autobiography 2023 books

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

The Best Memoirs of 2023

These ten books explore what it means to be a person..

The beauty of memoir is its resistance to confinement: We contain multitudes, so our methods of introspection must, too. This year’s best memoirs perfectly showcase such variety. Some are sparse, slippery — whole lives pieced together through fragmented memories, letters to loved ones, recipes, mythology, scripture. Some tease the boundary between truth and fiction. Others elevate straightforward narratives by incorporating political theory, philosophy, and history. The authors of each understand that one’s life — and more significantly, one’s self — can’t be contained in facts. After all, the facts as we remember them aren’t really facts. It’s their openness and experimentation that allow, at once, intimacy and universality, provoking some of our biggest questions: How does a person become who they are? What makes up an identity? What are the stories we tell ourselves, and why do they matter? These books might not spell out the answers for you, but they’ll certainly push you toward them.

10. Hijab Butch Blues , by Lamya H

NYC-based organizer Lamya H (a pseudonym) has described her memoir as “unapologetically queer and unapologetically Muslim .” What this looks like is a book that isn’t so much grappling with or reconciling two conflicting identities, but rather lovingly examining the ways each has supported and strengthened the other. Lamya provides close, queer readings of the Quran, drawing connections between its stories and her own experiences of persecution as a brown girl growing up in an (unnamed) Arab country with strict colorist hierarchies. Beginning with her study of the prophet Maryam — whose virgin pregnancy and general rejection of men brings a confused 14-year-old Lamya real relief during Quran class — Lamya draws on various religious figures to track her political, spiritual, and sexual coming of age, jumping back and forth in time as she grows from a struggling child into a vital artist and activist.

9. Better Living Through Birding , by Christian Cooper

On May 25, 2020, birder Christian Cooper was walking the Central Park Ramble when he asked a white woman on the same path to leash her dog. She refused, he started recording, and after both he and his sister posted the video on social media , the whole world saw her call 911 and falsely claim that an African American man was threatening both her and her dog. Cooper quickly found himself at the center of an urgent conversation about weaponized whiteness and police brutality against Black men in the U.S., amplified by another devastating video circulating that same day: George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. Many will pick up Cooper’s memoir for his account of the interaction that captured international attention and forever changed his life — and it is a powerful, damning examination — but it is far from the main event. By the time it shows up, Cooper has already given us poignant recollections of growing up Black and gay (and in the closet) in 1970s Long Island, a loving analysis of science fiction, a behind-the-scenes look at the comic-book industry as it broke through to the mainstream, and most significantly, an impassioned ode to and accessible education on recreational birding. (The audiobook comes with interstitial birdsong!) Recalling his time at Harvard, Cooper turns repeatedly to his love of his English classes, and this background comes through in his masterful writing. An already prolific writer in the comic-book space, his memoir marks his first (and hopefully not last) foray into the long-form territory.

8. Love and Sex, Death and Money , by McKenzie Wark

McKenzie Wark is one of the sharpest, most exciting voices writing at the intersections of capitalism, community, gender, and sex — more broadly, everything in this title — and she is also criminally underread. In her epistolary memoir Love and Sex … , she looks at a lifetime of transitions — journeys not only through her gender, but also politics, art, relationships, and aging — and reflects on all the ways she has become the woman she is today, in letters to the people who helped shape her. Wark’s first letter is, fittingly, directed to her younger self. She acknowledges their infinite possible futures and that, in this way, this younger Wark on the brink of independence is the one most responsible for setting her on the path to this specific future. In theory, it’s a letter to offer clarity, even guidance, to this younger self, but really it’s a means of listening to and learning from her. Her letters to mothers, lovers, and others are as much, if not more, about Wark as they are about the recipients, but that self-reflection doubles as a testament to the recipients’ power. What comes across most strongly is Wark’s belief in ongoing evolution and education, and it’s hard not to leave inspired by that possibility.

7. A Man of Two Faces , by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen’s memoir maintains the singular voice of his fiction: audacious, poetic, self-aware. Written in nonlinear second-person stream of consciousness — its disjointedness represented on the page by paragraphs volleying from left to right alignment across the page — A Man of Two Faces recounts his life as a Vietnamese refugee in the U.S. When his family moves from wartime Vietnam to San Jose, California, 4-year-old Nguyen is placed in a different sponsor home than the rest of his family. The separation is brief, but it sets a tone of alienation that continues throughout his life — both from his parents, who left their home in pursuit of safety but landed in a place with its own brand of violence, and from his new home. As he describes his journey into adulthood and academia, Nguyen incorporates literary and cultural criticism, penetrating analyses of political history and propaganda, and poignant insights about memory and trauma.

6. Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere , by Maria Bamford

It’s safe to say alt-comedian Maria Bamford’s voice isn’t for everyone. Those who get her anti-stand-up stand-up get it and those who don’t, don’t. Her absurdist, meta series Lady Dynamite revealed the work of a woman learning to recognize and love her brilliant weirdness, and in Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult , she channels that weirdness into a disarmingly earnest, more accessible account of both fame and mental illness. Centered on Bamford’s desperate pursuit of belonging, and the many, often questionable places it’s led her — church, the comedy scene, self-actualization conferences, 12-step groups, each of which she puts under the umbrella of the titular “cults” — Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult is egoless, eye-opening, uncomfortable, and laugh-out-loud funny. These are among the best qualities — maybe even prerequisites — of an effective mental-illness memoir, and Bamford’s has earned its keep in the top tier. If you’re thinking of skipping it because you haven’t connected with Bamford’s work before: don’t.

5. In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation , by Isabel Zapata

In Isabel Zapata’s intimate, entrancing memoir In Vitro , the Mexican poet brazenly breaks what she calls “the first rule of in vitro fertilization”: never talk about it. Originally published in Spanish in 2021, and with original drawings woven throughout, In Vitro is a slim collection of short, discrete pieces. Its fragments not only describe the invasive process and its effects on her mind and body, but also contextualize its lineage, locating the deep-seated draw of motherhood and conception, analyzing the inheritances of womanhood, and speaking directly to her potential child. All together, it becomes something expansive — an insightful personal history but also a brilliant philosophical text about the very nature of sacrifice and autonomy.

4. The Night Parade , by Jami Nakamura Lin

When Jami Nakamura Lin was 17 years old, she checked herself into a psych ward and was diagnosed bipolar. After years experiencing disorienting periods of rage, the diagnosis offers validation — especially for her historically dismissive parents — but it doesn’t provide the closure that mainstream depictions of mental illness promise. In The Night Parade , intriguingly categorized as a speculative memoir, Lin explains that if a story is good, it “collapses time”; in other words, it has no beginning or end. Chasing this idea, Lin turns to the stories of her Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan heritage, using their demons, spirits, and monsters to challenge ideas of recovery and resituate her feelings of otherness. Intertwined in this pursuit is her grappling with the young death of her father and the birth of her daughter after a traumatic miscarriage. Extensively researched — citing not only folklore but also scholars of history, literary, and mythology — and elevated by her sister Cori Nakamura Lin’s lush illustrations, The Night Parade is both an entirely new perspective on bipolar disorder and a fascinating education in mythology by an expert who so clearly loves the material. It might be Lin’s first book, but it possesses the self-assurance, courage, and mastery of a seasoned writer.

