literature The Best Autobiographies Ever Written  

Originally by Buster McDermott

9k votes 3.1k voters 441.4k views 121 items Follow

List Rules Which autobiographies were the best and most moving reads? Vote them up and add all of your favorites.

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The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the ...more

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264 112

Night Elie Wiesel Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–45, at the height of the Holocaust toward the end ...more

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374 123

The Story of My Experiments with Truth Mahatma Gandhi Autobiography is a book written by Mahatma Ghandi.

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299 115

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have ...more

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314 103

Long Walk to Freedom Nelson Mandela Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by South African President Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of ...more

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193 83

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the 1969 autobiography about the early years of African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story ...more

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The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley, Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965, the result of a collaboration between human rights activist Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on ...more

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281 105

Open: An Autobiography Andre Agassi

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156 63

The Story of My Life Helen Keller The story of my life, with her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education is a book written by Helen Keller.

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178 62

Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes is a 1996 memoir by the Irish author Frank McCourt. The memoir consists of various anecdotes and stories of Frank McCourt's impoverished childhood and early adulthood in Brooklyn, ...more

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looksharp added The Confessions of St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo Confessions is the name of an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books, by St. Augustine of Hippo, written in Latin between 397 and 400 AD. Modern English translations of it are sometimes ...more

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msprabhakar added Steve Jobs Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs is the authorized biography of Steve Jobs. The biography was written at the request of Jobs by Walter Isaacson, a former executive at CNN and Time who has written best-selling ...more

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A Child Called "It" Dave Pelzer

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189 84

Scar Tissue Anthony Kiedis, Larry Sloman Scar Tissue is the autobiography of Red Hot Chili Peppers vocalist Anthony Kiedis. It was released in 2004 by Hyperion and authored by Kiedis with Larry Sloman, who compiled information and ...more

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Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Richard Feynman "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character is an edited collection of reminiscences by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. The book, ...more

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A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail is a 1998 book by travel writer Bill Bryson, describing his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend ...more

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Up From Slavery Booker T. Washington Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his personal experiences in working to rise from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the ...more

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62 33

Girl, Interrupted Susanna Kaysen Girl, Interrupted is a best-selling 1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relating her experiences as a young woman in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with ...more

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68 41

Running with Scissors Augusten Burroughs Running with Scissors is a 2002 memoir by American writer Augusten Burroughs. The book tells the story of Burroughs's bizarre childhood life after his mother, a chain-smoking aspiring poet, sent ...more

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67 41

The Last Lecture Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow The Last Lecture is a New York Times best-selling book co-authored by Randy Pausch—a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University in ...more

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108 91

Bossypants Tina Fey Bossypants is an autobiographical comedy book written by American comedian Tina Fey. The book topped The New York Times Best Seller list, and stayed there for five weeks upon its release. Since ...more

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53 30

The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly Jean-Dominique Bauby The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly is a book by Jean-Dominique Bauby.

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Chronicles: Volume One Bob Dylan Chronicles, Volume One is the first part of Bob Dylan's planned 3-volume memoir. Published on October 5, 2004, by Simon & Schuster, the 304-page volume covers selected points from Dylan's ...more

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50 28

My Left Foot Christy Brown My Left Foot is the 1954 autobiography of Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy on June 5, 1932 in Dublin, Ireland. As one of 13 surviving children, Brown went on to be an author, ...more

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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, published in 2000, is a memoir of the author's experiences as a writer, and also serves as a guide book for those who choose to enter the ...more

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Jodie Hunt added The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle is a 2005 memoir by Jeannette Walls. The book recounts Walls' and her siblings' unconventional, poverty-stricken upbringing at the hands of their deeply dysfunctional parents. ...more

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A Moveable Feast Ernest Hemingway A Moveable Feast is a memoir by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as an expatriate writer in Paris in the 1920s. The book describes Hemingway's apprenticeship as a young writer ...more

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The Education of Henry Adams Edmund Morris

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looksharp added The Crack-Up F. Scott Fitzgerald The Crack-Up is a collection of essays by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It consists of previously unpublished letters, notes and also three essays originally written for and published ...more

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Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Life and Times of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass' third autobiography, published in 1881, revised in 1892. Because of the emancipation of American slaves during and following the ...more

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Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life Steve Martin Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life is a memoir, released November 20, 2007, by Steve Martin, an American author, actor, comedian, producer, playwright and screenwriter. It chronicles his early ...more

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looksharp added Witness Whittaker Chambers Witness is a book written by Whittaker Chambers.

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stubb added Survival In Auschwitz Primo Levi Primo Levi is in every way a better writer than Elie Wiesel. // First published as If This Be a Man, which is neither informative nor compelling. If This Is a Man is a work by the Italian Jewish writer Primo Levi. It describes his arrest as a member of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War, and his incarceration ...more

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Life: Keith Richards Keith Richards

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looksharp added Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia Joseph D. Pistone Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia is a 1988 autobiographical crime book written by Joseph D. Pistone about his story as an FBI agent going undercover and infiltrating the Mafia. In ...more

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Black Boy Richard Wright Black Boy is a bildungsroman by Richard Wright, and his eventual move to Chicago, where he establishes his writing career and becomes involved with the Communist Party.

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WilliamCarrigan added The Civil War memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is an autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, focused mainly on his military career during the Mexican-American War ...more

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dresworld1020 added Miles Quincy Troupe, Miles Davis Miles is a book written by Miles Davis.

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Me: Stories of My Life Katharine Hepburn Me: Stories of My Life is a 1991 book by Katharine Hepburn.

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Persepolis Marjane Satrapi Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi depicting her childhood up to her early adult years in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution. The title is a reference ...more

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Me Talk Pretty One Day David Sedaris Me Talk Pretty One Day, published in 2000, is a bestselling collection of essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The book is separated into two parts. The first part consists of essays about ...more

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DavidSanders1 added Autobiography of a Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda Autobiography of a Yogi is an autobiography of Paramahansa Yogananda first published in 1946. Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, into a Bengali family. Autobiography of a ...more

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stubb added The Naked Civil Servant Quentin Crisp The Naked Civil Servant is the first volume of an autobiography by the gay icon Quentin Crisp. It was later turned into a TV movie starring John Hurt, which was also titled The Naked Civil ...more

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The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography Stephen Fry The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography is the 2010 autobiography of Stephen Fry. The book is a continuation from the end of his 1997 publication of his first autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot: An ...more

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looksharp added Harpo Speaks! Harpo Marx

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Jessica Jayne added Shantaram Gregory David Roberts Shantaram is a 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts, in which a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict who escaped from Pentridge Prison flees to India. The novel is commended by many ...more

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Max Mansell added Moonwalker Michael Jackson

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Cyrus Ashly Neri added After Dark Haruki Murakami After Dark is a novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was originally published in 2004.

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Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son is a non-fiction book by James Baldwin. It was Baldwin's first non-fiction book, and was published in 1955. The volume collects ten of Baldwin's essays, which had ...more

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Boy Roald Dahl Boy: Tales of Childhood is the first autobiographical book by British writer Roald Dahl. It describes his life from birth until leaving school, focusing on living conditions in Britain in the ...more