501 Must Reads : Memoirs

Although I read more modern fiction than any other genre, my favourite is actually Autobiographies. I like reading other people lives - it either inspires you, or makes you thank your lucky stars you have the kind of life you have. (I love inspiring ones better, of course).

Here's the Memoirs reading list from 501 Must-Read Books. I've only read a few from the recommendations so far, each one of which was a brilliant read. Memoirs are not as readily available as fiction title - Kino is a safer bet than MPH on these.

1) * Paula Isabel Allende
2) Journal Intime Henri-Frederic Amiel
3) Aubrey's Brief Lives John Aubrey
4) Confessions Augustine
5) Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter Simone de Beauvoir
6) My Left Foot Christy Brown
7) The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Benvenuto Cellini
8) The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus Cyril Connolly
9) * Boy: Tales of Childhood Roald Dahl
10) * My Family and Other Animals George Durell

11) An Angel at My Table Janet Frame
12) * The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank
13) Journals 1889-1949 Andre Paul Guillaume Gide
14) Poetry and Truth: From My Own Life Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
15) Father and son: A Study of Two Temperaments Edmund Gosse
16) Ways of Escape Grahame Greene
17) Black Like Me John Howard Griffin
18) 84, Charing Cross Road Helene Hanff
19) Pentimento Lilian Hellman
20) Childhood, Youth and Exile Alexander Herzen

21) The Diary of Alice James Alice James
22) Memories, Dreams, Reflections Carl Gustav Jung
23) Diaries 1919-23 Franz Kafka
24) The Story of My Life Helen Keller
25) The Book of Margery Kempe Margery Kempe
26) I Will Bear Witness Victor Klemperer
27) In the Castle of My Skin George Lamming
28) A Grief Observed C. S. Lewis
29) The Towers of Trebizond Rose Macaulay
30) Journal of Katherine Mansfield Katherine Mansfield

31) The Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton
32) The Pursuit of Love Nancy Mitford
33) Borrowed Time Paul Monette
34) My Place Saly Morgan
35) Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited Vladimir Nabakov
36) * Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books Azar Nafisi
37) Memoirs Pablo Neruda
38) Potrait of a Marriage Nigel Nicolson
39) Running in the Family Michael Ondaatje
40) Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell

41) Autobiography of a Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda
42) Diary Samuel Pepys
43) Letters Pliny the Younger
44) Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau
45) Words Jean-Paul Sartre
46) Journal of a Solitude May Sarton
47) Walden Henry David Thoreau
48) De Profundis Oscar Wilde
49) Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Jeanette Winterson
50) Autobiographies William Butler Yeats

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