biography releases 2023

The Best New Biographies of 2023

CJ Connor is a cozy mystery and romance writer whose main goal in life is to make their dog proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut mystery novel BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com

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Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies.

The books included in this list have all been released as of writing, but biography lovers still have plenty to look forward to before the year is out. A few to keep your eye out for in the coming months:

• The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell (HarperOne, September 26)
• Einstein in Time and Space by Samuel Graydon (Scribner, November 14)
• Overlooked: A Celebration of Remarkable, Underappreciated People Who Broke the Rules and Changed the World by Amisha Padnani (Penguin Random House, November 14).

Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far!

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

Ellen and William Craft were a Black married couple who freed themselves from slavery in 1848 by disguising themselves as a traveling white man and an enslaved person. Author Ilyon Woo recounts their thousand-mile journey to seek safety in the North and their escape from the United States in the months following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel

Written over a period of 11 years with exclusive journalistic access to the subject, author Michael Finkel explores the motivations, heists, and repercussions faced by the notorious and prolific art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Of special focus is his relationship with his girlfriend and accomplice, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus.

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

While recently published, King: A Life is already considered to be the most well-researched biography of Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. published in decades. New York Times bestselling journalist Jonathan Eig explores the life and legacy of Dr. King through thousands of historical records, including recently declassified FBI documents.

Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters by Lynnée Denise

This biography is part of the Why Music Matters series from the University of Texas. It reflects on the legendary blues singer’s life through an essay collection in which the author (also an accomplished musician) seeks to recreate the feeling of browsing through a box of records.

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power by Leah Redmond Chang

Historian Leah Redmond Chang’s latest book release focuses on three aristocratic women in Renaissance Europe: Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. As a specific focus, she examines the juxtaposition between the immense power they wielded and yet the ways they remained vulnerable to the patriarchal, misogynistic societies in which they existed.

Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong’s Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

Anna May Wong was a 20th-century actress who found great acclaim while still facing discrimination and typecasting as a Chinese woman. University of California professor Yunte Huang explores her life and impact on the American film industry and challenges racist depictions of her in accounts of Hollywood history in this thought-provoking biography.

Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown

Written by Rhodes Scholar and University of Pennsylvania medical student Jasmine Brown, this collective biography shares the experiences and accomplishments of nine Black women physicians in U.S. history — including Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black American woman to earn a medical degree in the 1860s, and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty

Two years after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s death, this biography presents a comprehensive history of Larry McMurtry’s life and legacy as one of the most acclaimed Western writers of all time.

The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by Leta McCollough Seletzky

Journalist Leta McCollough Seletzky examines her father, Marrell “Mac” McCollough’s complicated legacy as a Black undercover cop and later a member of the CIA. In particular, she shares his account as a witness of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel.

Are you a history buff looking for more recommendations? Try these.

• Best History Books by Era
• Books for a More Inclusive Look at American History
• Fascinating Food History Books

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Best Biographies of 2023

MAY 16, 2023

by Jonathan Eig

An extraordinary achievement and an essential life of the iconic warrior for social justice. Full review >

SEPT. 12, 2023

by Tracy Daugherty

A definitive life of the novelist/bookseller/scriptwriter/curmudgeon of interest to any McMurtry fan. Full review >

APRIL 11, 2023

by Robert Greenfield

A masterful look at the wild life of an enigmatic artist that shows how captivating the truth can be. Full review >

AUG. 15, 2023

by Patti Hartigan

An authoritative portrait of a defiant champion of Black theater. Full review >

OCT. 3, 2023

by Will Hermes

An engrossing, fully dimensional portrait of an influential yet elusive performer. Full review >

by Walter Isaacson

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator. Full review >

by Sally H. Jacobs

An essential book about an incomparably authentic American pioneer and the times in which she lived. Full review >

APRIL 4, 2023

by Robert "Mack" McCormick ; edited by John W. Troutman

A worthwhile investigation into a true legend of the blues. Full review >

MAY 2, 2023

by Jonny Steinberg

A magnificent portrait of two people joined in the throes of making South African history. Full review >

DEC. 5, 2023

by Judith Tick

As masterful and wonderful as its subject. Full review >

OCT. 31, 2023

by Ronald C. White

A revealing portrait of an American hero who deserves even wider recognition. Full review >

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100 Notable Books of 2023

Each year, we pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more. Here are the standouts, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

Chosen by the staff of The New York Times Book Review Nov. 21, 2023

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Inspired by Sappho’s work, Schwartz’s debut novel offers an alternate history of creativity at the turn of the 20th century, one that centers queer women artists, writers and intellectuals who refused to accept society’s boundaries.

