Read All of Amazon's "100 Biographies & Memoirs to Read in a Lifetime"

Status: 18/100 (18%)

Memoirs, autobiographies and true stories are my favorite genres to read. I find it more enjoyable and fulfilling to read something when I know it is not a mere product of someone's imagination. Memoirs have been and always will be a constant source of inspiration for me, particularly those written by women who had had to struggle in a largely misogynistic world.

Here are the best 100 memoirs/biographies/autobiographies as voted by the Amazon Books editors, as of January 2018. Since the polls are open forever, the list will be ever-changing, and I will use that to my advantage. Admittedly there are books in here that I just don't feel compelled to read, whereas some may have already gone out-of-print, and therefore more difficult to obtain. I will replace those with other books that make the list on Amazon at some other time in the future.

 1.  Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)

 2.  I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai)
 3.  Night (Elie Wiesel)
 4.  The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls)

5.  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)

 6.  Unbroken (Laura Hillenbrand)
 7.  The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)

 8.  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)

 9.  Naked (David Sedaris)
10. Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)
11. Wild (Cheryl Strayed)

12. The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom)
13. Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer)
14. Yes Please (Amy Poehler)
15. John Adams (David McCullough)
16. A Movable Feast (Ernest Hemingway
17. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Alex Haley)
18. Seabiscuit (Laura Hillenbrand)
19. 12 Years a Slave (Solomon Northup)

20. The Color of Water (Andre Braugher)
21. Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer)

22. Long Walk to Freedom (Nelson Mandela)
23. A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)

24. Sybil (Flora Rheta Schreiber)
25. A Long Way Gone (Ishmael Beah)
26. Helen Keller: The Story of My Life (Alan M. Dershowitz)

27. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)

28. Wild Swans (Jung Chang)
29. No Ordinary Time (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
30. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings (Olaudah Equiano)
31. My Life in France (Julia Child)
32. Team of Rivals (Doris Kearns Goodwin)
33. Dreams from My Father (Barack Obama)
34. Kitchen Confidential (Anthony Bourdain)
35. The Tender Bar (J.R. Moehringer)
36. The Liars' Club (Mary Karr)
37. This Boy's Life (Tobias Wolff)
38. A House in the Sky (Sara Corbett)
39. First They Killed My Father (Loung Ung)

40. Black Boy (Richard Wright)
41. West with the Night (Beryl Markham)
42. Dust Tracks on a Road (Zora Neale Hurston)
43. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life (Gerald Martin)
44. Orange is the New Black (Piper Kerman)

45. As You Wish (Joseph Layden)
46. The Motorcycle Diaries (Ernesto Che Guevara)
47. Boy (Roald Dahl)
48. Truman (David McCullough)
49. Brain on Fire (Susannah Cahalan)
50. Gorillas in the Mist (Dian Fossey)
51. A Christmas Memory (Truman Capote)
52. No Arms, No Legs, No Problem (Lujano/Schiro)
53. Lost Boy (Maia Szalavitz)
54. High Adventure (Edmund Hillary)
55. Look Me in the Eye (John Elder Robison)
56. Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert)

57. Washington (Ron Chernow)
58. On Writing (Stephen King)
59. Total Recall (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
60. Call the Midwife (Jennifer Worth)
61. Infidel (Ayaan Hirsi Ali)
62. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin Franklin)
63. Black Elk Speaks (Black Elk)
64. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (Robert K. Massie)
65. Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor E. Frankl)
66. Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Rob Lowe)
67. The Happiness Project (Gretchen Rubin)

68. The Farther I Walk, The Closer I Get To Me (Tom Carter)
69. Escape from Camp 14 (Blaine Harden) 
70. Half-Broke Horses (Jeannette Walls)
71. Born to Run (Christopher McDougall)



72. Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington)
73. The Sunflower (Harry J. Cargas)
74. The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
75. The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom (Katherine Arnoldi)
76. Devil's Knot (Mara Leveritt)
77. Running with Scissors (Augusten Burroughs)
78. So, Anyway... (John Cleese)
79. Random Family (Adrian Nicole LeBlanc)
80. The Feeling's Unmutual (Will Hadcroft)
81. Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (David Sedaris)
82. Mighty Be Our Powers (Leymah Gbowee) 
83. Escape (Carolyn Jessop)
84. The Spiral Staircase (Karen Armstrong)
85. Touching the Void (Joe Simpson)
86. The Stranger Beside Me (Ann Rule)
87. Black Like Me (John Howard Griffin)
88. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (Alexander Fuller)
89. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (Ernest J. Gaines)
90. Sh*t My Dad Says (Justin Halpern)
91. The Happy Hooker (Xaviera Hollander)
92. The Heart of a Woman (Maya Angelou)
93. Fortunate Life (Facey A.B.)
94. The Night of the Gun (David Carr)
95. Pentimento (Lillian Hellman)
96. My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness (Adina Hoffman)
97. Decision Points (George W. Bush)
98. Open (Andre Agassi)
99. My Place (Sally Morgan)
100. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)