to the audiobook now:

• Audible: £0.99, Amazon.co.uk
• Apple Books: £9.99, Apple.com