3. Doppelganger , by Naomi Klein

After the onset of the COVID pandemic, as the U.S. devolved into frenzied factions, sociopolitical analyst Naomi Klein found herself in the middle of her own bewildering drama: A substantial population, especially online, began to either confuse or merge her with Naomi Wolf, a writer who’d gone from feminist intellectual to anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist. Klein’s initial bemusement becomes real concern verging on obsession as she fixates on her sort-of doppelgänger and starts questioning the stability of her identity. Klein becomes entangled in the world of her opposite, tracing the possible pipelines from leftism to alt-right and poking at the cracks in our convictions. Throughout, she nails the uncanniness of our digital existence, the ways constant performance of life both splinters and constrains the self. What happens when we sacrifice our humanity in the pursuit of a cohesive personal brand? And when we’re this far gone, is there any turning back?

2. The Woman in Me , by Britney Spears

Throughout the yearslong campaign to release Britney Spears from a predatory conservatorship , the lingering conspiracy theories questioning its success , and the ongoing cultural discourse about the ways public scrutiny has harmed her, what has largely been missing is Spears’s own voice. In her highly anticipated memoir, she lays it all out: her upbringing in a family grappling with multiple generations of abuse, the promise and betrayal of stardom, her exploitation and manipulation by loved ones, and the harrowing, dehumanizing realities of her conservatorship . These revelations are tempered by moments of genuine joy she’s found in love, motherhood, and singing, though it’s impossible to read these recollections without anticipating the loss — or at least the complication — of these joys. Most touching are her descriptions of her relationships with her sons; her tone is conversational, but it resonates with deep, undying devotion. It’s an intimate story, and one that forces questions about our treatment of mental illness, the ethics of psychiatric practices, the relationships between public figures and their fans, and the effects of fame — especially on young women. Justice for Britney, forever.

1. Pulling the Chariot of the Sun , by Shane McCrae

When Shane McCrae was 3 years old, his white maternal grandparents told his Black father they were taking Shane on a camping trip. It wasn’t the first time they’d done so, but this time, they never returned. What followed was a life full of instability, abuse, and manipulation, while his grandparents — including a grandfather who had, more than once, trawled cities for Black men to attack — convinced McCrae his father had abandoned him and that his Blackness was a handicap. It’s clear McCrae is first and foremost a poet; the rhythm of his prose and his hypnotic evocation of sensory memory reveals the way a lifetime of lies affected his grasp on his past. Maybe he can’t trust the facts of his past, but he certainly knows what it felt like, what it looked like. As he excavates and untangles muddied memories, contends with ambivalent feelings about his grandmother and mother, and ultimately comes to terms with their unforgivable robbery of a relationship with both his father and his true, full self, McCrae’s pain bleeds through his words — but so too does a gentle sense of acceptance. We are lucky to bear witness.

• vulture section lede
• celebrity memoirs
• britney spears
• maria bamford
• year in culture
• best of 2023

Most Viewed Stories

• Cinematrix No. 39: April 18, 2024
• Diddy’s Open Secrets
• A Hidden Sexual-Assault Scandal at the New York Philharmonic
• The Non-Parents’ Guide to Bluey
• How Taylor Swift Won Back the Public
• Shōgun Recap: No Exit

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The best memoirs and biographies of 2023

The rise of Madonna, Barbra Streisand in her own words, plus the stormy relationship of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor are among this year’s highlights

F or most writers, a memoir is a once in a lifetime event, but not for the poet and novelist Blake Morrison. Having already written memoirs about his late mother and father, he has turned his attention to his siblings in Two Sisters (Borough). The book details the life of Gill, his younger sister who died in 2019 from heart failure caused by alcohol abuse, alongside his half-sister Josie, the product of his father’s affair with a married neighbour, whose real parentage went unacknowledged for years. Morrison’s account of their struggles is tender, vivid and achingly sad.

O Brother (Canongate) is another brutal and brilliant sibling memoir in which the Kill Your Friends author John Niven recalls the life and death of his charismatic, troubled brother, Gary, who took his own life in 2010. It’s with both humour and pathos that he recalls his and Gary’s early life growing up in Irvine, Ayrshire, their diverging adult trajectories and the “Chernobyl of the soul” felt by Niven and his family after his brother’s suicide.

From siblings to parents and grandparents: Before the Light Fades (Virago) by Natasha Walter reveals how the author’s mother, Ruth, took her life at the age of 75, leaving a note that read: “Please be happy for me. It is a logical, positive decision.” Her death inspires Walter to investigate her family’s history of activism, tracing a fascinating path from her German grandfather Georg, who protested against the rise of the Nazis in the early 1930s, via her mother’s campaigning – Ruth was a member of the anti-war group Committee of 100, founded by Bertrand Russell – through to her own direct action with Extinction Rebellion.

Having detailed the trauma endured by her Jewish grandparents and their siblings during the second world war in her 2020 memoir House of Glass, Hadley Freeman turns the microscope on herself in Good Girls (4th Estate), detailing an adolescence blown apart by anorexia. The book is both a fearless account of her hospitalisation and eventual recovery and an important study of this most slippery and misunderstood disorder.

The Pulitzer-winning Stay True (Picador) , by New Yorker writer Hua Hsu, is a powerful and beautifully written meditation on guilt, memory and male friendship as the author reflects on the death of his “flagrantly handsome” college friend, Ken, who was murdered in 1998 after leaving a house party. A similarly thoughtful portrait of friendship, Jonathan Rosen’s The Best Minds (Penguin) tells of Michael Laudor, Rosen’s childhood friend with whom he shared a dream of being a writer. In adulthood, Laudor developed schizophrenia, for which he spent time in a psychiatric institution, and, in 1998, committed a shocking murder. In telling Laudor’s story, Rosen paints a bleak picture of how initially hopeful new attitudes towards mental illness fed into a system where those in desperate need of help slipped through the cracks.

In the clear-eyed and courageous How to Say Babylon (4th Estate), the poet Safiya Sinclair documents her traumatic childhood as the daughter of a militant Rastafarian who struck fear into his wife and children and made it clear to Safiya that she should grow into “the humbled wife of a Rastaman. Ordinary and unselfed. Her voice and vices not her own.” In her teens, Sinclair took refuge in poetry and, in defiance of her father, forged her own path. A domineering father also features in Noreen Masud’s lyrical, melancholy A Flat Place (Hamish Hamilton), in which the author travels to some of Britain’s starkest landscapes, including Morecambe Bay, Orford Ness and Orkney, while reflecting on themes of exile, heritage and her troubled childhood in Lahore, Pakistan.

Subtitled “an anti-memoir”, Wish I Was Here (Serpent’s Tail) sees the Viriconium author M John Harrison sifting through old notebooks and observing how his character and writing have evolved in a career spanning half a century, all the while rejecting the concept of memoir as another form of fiction. Along with providing snapshots from his life, this delightfully oddball and original book functions as a writing manual in which Harrison reveals his own battles on the page. “The problem of writing,” he says, “is always the problem of who you were, the problem of who to be next.”

A beguiling blend of memoir and biography, the Observer art critic Laura Cumming’s Thunderclap (Chatto & Windus) recalls the life of her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming, and that of Carel Fabritius, the 17th-century Dutch artist who was killed aged 32 in the Delft “thunderclap”, an explosion at a municipal gunpowder magazine that caused the roof of his home to collapse. Wrapped around their stories is the author’s own artistic journey, from her early days in London visiting and revisiting Fabritius’s A View of Delft in the National Gallery. Cumming’s luminous descriptions of individual paintings are worth the price of the book alone.

Wifedom (Penguin), by the former human rights lawyer Anna Funder, similarly weaves together memoir and biography to tell the story of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, the first wife of George Orwell who died at the age of 39. Having spent a summer reading Orwell, Funder noticed how little he mentioned Eileen, even though she had joined him on research trips and collaborated with him on works including Nineteen Eighty-Four. And so Funder shifted her attention “from the work to the life, and from the man to the wife”, in the process creating a nuanced portrait of a charismatic, pragmatic woman who, for better or worse, sacrificed her talent for the man she loved.

