Top Memoir Books
The top 45 books in this category, curated and ranked.
Updated April 1, 2026
All Books
fantasyscience fictionmysterythrillerhorrorromancehistorical fictionmemoirbiographyhistoryphilosophysciencepoetryyoung adultchildren'sliterary fictionself-helpcrime fiction
| Rank | Book |
|---|---|
| #1 |
The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank |
| #2 |
A Promised Land
by Barack Obama |
| #3 |
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank |
| #4 |
Becoming
by Michelle Obama |
| #5 |
Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl |
| #6 |
Steve Jobs
by Walter Isaacson |
| #7 |
The Story of My Life
by Helen Keller |
| #8 |
The Gulag Archipelago
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |
| #9 |
Eat, Pray, Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert |
| #10 |
The Travels of Marco Polo
by Rustichello da Pisa |
| #11 |
Born a Crime
by Trevor Noah |
| #12 |
Homage to Catalonia
by George Orwell |
| #13 |
The Innocents Abroad
by Mark Twain |
| #14 |
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot |
| #15 |
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
by Walter Isaacson |
| #16 |
Roughing It
by Mark Twain |
| #17 |
The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi |
| #18 |
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X, Alex Haley |
| #19 |
Call the Midwife
by Jennifer Worth |
| #20 |
The Beatles Anthology
by The Beatles |
| #21 |
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Clayborne Carson |
| #22 |
Life on the Mississippi
by Mark Twain |
| #23 |
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
by Malala Yousafzai |
| #24 |
My Family and Other Animals
by Gerald Durrell |
| #25 |
Tuesday's With Morrie
by Mitch Albom |
| #26 |
The Freedom Writers Diary
by Erin Gruwell |
| #27 |
Heaven is for Real
by Todd Burpo |
| #28 |
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
by Bill Bryson |
| #29 |
American Sniper
by Chris Kyle |
| #30 |
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau |
| #31 |
The Doors of Perception
by Aldous Huxley |
| #32 |
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant
by Ulysses S. Grant |
| #33 |
A Cook's Tour
by Anthony Bourdain |
| #34 |
Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourt |
| #35 |
Into Thin Air
by Jon Krakauer |
| #36 |
Marley & Me
by John Grogan |
| #37 |
Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris |
| #38 |
Out of Africa
by Karen Blixen |
| #39 |
Shoe Dog
by Phil Knight |
| #40 |
A Beautiful Mind
by Sylvia Nasar |
| #41 |
Into the Wild
by Jon Krakauer |
| #42 |
Tales from the Secret Annex
by Anne Frank |
| #43 |
Smile
by Raina Telgemeier |
| #44 |
John Adams
by David McCullough |
| #45 |
Cider with Rosie
by Laurie Lee |