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

In his earlier thrillers, Cosby worked the outlaw side of the crime genre. In his new one — about a Black sheriff in a rural Southern town, searching for a serial killer who tortures Black children — he’s written a crackling good police procedural.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

In Murray’s boisterous tragicomic novel, a once wealthy Irish family struggles with both the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and their own inner demons.

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

Lacey rewrites 20th-century U.S. history through the audacious fictional life story of X, a polarizing female performance artist who made her way from the South to New York City’s downtown art scene.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

In this action-packed novel from a Booker Prize winner, a collective of activist gardeners crosses paths with a billionaire doomsday prepper on land they each want for different purposes.

Blackouts by Justin Torres

This lyrical, genre-defying novel — winner of the 2023 National Book Award — explores what it means to be erased and how to persist after being wiped away.

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

In her third and most assured novel, Knoll shifts readers’ attention away from a notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, and onto the lives — and deaths — of the women he killed. Perhaps for the first time in fiction, Knoll pooh-poohs Bundy's much ballyhooed intelligence, celebrating the promise and perspicacity of his victims instead.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This satire — in which prison inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom — makes readers complicit with the bloodthirsty fans sitting ringside. The fight scenes are so well written they demonstrate how easy it might be to accept a world this sick.

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

Verghese’s first novel since “Cutting for Stone” follows generations of a family across 77 years in southwestern India as they contend with political strife and other troubles — capped by a shocking discovery made by the matriarch’s granddaughter, a doctor.

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Returning to the world of his novel “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead again uses a crime story to illuminate a singular neighborhood at a tipping point — here, Harlem in the 1970s.

The Deluge by Stephen Markley

Markley’s second novel confronts the scale and gravity of climate change, tracking a cadre of scientists and activists from the gathering storm of the Obama years to the super-typhoons of future decades. Immersive and ambitious, the book shows the range of its author’s gifts: polyphonic narration, silken sentences and elaborate world-building.

Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal

In de Kerangal’s brief, lyrical novel, translated by Jessica Moore, a young Russian soldier on a trans-Siberian train decides to desert and turns to a civilian passenger, a Frenchwoman, for help.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

The world-building in this tale of a woman documenting a new kind of faerie is exquisite, and the characters are just as textured and richly drawn. This is the kind of folkloric fantasy that remembers the old, blood-ribboned source material about sacrifices and stolen children, but adds a modern gloss.

Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

In Hammad’s second novel, a British Palestinian actor returns to her hometown in Israel to recover from a breakup and spend time with her family. Instead, she’s talked into joining a staging of “Hamlet” in the West Bank, where she has a political awakening.

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes

A best-selling novelist and prominent anti-Fascist in her native Italy, de Céspedes has lately fallen into unjust obscurity. Translated by Ann Goldstein, this elegant novel from the 1950s tells the story of a married mother, Valeria, whose life is transformed when she begins keeping a secret diary.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Based on a celebrated 19th-century trial in which the defendant was accused of impersonating a nobleman, Smith’s novel offers a vast panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters.

From From by Monica Youn

In her fourth book of verse, a svelte, intrepid foray into American racism, Youn turns a knowing eye on society’s love-hate relationship with what it sees as the “other.”

A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll

After a lonely young woman marries a mild-mannered widower and moves into his home, she begins to wonder how his first wife actually died. This graphic novel alternates between black-and-white and overwhelming colors as it explores the mundane and the horrific.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

McBride’s latest, an intimate, big-hearted tale of community, opens with a human skeleton found in a well in the 1970s, and then flashes back to the past, to the ’20s and ’30s, to explore the town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

In her radiant fourth novel, Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic tale of four sisters and the man who joins their family. Take “Little Women,” move it to modern-day Chicago, add more intrigue, lots of basketball and a different kind of boy next door and you’ve got the bones of this thoroughly original story.

A History of Burning by Janika Oza

This remarkable debut novel tells the story of an extended Indo-Ugandan family that is displaced, settled and displaced again.

Holly by Stephen King

The scrappy private detective Holly Gibney (who appeared in “The Outsider” and several other novels) returns, this time taking on a missing-persons case that — in typical King fashion — unfolds into a tale of Dickensian proportions.

A House for Alice by Diana Evans

This polyphonic novel traces one family’s reckoning after the patriarch dies in a fire, as his widow, a Nigerian immigrant, considers returning to her home country and the entire family re-examines the circumstances of their lives.

The Iliad by Homer

Emily Wilson’s propulsive new translation of the “Iliad” is buoyant and expressive; she wants this version to be read aloud, and it would certainly be fun to perform.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

The sisters in Törzs's delightful debut have been raised to protect a collection of magic books that allow their keepers to do incredible things. Their story accelerates like a fugue, ably conducted to a tender conclusion.