Less a straightforward biography than a series of portraits, Red Memory (Faber), by the Guardian’s former China correspondent Tania Branigan, collates remarkable eyewitness accounts of China’s Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of upheaval, paranoia and persecution beginning in 1966. Among Branigan’s interviewees is 60-year-old Zhang Hongbing, who, as a teenager, denounced his mother to the Communist party, leading to her arrest and execution. Zhang takes Branigan to her grave where, between sobs, he chastises his mother for failing to teach him about independence of thought.

Jonny Steinberg’s richly detailed Winnie & Nelson (William Collins) documents the relationship of the late anti-apartheid activist and first South African president Nelson Mandela and his second wife, the former social worker Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who died in 2018. Both fought racism at great personal cost, though, as this insightful biography reveals, they also inflicted immeasurable cruelty on one another.

Mary Gabriel’s Madonna: A Rebel Life (Coronet) chronicles, in enthralling detail, Madonna Louise Ciccone’s path from terrifyingly ambitious trainee dancer to pop colossus, all the while placing her in a wider social and cultural context. This is not just the story of massive sales and reinvention but that of a young woman devastated by the loss of her ultra-religious mother and fearlessly battling patriarchal systems, the conservative right and the Catholic church. Another exhaustive portrait of an era-defining star comes courtesy of its subject. Barbra Streisand’s My Name Is Barbra (Century) clocks in at 992 pages, and charts every step of the winding road from Brooklyn to Hollywood.

If both those books reveal the hard graft behind fame, Erotic Vagrancy (Riverrun), by Roger Lewis, tells of the excess. A twin biography of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the actors famed for their on-off relationship and lavish lifestyle, the title is borrowed from a furious Vatican statement drafted during the filming of 1963’s Cleopatra in Italy, which accused the pair of “erotic vagrancy”. Lewis’s magnificently entertaining book – a doorstopper at more than 650 pages – brims with outrageous anecdotes attesting to the couple’s obsession with one another and their chaotic and decadent ways (they once hired a yacht for their dogs). Burton and Taylor are seemingly monstrous – infantile, vulgar, narcissistic – but, as depicted here, they are nothing less than mesmerising.

• Best books of the year
• Best books of 2023
• Biography books
• Autobiography and memoir

Most viewed

The Best New Biographies of 2023

CJ Connor is a cozy mystery and romance writer whose main goal in life is to make their dog proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut mystery novel BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com

View All posts by CJ Connor

Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies.

The books included in this list have all been released as of writing, but biography lovers still have plenty to look forward to before the year is out. A few to keep your eye out for in the coming months:

• The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell (HarperOne, September 26)
• Einstein in Time and Space by Samuel Graydon (Scribner, November 14)
• Overlooked: A Celebration of Remarkable, Underappreciated People Who Broke the Rules and Changed the World by Amisha Padnani (Penguin Random House, November 14).

Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far!

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

Ellen and William Craft were a Black married couple who freed themselves from slavery in 1848 by disguising themselves as a traveling white man and an enslaved person. Author Ilyon Woo recounts their thousand-mile journey to seek safety in the North and their escape from the United States in the months following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel

Written over a period of 11 years with exclusive journalistic access to the subject, author Michael Finkel explores the motivations, heists, and repercussions faced by the notorious and prolific art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Of special focus is his relationship with his girlfriend and accomplice, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus.

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

While recently published, King: A Life is already considered to be the most well-researched biography of Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. published in decades. New York Times bestselling journalist Jonathan Eig explores the life and legacy of Dr. King through thousands of historical records, including recently declassified FBI documents.

Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters by Lynnée Denise

This biography is part of the Why Music Matters series from the University of Texas. It reflects on the legendary blues singer’s life through an essay collection in which the author (also an accomplished musician) seeks to recreate the feeling of browsing through a box of records.

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power by Leah Redmond Chang

Historian Leah Redmond Chang’s latest book release focuses on three aristocratic women in Renaissance Europe: Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. As a specific focus, she examines the juxtaposition between the immense power they wielded and yet the ways they remained vulnerable to the patriarchal, misogynistic societies in which they existed.

Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

Anna May Wong was a 20th-century actress who found great acclaim while still facing discrimination and typecasting as a Chinese woman. University of California professor Yunte Huang explores her life and impact on the American film industry and challenges racist depictions of her in accounts of Hollywood history in this thought-provoking biography.

Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown

Written by Rhodes Scholar and University of Pennsylvania medical student Jasmine Brown, this collective biography shares the experiences and accomplishments of nine Black women physicians in U.S. history — including Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black American woman to earn a medical degree in the 1860s, and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty

Two years after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s death, this biography presents a comprehensive history of Larry McMurtry’s life and legacy as one of the most acclaimed Western writers of all time.

The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by Leta McCollough Seletzky

Journalist Leta McCollough Seletzky examines her father, Marrell “Mac” McCollough’s complicated legacy as a Black undercover cop and later a member of the CIA. In particular, she shares his account as a witness of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel.

Are you a history buff looking for more recommendations? Try these.

• Best History Books by Era
• Books for a More Inclusive Look at American History
• Fascinating Food History Books

You Might Also Like

The Best Memoirs of 2023 (So Far)

The most touching, gripping, moving, and funny personal stories you need to read.

Every item on this page was chosen by an ELLE editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

With vacation season looming, here are a few ideas for your summer reading list. This year has been full of funny, fascinating, and evocative memoirs written by both household names and people just introducing themselves to the world. From Geena Rocero’s story of becoming a trans activist in Horse Barbie to Minka Kelly’s account of surviving her childhood in Tell Me Everything , each gives us a deep look into a fascinating life and provides a better understanding of who we are.

Irma: The Education of a Mother's Son

Pageboy: a memoir.

Pageboy is generating headlines but there’s so much more to it. (Not that the Hollywood intel isn’t appreciated.) Since coming out in 2020, Page has been one of the few high profile people speaking about life as a trans man. After over 15 years in the spotlight, Page excavates his memories to introduce himself properly for the first time.

Tell Me Everything: A Memoir

In both celebrity gossip and her star-making role on Friday Night Lights , Kelly has always been the girlfriend. Tell Me Everything gives her the microphone and makes us regret not fully knowing her before. Kelly’s early years were defined by tumult. Her single mother worked as a stripper and led a chaotic life that found them in countless precarious living situations. In a childhood devoid of security, Kelly searched for ways to cope and speaks honestly now about everything from an on-set romance to the pain of pregnancy loss. Tell Me Everything is a gorgeous debut that transcends the celebrity category.

Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation

In healing from a very painful breakup, Felix, a celebrated poet and political speechwriter, revisits her experiences with abuse, learning difficulties, and mental health crises through the heartbreaking process of learning how to untangle the threads of pain accrued throughout life. Dyscalculia brilliantly explores the way we understand and deal with pain and how we rate heartbreak on a hierarchy of grief.

Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter

It’s uniquely difficult to explain the maddening frustration and alienation of stuttering and Hendrickson does it beautifully. The stutter he has dealt with since childhood has become an accepted part of his life and his career in journalism. It’s one that enabled him to connect on a deep level with Joe Biden in a 2020 Atlantic piece that marked one of the few times the President has spoken about the way his stutter impacts him as an adult. Life on Delay has powerful resonance for anyone who has ever stuttered and offers others an insight into a remarkably common but under discussed phenomenon.

Horse Barbie: A Memoir

Growing up in the Philippines, Rocero found national fame in the world of beauty pageants. Relocating to the U.S. as a teen meant starting over, building a career as a model while hiding the fact that she was trans. Rocero forged a path for herself where one hadn’t previously existed and in Horse Barbie gives us such a warm and relatable story of strength and spirit.

Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth

There’s so much we never knew about Anderson and Love, Pamela provides a deep look into a woman who is much smarter, kinder, and more creative than she’s ever been given credit for. Those who have followed her for years will love seeing her full story told for the first time while others will benefit from understanding the way the media misrepresented her.

The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival

Those who recognize Saint John as a superstar executive at Netflix, Apple Music, and PepsiCo will be amazed by the level of candor and emotion she brings to her very personal story. While she was building a career as one of the most prominent Black women in business, Saint John quietly dealt with the loss of a child, a separation from her husband, and his death from cancer. Her ability to persevere is incredible and The Urgent Life is a heartbreaking example of how much invisible grief those around us can be carrying.

Stash: My Life in Hiding

We know addiction defines class but do we really? At the peak of her pill use, Cathcart Robbins, now the host of the podcast The Only One in the Room , was a full-time mom married to an entertainment executive and living a high-end Los Angeles lifestyle. She was also dealing with the challenges of being a Black woman in an exceedingly white world. As a recovery story, Stash is both distinct and universal.

Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming

Chin grew up knowing very little about her family’s history or the long path her relatives took from China to New York City. Mott Street came from years of research into her roots that covered the Chinese Exclusion Act and the transcontinental railroad labor and mirrors the history of so many families.

All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

Bringley has had an unusual view into the art world. In 2008 he left his job at The New Yorker to become a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All the Beauty in the World is his account of over a decade spent working at one of world’s most famous institutions filled with his simple appreciation for wondrous things.

What to Read in 2024

Amanda Montell On 'Magical Overthinking'

What Does a World Without Men Look Like?

Shelf Life: Anne Lamott

How Yulin Kuang Found Her Own ‘Love Story’

Shelf Life: Aly Raisman

Shelf Life: Julia Alvarez

Cameron Russell Is Unafraid

Percival Everett on 'James'

Lauren Oyler on 'No Judgment' and Criticism

Shelf Life: Téa Obreht

Carissa Broadbent On the Next 'Crowns of Nyaxia'

• NONFICTION BOOKS
• BEST NONFICTION 2023
• BEST NONFICTION 2024
• Historical Biographies
• The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
• Philosophical Biographies
• World War 2
• World History
• American History
• British History
• Chinese History
• Russian History
• Ancient History (up to 500)
• Medieval History (500-1400)
• Military History
• Art History
• Travel Books
• Ancient Philosophy
• Contemporary Philosophy
• Ethics & Moral Philosophy
• Great Philosophers
• Social & Political Philosophy
• Classical Studies
• New Science Books
• Maths & Statistics
• Popular Science
• Physics Books
• Climate Change Books
• How to Write
• English Grammar & Usage
• Books for Learning Languages
• Linguistics
• Political Ideologies
• Foreign Policy & International Relations
• American Politics
• British Politics
• Religious History Books
• Mental Health
• Neuroscience
• Child Psychology
• Film & Cinema
• Opera & Classical Music
• Behavioural Economics
• Development Economics
• Economic History
• Financial Crisis
• World Economies
• How to Invest
• Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
• Data Science Books
• Sex & Sexuality
• Death & Dying
• Food & Cooking
• Sports, Games & Hobbies
• FICTION BOOKS
• BEST NOVELS 2024
• BEST FICTION 2023
• New Literary Fiction
• World Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Literary Figures
• Classic English Literature
• American Literature
• Comics & Graphic Novels
• Fairy Tales & Mythology
• Historical Fiction
• Crime Novels
• Science Fiction
• Short Stories
• South Africa
• United States
• Arctic & Antarctica
• Afghanistan
• Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
• Netherlands
• Kids Recommend Books for Kids
• High School Teachers Recommendations
• Prizewinning Kids' Books
• Popular Series Books for Kids
• BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS (ALL AGES)
• Ages Baby-2
• Books for Teens and Young Adults
• THE BEST SCIENCE BOOKS FOR KIDS
• BEST KIDS' BOOKS OF 2023
• BEST BOOKS FOR TEENS OF 2023
• Best Audiobooks for Kids
• Environment
• Best Books for Teens of 2023
• Best Kids' Books of 2023
• Political Novels
• New History Books
• New Historical Fiction
• New Biography
• New Memoirs
• New World Literature
• New Economics Books
• New Climate Books
• New Math Books
• New Philosophy Books
• New Psychology Books
• New Physics Books
• THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS
• Actors Read Great Books
• Books Narrated by Their Authors
• Best Audiobook Thrillers
• Best History Audiobooks
• Nobel Literature Prize
• Booker Prize (fiction)
• Baillie Gifford Prize (nonfiction)
• Financial Times (nonfiction)
• Wolfson Prize (history)
• Royal Society (science)
• Pushkin House Prize (Russia)
• Walter Scott Prize (historical fiction)
• Arthur C Clarke Prize (sci fi)
• The Hugos (sci fi & fantasy)
• Audie Awards (audiobooks)

Make Your Own List

Best Biographies

The best biographies of 2023: the national book critics circle shortlist, recommended by elizabeth taylor.

Winner of the 2023 NBCC biography prize

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman

Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

1 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

2 the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, 3 mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, 4 metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, 5 up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.

I t’s a pleasure to have you back , Elizabeth—this time to discuss the National Book Critics Circle’s 2023 biography shortlist. You’ve been chair of the judging panel for a while, so you’re in a great position to tell us whether it has been a good year for biography.

That comes through in the shortlist, I think. There’s a real range here. I think any reader is bound to find something to appeal to their tastes.

Shaping a shortlist seems quite like arranging a bouquet. A clutch of peony, begonia, or orchid stems…each may be lovely, an exemplar in its own way. We aspire to assemble a glorious arrangement—a quintet of blooms that reflect the wildly varied human experiences represented in the verdant garden of biography.

Let’s talk about G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century first, then, shall we? It is your 2023 winner of the NBCC’s prize for best biography; it also won a Pulitzer Prize . It’s also, and correct me if I’m wrong, the most traditional of the biographies that made the list.

G-Man is traditional in as much as Beverly Gage captures the full sweep of Hoover’s life, cradle to grave: 1895 to 1972. In that way, structurally G-Man sits aside the epics of David McCullough ( Truman , John Adams ) and Ron Chernow ( Grant , Alexander Hamilton ).

Unlike those valorized national leaders, Hoover answered to no voters. The quintessential ‘Government Man,’ a counselor and advisor to eight U.S. presidents , of both political parties, he was one of the most powerful, unelected government officials in history. He reigned over the Federal Bureau of Investigations from 1924 to 1972. Hoover began as a young reformer and—as he accrued power—was simultaneously loathed and admired. Through Hoover, Gage skilfully guides readers through the full arc of 20th-century America, and contends: “We cannot know our own story without understanding his.”

In G-Man , Yale University professor Gage untangles the contradictions in Hoover’s aspirations and cruelty, and locates the paradoxical American story of tensions and anxieties over security, masculinity, and race.

“This year, many biographies were deeply rooted in American soil that required years of research to till”

Hoover lived his entire life in Washington D.C., and Gage entwines his story in the city’s evolution into a global power center and delves deeply into the dark childhood that led him to remain there for college. Critical to understanding Hoover, Gage demonstrates, was his embrace of the Kappa Alpha fraternity; its worldview was informed by Robert E. Lee and the ‘Lost Cause’ of the South , in which racial equality was unacceptable. He shaped the F.B.I. in his image and recruited Kappa Alpha men to the Bureau.

