The All-Time Greats
1. Educated
A girl raised in a survivalist family teaches herself enough to reach Cambridge. The memoir of the generation.
View on Amazon2. The Glass Castle
Walls grew up with brilliant, chaotic, neglectful parents and ended up a New York journalist. Unforgettable.
View on Amazon3. When Breath Becomes Air
A neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal cancer asks what makes life meaningful. Perfect and devastating.
View on AmazonSurvival and Resilience
4. Wild
A woman hikes 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail to rebuild herself after addiction and grief.
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The woman behind the Brock Turner case reclaims her identity in extraordinary prose.
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Karr's chaotic Texas childhood with an unpredictable mother. She invented the modern memoir.
View on AmazonAmbition and Identity
7. Becoming
From the South Side of Chicago to the White House. One of the bestselling memoirs in history.
View on Amazon8. Greenlights
Part memoir, part philosophy, part road journal. More interesting than you expect.
View on Amazon9. Untamed
A memoir about escaping the expectations that kept you caged. Oprah's most recommended book.
View on AmazonGrief and Loss
10. The Year of Magical Thinking
Didion processes her husband's sudden death in the most precise prose written about grief.
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