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

This tale of a torrid, yearslong relationship between a young woman and a much older married man — translated from the German by Michael Hofmann — is both profound and moving.

Kantika by Elizabeth Graver

Inspired by the life of Graver’s maternal grandmother, this exquisitely imagined family saga spans cultures and continents as it traces the migrations of a Sephardic Jewish girl from turn-of-the-20th-century Constantinople to Barcelona, Havana and, finally, Queens, N.Y.

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

Zhang’s lush, keenly intelligent novel follows a chef who’s hired to cook for an “elite research community” in the Italian Alps, in a not-so-distant future where industrial-agricultural experiments in America’s heartland have blanketed the globe in a crop-smothering smog.

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

The year is 1915, and the narrator of LaValle’s horror-tinged western has arrived in Montana to cultivate an unforgiving homestead. She’s looking for a fresh start as a single Black woman in a sparsely populated state, but the locked trunk she has in stow holds a terrifying secret.

Monica by Daniel Clowes

In Clowes’s luminous new work, the titular character, abandoned by her mother as a child, endures a life of calamities before resolving to learn about her origins and track down her parents.

The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Based on a true story and translated by Lara Vergnaud, Sarr’s novel — about a Senegalese writer brought low by a plagiarism scandal — asks sharp questions about the state of African literature in the West.

The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump

In Bump’s engrossing new novel, a young Black couple, mourning the loss of their newborn daughter and disillusioned with the world, start a utopian society — but tensions both internal and external soon threaten their dreams.

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Mason’s novel looks at the occupants of a single house in Massachusetts over several centuries, from colonial times to present day. An apple farmer, an abolitionist, a wealthy manufacturer: The book follows these lives and many others, with detours into natural history and crime reportage.

Not Even the Dead by Juan Gómez Bárcena

An ex-conquistador in Spanish-ruled, 16th-century Mexico is asked to hunt down an Indigenous prophet in this novel by a leading writer in Spain, splendidly translated by Katie Whittemore. The epic search stretches across much of the continent and, as the author bends time and history, lasts centuries.

The Nursery by Szilvia Molnar

“I used to be a translator and now I am a milk bar.” So begins Molnar’s brilliant novel about a new mother falling apart within the four walls of her apartment.

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

This dazzling, epic narrative, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a bewitching brew of mystery and myth, peopled by mediums who can summon “the Darkness” for a secret society of wealthy occultists seeking to preserve consciousness after death.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

Jackson’s smart, dishy debut novel embeds readers in an upper-crust Brooklyn Heights family — its real estate, its secrets, its just-like-you-and-me problems. Does money buy happiness? “Pineapple Street” asks a better question: Does it buy honesty?

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Due’s latest — about a Black boy, Robert, who is wrongfully sentenced to a fictionalized version of Florida’s infamous and brutal Dozier School — is both an incisive examination of the lingering traumas of racism and a gripping, ghost-filled horror novel. “The novel’s extended, layered denouement is so heart-smashingly good, it made me late for work,” Randy Boyagoda wrote in his review. “I couldn’t stop reading.”

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Trained to kill by his mother and able to see demons, the protagonist of Chandrasekera’s stunning and lyrical novel flees his destiny as an assassin and winds up in a politically volatile metropolis.

Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park

Double agents, sinister corporations, slasher films, U.F.O.s — Park’s long-awaited second novel is packed to the gills with creative elements that enliven his acerbic, comedic and lyrical odyssey into Korean history and American paranoia.

Take What You Need by Idra Novey

This elegant novel resonates with implication beyond the taut contours of its central story line. In Novey’s deft hands, the complex relationship between a young woman and her former stepmother hints at the manifold divisions within America itself.

This Other Eden by Paul Harding

In his latest novel, inspired by the true story of a devastating 1912 eviction in Maine that displaced an entire mixed-race fishing community, Harding turns that history into a lyrical tale about the fictional Apple Island on the cusp of destruction.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Locked down on the family’s northern Michigan cherry orchard, three sisters and their mother, a former actress whose long-ago summer fling went on to become a movie star, reflect on love and regret in Patchett’s quiet and reassuring Chekhovian novel.

The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis

This novel follows three generations across time and place: a young mother trying to create a home for herself and her son in 1980s Philadelphia, and her mother, who is trying to save their Alabama hometown from white supremacists seeking to displace her from her land.

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie’s new novel recounts the long life of Pampa Kampana, who creates an empire from magic seeds in 14th-century India. Her world is one of peace, where men and women are equal and all faiths welcome, but the story Rushdie tells is of a state that forever fails to live up to its ideals.