For Hoover, Gage writes, Kappa Alpha was a way to measure character, political sympathies, and, of course, loyalty. One of those men was Clyde Tolson, and Gage documents their trips to nightclubs, the racetrack, vacations, and White House receptions. Hoover did not acknowledge that he and Tolson were a couple, but in the end their separate burial plots were a few yards from one another.

While Hoover feels very much alive on the page, Gage captures the full sweep of American history, chronicling events from the hyper-nationalism of the early part of the century, moving into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., making use of newly unclassified documents. When Hoover’s F.B.I. targeted Nazis and gangsters, there was clarity about good guys and bad guys. But by the mid-century, as the nation began to fracture, he regarded calls for peace and justice as threats to national security. Among the abuses of power committed by Hoover’s F.B.I., for instance, was the wiretapping and harassment of King.

Beyond Hoover’s malfeasance, Gage emphasizes that Hoover was no maverick. He tapped into a dark part of the national psyche and had public opinion on his side. Through Hoover, Americans could see themselves, and, as Gage argues, “what we valued and refused to see.”

A biography like this does make you realize how deeply world events might be impacted or even partially predicted by the family background or the personalities of a small number of key individuals.

We should step through the rest of the books on your 2023 biography shortlist. Let’s start with Kerri K. Greenidge’s The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family , which is the story not only of the Grimké Sisters Sarah and Angelina, two well-known abolitionists, but Black members of their family as well.

I was eager to read The Grimkés as I had admired Greenidge’s earlier biography, Black Radical , about Boston civil rights leader and abolitionist newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter. Greenidge, a professor at Tufts University, brings her unique, perceptive eye to African American civil rights in the North.

Now Greenidge’s The Grimkés sits on my bookshelf next to The Hemingses of Monticello , the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Annette Gordon-Reed who exposed the contradictions of one of the most venerated figures in American history, Thomas Jefferson. In the Grimke family, Greenidge has found a gnarled family tree, deeply rooted in generations of trauma.

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke have been exalted as brave heroines who defied antebellum Southern piety and headed northward to embrace abolition. Greenridge makes the powerful case that, in clinging to this mythology, a more troubling story is obscured. In the North, as the Grimké sisters lived comfortably and agitated for change, they enjoyed the financial benefits of their slaveholding family in South Carolina.

Get the weekly Five Books newsletter

After the Civil War, they learned that their brute of a brother had fathered at least two sons with a woman whom he had enslaved. The sisters provided some financial assistance in the education of these two young men, one attended Harvard Law School and the other Princeton Divinity School—and did not let their nephews forget it.

Not only does Greenidge provide a revisionist history of the Grimke sisters, but she also takes account of the full Grimké family and extends their story beyond the 19th century. She delves into the dynamics of racial subordination and how free white men who conceive children — whether from rape or a relationship spanning decades with enslaved women—destroy families. Generations of children are haunted by this history.  Poignantly, Greenidge evokes the life and work of the sisters’ grandniece Angelina (‘Nana’) Weld Grimké , a talented—and troubled—queer playwright and poet, who carried the heavy weight of the generational trauma she inherited.

This sounds like a family saga of the kind you might be more likely to find in fiction.

Let’s turn to Mr B . : George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans, the story of the noted choreographer. Why did this make your shortlist of the best biographies of 2023?

The perfect match of biographer and subject! A dancer who trained with Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York and is now dance critic for The New Yorker, Homans has written a biography of the man known as ‘the Shakespeare of Dance.’ In felicitous prose, Homans channels the dancer’s experience onto the page, from the body movements that can produce such beauty to the aching tendons and ligaments. Training is transformation, Homan writes, and working with Balanchine was a kind of metamorphosis tangled with pain. She evokes the dances so vividly that one can almost hear the music.

“At the heart of biography is the quest to understand the interplay between individual and social forces”

Homans captures Balanchine in a constant state of reinvention, tracing his life from Czarist Russia to Weimar Berlin , finally making his way to post-war New York where he revitalized the world of ballet by embracing modernish, founding New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine was genius whose personal history shape-shifted over the years. Homans grounds Mr. B in more than a hundred interviews, and draws from archives around the world.

Homans captures Balanchine’s charisma and cultural importance, but Mr. B. is no hagiography. Homans grasps the knot of sex and power over women used in his work. He married four times, always to dancers. They were all the same kind of swan-necked, long-waisted, long-limbed women, and although Homans does not write this, his company often sounds more like a cult than art.

And, of course, there is the matter of weight, which Homans dealt with directly, as did Balanchine. He posted a sign: ‘BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PAY—YOU MUST WEIGH.’

I don’t think I’ve ever considered reading a ballet biography before, but it sounds fascinating.

The next book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist brings us to Oxford, England. This is Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman.

At the outset of World War II , a quartet of young women, Oxford students—Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley—were “bored of listening to men talk about books by men about men,” as Mac Cumhaill, a Durham University professor, and Wiseman, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, write. In their marvelous group biography, MacCumhaill and Wiseman vivify how the friendships of these women congealed to bring “philosophy back to life.”

As their male counterparts departed for the front lines, this brilliant group of women came together in their dining halls and shared lodging quarters to challenge the thinking of their male colleagues. In the shadows of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, these friends rejected the logical positivists who favoured empirical scientific questions. They didn’t really create a distinct philosophical approach as much as they shared an interest in the metaphysics of morals.

Brilliant. A book that is ostensibly ‘improving’ but which turns out to be absolutely chock-full of gossip sounds perfect to me. Let’s move on to the fourth book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist, which is Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs.

A biography about writing biography ! Very meta, and very much in the interdisciplinary tradition of American Studies. In his gorgeous braid of cultural history, Cornell University professor Sachs   entwines the lives and work of poet and fiction writer Herman Melville (1819-1891) and the philosopher and literary critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), illuminating their coextending concerns about their worlds in crisis.

While Melville is now firmly ensconced in the American canon, most appreciation and respect for him was posthumous. The 20th-century Melville revival was largely sparked by a now overlooked Mumford, once so prominent that he appeared on a 1936 Time  magazine cover.

Sachs brilliantly provides the connective tissue between Melville and his biographer Mumford so that these writers seem to be in conversation with one another, both deeply affected by their dark times.

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount .

As Mumford grappled with tragedies wrought by World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic and urban decay, Melville had dealt with the bloody Civil War , slavery , and industrialization. In a certain way, this book is about the art of biography itself, two writers wrestling with modernity in a bleak world. In delving into Melville’s angst, Mumford was thrust into great turmoil. Sachs evokes so clearly and painfully this bond that almost did Mumford in, and writes that “Melville, it turns out, was Mumford’s white whale.”

There’s a real sense of range in this shortlist. But do you get a sense of there being certain trends in biography as a genre in 2023?

In many ways, this is a golden era for biography. There are fewer dull but worthy books, more capacious and improvisational ones. More series of short biographies that pack a big punch. We see more group biographies and illustrated biographies. But just as figures and groups once considered marginal are being centered, records that document those lives are vanishing.

The crisis in local news and the homogenization of national and international news will soon be a crisis for biographers and historians. Where would historians be without the ‘slave narratives’ from the Federal Writers Project , or the Federal Theatre Project ? Reconstruction of public events—federal elections, national tragedies, and so on—may be possible, but we lose that wide spectrum of human experience. We need to preserve these artifacts and responses to events as they happen. Biographies are time-consuming labors of love and passion, and are often expensive to produce. We need to ensure that we are generating and saving the emails, the records, the to-do lists of ordinary life.

The affluent among us will always be able to commission histories of their companies or families, but are those the only ones that will endure?

