The Best Bios & Memoirs of 2024

The world-renowned gastronome gives readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into her audacious choices, career milestones, and life lessons she learned on the path to becoming one of the food world’s biggest stars. (Out 10/1)

With Joan Didion as an aunt, Carrie Fisher as a best friend, and acting and production roles in Martin Scorsese's After Hours, few people have had as much access to the intimate lives of America's cultural aristocracy as Griffin Dunne. On the page, all the glitz and glamour, combined with the devastating killing of his younger sister and the high-profile trial which followed, make for a complicated, eclectic, and fascinating read about a singular life.

"The subject--the idea for which Rushdie nearly died--is the freedom to say what he wants…Rushdie survived, but he has too many scars to be certain that the idea will. This book is his way of fighting back," remarked The Atlantic.

The NY Times bestselling presidential biographer of iconic American leaders like FDR and JFK focuses his prize-winning pen on the two US presidents who faced off during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. It’s a timely portrayal that captures the vastly different backgrounds and styles of these two parallel leaders whose military face-off decided the fate of the United States during one of the nation’s most perilous moments.

The LA Times loved this esteemed music critic's new portrait of Joni Mitchell, saying "[Powers] shows us how we can love an artist like Mitchell and let her be human, too, how we can understand her genius from — forgive me, Joni — both sides now."

With honesty and humor, this memoir by one of pop culture’s most enduring figures traces her journey from a chaotic childhood to her unforgettable partnership with Sonny, while reflecting on the moments that shaped her fierce independence and timeless talent. It’s a dazzling portrait of resilience, fame, and trailblazing success from a one-of-a-kind icon.

In this raw memoir, Lisa Marie Presley reveals her life at Graceland and the complexities of being an American icon's daughter. After her mother’s passing, Riley Keough completed the book using Lisa Marie's recorded reflections, creating a deeply moving tribute to their powerful bond.

The critically-acclaimed author of Bruce Springsteen’s 2012 biography Bruce and several other thought-provoking music books shifts his attention to Athens, Georgia, charting the meteoric rise of four college friends who went from playing local parties to achieving global domination with mega hit records like Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster and Green. The AARP praised it as "catnip for Gen Xers who came of age listening to these eccentric, groundbreaking musicians."

The acclaimed author returns with a deeply personal story about his childhood in Rome after his family’s expulsion from Egypt for being Jewish. In a memoir that’s been described as novel-like for its captivating storytelling, he shares memories of biking through the Italian streets of the Eternal City, his deaf mother’s anger, his great uncle’s antics, all while navigating the challenges of coming of age in a new, unfamiliar place.

"The world that Gooch describes, of interconnected gay and cultural networks in the febrile atmosphere of 1980s New York, is one in which he too took part. And first-hand experience has clearly proved integral in shaping his book, for it reads not only as the definitive biography of its subject, but as a memorial to a collective past, from which many did not survive," observed The Art Newspaper.