June 30, 2023

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is a co-author of American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation with Adam Cohen, with whom she also cofounded The National Book Review. She has chaired four Pulitzer Prize juries, served as president of the National Book Critics Circle, and presided over the Harold Washington Literary Award selection committee three times. Former Time magazine correspondent in New York and Chicago and long-time literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, she is working on a biography of women in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras for Liveright/W.W. Norton.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

© Five Books 2024

• Biographies & Memoirs
• Arts & Literature

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

My Name is Barbra: The Sunday Times Bestselling Autobiography and Music Book of the Year 2023 Kindle Edition

• Print length 976 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Penguin
• Publication date November 7, 2023
• File size 38032 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BTTR3PHL
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin (November 7, 2023)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 7, 2023
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 38032 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 976 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 152913689X
• #1,135 in Biographies of Actors & Entertainers
• #1,644 in Rock Band Biographies
• #5,035 in Memoirs (Kindle Store)

About the author

Barbra streisand.

Barbra Streisand is the only artist ever to receive Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards, as well as the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Kennedy Center Honors.

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more

The best sport autobiographies 2023: Memoirs from the worlds of football, cricket and more

• Calum Trenaman

Our guide to the best autobiographies, whatever your choice of sport

We live in an era where people want more access to their favourite sportspeople than ever before: interviews before matches, interviews after matches, analysis at the most granular levels. And that’s not to mention the social media presence that many sports clubs contractually require of their stars. For famous sportspeople, autobiographies are almost a guarantee once they do anything noteworthy. The market is flooded with them so we’re here to help narrow down your choices to the cream of the crop.

When a sportsperson has been in the public eye for such a long period of time, an autobiography is a time for them to reveal all, to be vulnerable and to finally open themselves up to their fans in a way they may never have done before.

The chosen autobiographies may not necessarily be from the biggest names in their field, but their stories offer something new and fresh, insightful and interesting, momentous and potentially ground-breaking. Read on for our buying guide and roundup.

Best sport autobiographies: At a glance

• Best early-career sports autobiography: A Clear Blue Sky by Jonny Bairstow and Duncan Hamilton
• Best end-of-career sports autobiography: Racing Through the Dark by David Millar in collaboration with Jeremy Whittle
• Best political sports autobiography: The Rodchenkov Affair by Gregory Rodchenkov

How to choose the best sport autobiography for you

There are so many sports autobiographies to choose from that it can be overwhelming when deciding which to commit to reading. Even more so when one sportsperson may have more than one autobiography. Try asking yourself these questions.

What’s the sport?

This may sound obvious when choosing a sports autobiography to read, but it’s crucial. If the subject of the book is someone considered the best in their field, and you want to find out more about their life and their mindset, that’s excellent. But that may be communicated through the medium of their sport and if you don’t know what they’re talking about, then that insight is going to be lost on you.

Likewise, the inverse is also true. If you consider yourself a serious fan of a particular sport, then you may not gain a lot from reading an autobiography of someone whose career you know intimately or a sport you know thoroughly. It could be a more interesting reading experience if you pick someone from a sport you know little about but that you know has had an incredible life.

How far beyond the sport does it go?

This is also important. Do you want the person to be delving deep into an analysis of a championship victory, taking you through each game and what their role in it was? Or do you want an autobiography in which the sport itself takes a back seat, with more of a focus on the feelings and inner monologue of that person as they traversed various obstacles in their career? Some of those in the former category can be very dry and clinical. But on the other hand, many sports fans are more interested in the tactics and physical aspect of the sport, and might find the mental and emotional side of things too “wishy-washy” for their reading consumption.

At what point in the person’s career was the autobiography written?

Arsene Wenger wrote his autobiography after he had completed his time as Arsenal manager. Sir Alex Ferguson did the same. They were retired and their managerial careers were over. Age also plays a factor, in the style of the autobiography. For example, when a 75-year-old is writing about their life in its entirety after a 55-year career in the sport, a lot of details will be skimmed over.

Many sportspeople write multiple autobiographies, and many may even write multiple memoirs while still playing. That means they can go into much more detail in shorter periods of time in their careers. For instance, at the time of writing, England Test cricket captain Ben Stokes already has two autobiographies, and he still has plenty of years left in his career. What kind of reading experience are you looking for and how deep do you want the person to dive into their own life and career? That will help you decide what you want to read.

The best sport autobiographies you can buy in 2023

1. a clear blue sky by jonny bairstow and duncan hamilton: best early-career sports autobiography.

England Cricketer Jonny Bairstow’s autobiography partially charts the tricky start to his international career, which began in 2013, up to his maiden Test century in South Africa in 2016.

But what sets this autobiography apart from other cricketing autobiographies, and perhaps what helped win it the Wisden Cricket Book of the Year in 2018, is its deeply personal discussion of his father’s suicide, and the effect it had on Jonny, his sister and their mum.

David Bairstow took his own life when his son was just eight-years old. His sister Becky was seven, and his mother was battling cancer for the first of two times in her life. Early in his professional career, Jonny could come across as prickly and sensitive when potentially vulnerable to the criticism of the cricketing press, but he shows a completely different side of himself here. He admits to feeling like he, Becky and their mum were survivors of a shipwreck in the aftermath of David’s suicide – and that since then they have stuck together through everything.

What makes the story of Bairstow’s life all the more compelling is that it isn’t just blue eyes and red hair that he inherited from his late father, but his cricketing talent too. While not as successful as his son, he had a long and prolific career for Yorkshire and occasionally England. The struggles of Jonny’s early career came across as laden with frustration of an unfulfilled legacy. Since his maiden Test century, Bairstow hasn’t looked back. This wonderful and sensitive autobiography explores the difficulties of establishing his career and the even tougher difficulties of his early life.

Key specs – Length: 320 pages; Publisher: Harper NonFiction; ISBN: 978-0008232696

A CLEAR BLUE SKY: A remarkable memoir about family, loss and the will to overcome

2. racing through the dark by david millar with jeremy whittle: best end-of-career sports autobiography.

David Millar was one of the many professional cyclists of the 90s and 00s to have doped. It was an era of cycling that was so juiced up, that any differentiation between real and fake was lost. It lost generations of fans who consequently turned away from the sport and will likely never return. Millar isn’t an outlier, but he wasn’t famous like Lance Armstrong. And he certainly wasn’t as lucky as Armstrong. Rather than being able to tell the truth from the comfort of a California mansion in his own words, Millar was arrested by the French police in 2004 for doping violations and was later banned by the British Cycling Federation for two years.

Millar’s autobiography is an honest account of how an enthusiastic and potentially naive young professional cyclist falls into the world of doping, having had no intention to cheat his way to the top. Often, those of us outside pro sport can’t fathom why a person would cheat in the field, and we may believe they must have been “evil” from the start. Millar’s contrition and genuine work after returning from his ban to help root out doping from the sport proves he is not one of those people. It’s a fascinating account of how a sport can be taken over by a culture of cheating, and that an individual is often powerless to confront or avoid that culture.

Key specs – Length: 368 pages; Publisher: Orion; ISBN: ‎978-1409120384

Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar

3. the rodchenkov affair by grigory rodchenkov: best political sports autobiography.

If you want to learn about contemporary Russia through the lens of sport, and how the country was able to coordinate the largest state-sponsored doping program in the history of professional sport, then this is the autobiography for you.

There’s a case to be made that Grigory Rodchenkov, while not a noteworthy professional sportsperson, had one of the biggest impacts on global sport in the 21st century. His autobiography walks us through the world of Russian sport, dating back well into the Soviet era, and how doping has always been a part of professional sport there. In the Soviet Union, it was individual coaches giving their athletes whatever they thought worked. It wasn’t an unrefined and unorganised system, but during the mid-2000s it became systematic. And Rodchenkov, now a whistleblower living in hiding in the US, was the man behind it.

What is most interesting in Rodchenkov’s autobiography is not necessarily his revelations of secret labs or the Russian secret service’s involvement in doping control at the Sochi Winter Olympics, but his thoughts and feelings as he facilitated it all. He frequently describes life in Russia in Orwellian terms, yet fails to see the role he played in fuelling that nightmare. And while his actions arguably rob professional sport of the thrill of fair competition, he’s remarkably unapologetic: if it wasn’t him, there’d be someone else, and doping is just part of trying to gain an advantage over other competitors. It’s a brilliant autobiography that, while telling the story of doping in Russia, reveals much about the Russian psyche in relation to global sporting politics.

Key specs – Length: 320 pages; Publisher: WH Allen; ISBN: 978-0753553350

The Rodchenkov Affair: How I Brought Down Russia’s Secret Doping Empire – Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2020

4. the mamba mentality by kobe bryant: best “coffee table” sports autobiography.

In this coffee-table-sized book, basketballer Kobe Bryant – who lost his life in a helicopter crash in 2020 – tells of his self-named ‘Mamba Mentality’ on the court.

The book is split into two main sections: process and craft. While it tells lots of Bryant’s life, as with any conventional autobiography, Bryant is more concerned with passing on his wisdom of what ‘greatness’ is and what it takes to get there. When Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance docu-series was released in 2020, the world was given an insight into a man with a deep desire to win and to be the best. Bryant is cut from the same cloth.

Just a brief look over some of his achievements will tell you the scale of his greatness. Five-time NBA champion, 18-time NBA All-Star, 11-time All-NBA First Team, nine-time NBA All-Defensive First Team and an NBA Hall of Famer. He’d probably tell you that those first set of achievements are the only ones that matter. And that says a lot about his mentality.

As with many coffee table books, there is more imagery than words here, displaying brilliant photography from Bryant’s life, and focusing on his storied career with the Los Angeles Lakers. This is not an autobiography just for basketball fans. It’s not even an autobiography just for sports fans. It’s a blueprint for anyone who wants to be at the top of their chosen field from someone who knows exactly what it takes to get there.

Key specs – Length: 208 pages; Publisher: MCD; ISBN: 978-0374201234

5. Addicted by Tony Adams and Ian Ridley: Most candid autobiography

When you hear the name Tony Adams, you may think of a hard-nosed and dedicated centre back, leading Arsenal’s defence for nearly two decades. And he was a leader in every sense of the word, becoming Arsenal captain at the age of just 21 and winning four league titles, three FA Cups and two League Cups during his 19 years at the club, retiring without ever having left. He is a footballing legend.

Despite all this, Adams may argue that it was his decision to quit drinking and sticking to it that may be his biggest achievement. He admits in his book that, in doing so, it was the first time in his entire life that he had ever asked for help.

Professional football was awash with alcohol during the 1990s, perhaps most of all at Arsenal. This was a Wild West period for football, where there was a lot of money, no social media and no defined sense of professionalism instilled in the game when it came to fitness, dieting and drinking. For Adams to admit he had a problem took a lot of soul searching and courage.

This was before mental health and illness had entered the realm of mainstream health conditions and, as ever, Adams led from the front and was open about his struggles. He is by no means the only England footballer to struggle with alcoholism, but his autobiography will inspire not only those going through similar struggles, but also any sports fans who understand what it means to battle inner demons of any kind.

Key specs – Length: 384 pages; Publisher: HarperCollins; ISBN: 978-0008268749

ALA raises alarm after 2023's top challenged books target mostly LGBTQ, people of color

More books than ever are being targeted for censorship.

In fact, according to the American Library Association, the number of unique titles targeted for censorship across school and public libraries surged 65 percent in 2023 compared to 2022, the highest levels ever documented.

The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92 percent in 2023 over the previous year, according to the ALA, which accounted for about 46 percent of all book challenges in 2023.

But it isn't just the number of books and frequency of complaints that has the group, and others, on edge.

“In looking at the titles of the most challenged books from last year, it’s obvious that the pressure groups are targeting books about LGBTQIA+ people and people of color,” ALA President Emily Drabinski said. “At ALA, we are fighting for the freedom to choose what you want to read. Shining a light on the harmful workings of these pressure groups is one of the actions we must take to protect our right to read.”

Poll: More NJ adults concerned about school book banning than inappropriate content

The ALA announced its list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books on Monday, kicking off National Library Week.

Of that list, 7 of 10, or 70 percent, were targeted due to LGBTQ content.

Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023

The ALA compiles its list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books based on information from reports filed by library professionals and community members, as well as news stories published throughout the United States. The ALA says that because most book challenges are not reported in the press or to the ALA, the list is only a snapshot of the challenges that exist.

The group says it documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023, with pressure being brought to public libraries as well as school libraries.

The most-challenged books of 2023, according to the ALA, are:

• “ Gender Queer ,” by Maia Kobabe (Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit)
• “ All Boys Aren’t Blue ,” by George M. Johnson (Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit)
• “ This Book is Gay ,” by Juno Dawson (Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, sex education, claimed to be sexually explicit)
• “ The Perks of Being a Wallflower ,” by Stephen Chbosky (Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content, rape, drugs, profanity)
• “ Flamer ,” by Mike Curato (Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit)
• “ The Bluest Eye ,” by Toni Morrison (Reasons: Rape, incest, claimed to be sexually explicit, EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) content)
• (TIE) “ Tricks ,” by Ellen Hopkins (Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, drugs, rape, LGBTQIA+ content)
• (TIE) “ Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ,” by Jesse Andrews (Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, profanity)
• “ Let's Talk About It ,” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan (Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, sex education, LGBTQIA+ content)
• “ Sold ,” by Patricia McCormick (Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, rape)

The Top 10 Books are featured in the Unite Against Book Bans’ Book Résumé  resource.

The project, which launched in February and was created in collaboration with the publishing industry and library workers, aims to support librarians, educators, parents, students and other community advocates when they defend books from censorship. It offers a "resume" for each book that summarizes the book’s significance and educational value, including a synopsis, reviews from professional journals, awards, accolades and more, according to the ALA. It also includes information about how a title has been successfully retained in school districts and libraries after a demand to censor the book, when possible.

“These are books that contain the ideas, the opinions, and the voices that censors want to silence – stories by and about LGBTQ+ persons and people of color,” said ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom Director Deborah Caldwell-Stone.

“Each challenge, each demand to censor these books is an attack on our freedom to read, our right to live the life we choose, and an attack on libraries as community institutions that reflect the rich diversity of our nation. When we tolerate censorship, we risk losing all of this. During National Library Week, we should all take action to protect and preserve libraries and our rights," Caldwell-Stone said.

Banned Books Week 2024

On Monday, the ALA also announced the theme for Banned Books Week 2024, “Freed Between the Lines.” It says the theme "honors the ways in which books bring us freedom and that access to information is worth preserving." Banned Books Week is set for Sept. 2 to 28.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

Report: Last year ended with a surge in book bans

Elizabeth Blair

Cumulative book bans in the United States, July 1, 2021 - December 31, 2023. See the full PEN America report here. PEN America hide caption

Cumulative book bans in the United States, July 1, 2021 - December 31, 2023. See the full PEN America report here.

PEN America says there was an "unprecedented" surge in book bans during the latter half of 2023, according to a new report.

The free expression group says that from July-December of last year, it recorded 4,349 instances of book bans across 23 states and 52 public school districts. The report says more books were banned in those six months than in the 12 months of the 2022-2023 school year.

Adults have a lot to say about book bans — but what about kids?

PEN America says it draws its information on bans from "publicly available data on district or school websites, news sources, public records requests, and school board minutes."

Among the key takeaways:

• The vast majority of school book bans occurred in Florida, with 3,135 bans across 11 of the state's school districts. A spokesperson with Florida's Department of Education declined NPR's request for comment.
• Book bans are often instigated by a small number of people. Challenges from one parent lead to a temporary banning of 444 books in a school district in Wisconsin.
• Those who ban books often cite "obscenity law and hyperbolic rhetoric about 'porn in schools' to justify banning books about sexual violence and LGBTQ+ topics (and in particular, trans identities)," the report says.
• There is a similar surge in resistance against the bans, says the report. Authors, students and others are "fighting back in creative and powerful ways."

Who's doing the banning?

A study by The Washington Post found that in 2021-2022, "Just 11 people were responsible for filing 60 percent" of book challenges.

At a press conference today, free expression advocates from around the country that joined PEN America to discuss bans talked about the seemingly-outsized power of a small, but vocal, group.

American Library Association report says book challenges soared in 2023

High school senior Quinlen Schachle, the president of the Alaska Association of Student Governments, said when he attends school board meetings, "It's, like, [the same] one adult that comes up every day and challenges a new book. It is not a concerned a group of parents coming in droves to these meetings."

Laney Hawes, Co-Director of the Texas Freedom to Read Project said books are often banned because of "a handful of lists that are being circulated to different school districts" and not because of "a parent whose child finds the book and they have a problem with it."

To fight so-called book bans, some states are threatening to withhold funding

PEN America defines a book ban as "any action taken against a book based on its content...that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished."

The conservative American Enterprise Institute took exception to PEN America's April 2022 banned books report . In a report for the Education Freedom Institute, AEI said it found that "almost three-quarters of the books that PEN listed as banned were still available in school libraries in the same districts from which PEN claimed they had been banned."

You can read PEN America's full report here .

This story was edited by Jennifer Vanasco.

Advertisement

Supported by

Here Are the Most Targeted Books of 2023

Amid a nationwide surge in book bans, memoirs and novels that deal with the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore race received the most challenges.

• Share full article

By Elizabeth A. Harris

The most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race, according to a report released Monday by the American Library Association.

Amid an explosion of books bans across the country, the association counted more than 4,200 challenged titles , which is the most in a single year since it began tracking this information more than two decades ago. In the years leading up 2021, when the increase really took off, the average number of titles challenged in a given year was about 275, according to the library association.

“More and more, we’re seeing challenges that say, simply, This book has a gay character, or, This book deals with L.G.B.T.Q. themes, even if it has no sexuality in it,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s office for intellectual freedom. “We’re seeing those naked attacks on simply the visibility of and knowledge about L.G.B.T.Q. lives and experiences.”

Traditionally, books were challenged when individual parents raised concerns about a specific book their child had encountered in school, and libraries have long had processes in place so that parents could prevent their children from borrowing books they consider inappropriate.

But organized groups have led the charge in this escalation, challenging large batches of titles and circulating lists online — sometimes including dozens or even hundreds of books — to encourage parents and others to seek them out at their local libraries en masse.

Parents and organizers who have pushed to remove certain titles say they are trying to protect children from stumbling on books that are explicit or inappropriate for their age.

Increasingly, Caldwell-Stone said, these challenges are taking place not only in school libraries but in public libraries as well. According to the library association’s report, 54 percent of the challenges they tracked took place in public libraries.

The report also highlighted efforts to counter book challenges. Some local elections and initiatives have come out against those trying to restrict access to books, federal legislators have held hearings on the subject and those who oppose restricting access to certain books have had some legal victories.

Here are the 10 most challenged books of 2023, along with the reasons they were targeted. Several, including “Gender Queer,” “The Bluest Eye” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” have been among the most frequently challenged in previous years.

1. “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe

An illustrated memoir by Kobabe, who is nonbinary, was challenged because it contained L.G.B.T.Q. content and was called sexually explicit.

2. “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson

This memoir about the joys and challenges of growing up Black and queer was challenged because of L.G.B.T.Q. content and because it was considered sexually explicit.

3. “This Book is Gay,” by Juno Dawson

A nonfiction book that explores growing as an L.G.B.T.Q. person and includes topics like sex and stereotypes, this was challenged because it included L.G.B.T.Q. content, which was considered sexually explicit.

4. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

This best-selling book for young adults is about a high school freshman in the suburbs in the 1990s. It was challenged for its L.G.B.T.Q. content, as well as its inclusion of profanity, drugs and rape.

5. “Flamer,” by Mike Curato

“Flamer,” a graphic novel for young adults that draws on the author’s own experience, is about a child at Boy Scout camp who is coming to terms with being gay. It was challenged for L.G.B.T.Q. content and for being sexually explicit.

6. “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison

This was Morrison’s 1970 debut, and follows a Black girl who wishes for blue eyes so she will fit the standards of conventional white beauty. The book also address racism and sexual abuse. It was challenged for its inclusion of rape and incest and because its content was seen as promoting equity, diversity and inclusion.

Tie: “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” by Jesse Andrews

A best seller about high school students, this novel was challenged because of profanity and because it was deemed sexually explicit.

Tie: “Tricks,” by Ellen Hopkins

This novel, about teenagers who fall into prostitution, was challenged for being sexually explicit and including drugs, rape and L.G.B.T.Q. content.

9. “Let’s Talk About It,” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan

A graphic novel about sex and relationships, this was challenged for being sexually explicit and including L.G.B.T.Q. content.

10. “Sold,” by Patricia McCormick

This National Book Award finalist is about a 13-year-old girl who is sold into prostitution. It was challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and included depictions of rape.

An earlier version of this article misstated a title of one of the targeted books. It is “This Book Is Gay,” not “The Book Is Gay.”

How we handle corrections

  More about Elizabeth A. Harris

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, “Knife,” addresses the attack that maimed him  in 2022, and pays tribute to his wife who saw him through .

Recent books by Allen Bratton, Daniel Lefferts and Garrard Conley depict gay Christian characters not usually seen in queer literature.

What can fiction tell us about the apocalypse? The writer Ayana Mathis finds unexpected hope in novels of crisis by Ling Ma, Jenny Offill and Jesmyn Ward .

At 28, the poet Tayi Tibble has been hailed as the funny, fresh and immensely skilled voice of a generation in Māori writing .

Amid a surge in book bans, the most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race.

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

Publishing Perspectives

• Submit Rights Deal

Circana BookScan on March 2024: US Print Books 2 Percent Under 2023

In News by Porter Anderson April 16, 2024

The Circana BookScan analysis of the US print market in March shows that Q1 2024 was 15 percent ahead of where it was in 2019.

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Six Million Units Below the March 2023 Level

“The net result,” McLean says, “was a year-to-date finish of -3 percent on a unit basis, on a volume of 195 million units in Q1, which is 6 million units below the same point last year.”

As she points out, however, smart context reminds us that this is 15 percent ahead of Q1 2019.

“The market is still very healthy compared to before the pandemic,” McLean writes in her summation, “a positive signal in and of itself.”

Top 10 US Print Bestsellers: March 2024

In terms of the Top 10 bestsellers that McLean faithfully provides, we have first the adult bestsellers for March, followed by the Top 10 children’s titles.

Note that the adult bestsellers also incorporate YA, young adult, titles rather than combining them with children’s books, as is often done.

In children’s US market bestsellers for March, McLean points out that 80 percent of the list’s titles aer “spring seasonal” books, the internationally popular Dav Pilkey grabbing the top spot with Dog Man: The Scarlett Shedder from Scholastic.

More from Publishing Perspectives on industry statistics is  here , and more on Circana research  here . More on the work of Kristen McLean is  here , and more on the United States book industry is  here . 

About the Author

Porter anderson.

Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.