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

This queer midcentury romance — about reporters who meet at work, become friends, move in together and fall in love — lingers on small, everyday acts like bringing home flowers with the groceries, things that loom large because they’re how we connect with others.

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo

In this polished and disciplined debut novel, an 11-year-old Jain girl in London who has just lost her mother turns her attention to the game of squash — which in Maroo’s graceful telling becomes a way into the girl’s grief.

Witness by Jamel Brinkley

Set in Brooklyn, and featuring animal rescue workers, florists, volunteers, ghosts and UPS workers, Brinkley’s new collection meditates on what it means to see and be seen.

Y/N by Esther Yi

In this weird and wondrous novel, a bored young woman in thrall to a boy band buys a one-way ticket to Seoul.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Kuang’s first foray outside of the fantasy genre is a breezy and propulsive tale about a white woman who achieves tremendous literary success by stealing a manuscript from a recently deceased Asian friend and passing it off as her own.

The 272 by Rachel L. Swarns

Building on her groundbreaking work for The Times, Swarns fashions a complex portrait of 19th-century American Catholicism through the story of the nearly 300 people enslaved on Jesuit plantations who were sold in 1838 to save Georgetown University from ruin.

Anansi’s Gold by Yepoka Yeebo

Yeebo, a journalist, tracks down the elusive story of John Ackah Blay-Miezah, who revolutionized the “advance fee” scam (say, a Nigerian prince wants to wire you money), and contextualizes it within a Ghana — and a world — that allowed him to thrive.

Battle of Ink and Ice by Darrell Hartman

This fast paced, true-life adventure revives the headline-grabbing debate over which explorer reached the North Pole first — and which newspaper broke the news.

The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen

A literary and compassionate examination of the porous line between brilliance and insanity, this riveting memoir traces the author’s childhood friendship and sometime rivalry with a neighbor and Yale classmate who is now in prison for murdering his girlfriend.

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley

Howley writes about the national security state and those who get entangled in it — fabulists, truth tellers, combatants, whistle-blowers. Like many of us, they have left traces of themselves in the digital ether by making a phone call, texting a friend, looking something up online.

Built From the Fire by Victor Luckerson

This ambitious history, by a journalist based in Tulsa, provides an authoritative account of the prosperous Black neighborhood decimated by the city’s 1921 race massacre and a gripping portrait of the community resurrected in its aftermath.

Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara

Cobalt is essential to the tech industry, but as Kara’s harrowing account demonstrates, it comes at a high cost: Much of the mineral is mined in toxic conditions for subsistence wages in Congo — all too often, by children.

Crossings by Ben Goldfarb

Goldfarb, an environmental journalist, crafts a fascinating and sensitive look at the costs of roads, both for wild animals and for the humans whose cities are divided by highways along racial lines.

Daughter of the Dragon by Yunte Huang

Huang’s new book, a biography embedded in cultural criticism, is an absorbing account of the life and times of the Chinese American starlet Anna May Wong, whose career spanned silent movies, talkies and television.

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

After she was repeatedly confused online with the feminist scholar turned anti-vaxxer Naomi Wolf, Klein turned the experience into this sober, stylish account of the lure of disdain and paranoia.

Easily Slip Into Another World by Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards

The jazz artist Henry Threadgill’s ardent memoir ranges from his maddening wartime experiences in Vietnam to his boundary-pushing musical career.

The Exceptions by Kate Zernike

Zernike’s excellent and infuriating tale of the fight for fairness at M.I.T. and beyond is not merely a fast-paced account of one woman’s accomplishments but a larger history of women in STEM (or lack thereof).

Fire Weather by John Vaillant

This timely and riveting account of the 2016 McMurray wildfire explores not just that Canadian inferno but what it bodes for the future. Vaillant has a chillingly serious message: This is the inevitable result of climate change, and it will happen again and again.

The Great Escape by Saket Soni

In this gripping account, Soni, a labor organizer, details the story of several hundred Indian men lured to this country on promises of work and green cards, who ended up in semi-captivity in Mississippi until his efforts to free them.

The Half Known Life by Pico Iyer

In talking to people the world over about what paradise means to them, Iyer provides hours of thought-provoking meditations. “Paradise becomes something different in every neighbor’s head,” he says.

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

In this breathless, scorching memoir of a girlhood spent becoming the perfect Rasta daughter and an adolescence spent becoming one of Jamaica’s most promising young poets, Montego Bay drips with as much tender sensuality and complexity as the buoyant patois of Sinclair’s parents’ banter.

Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell

In earlier books, Bakewell has written about Montaigne and the existentialists; here, she manages to wrangle seven centuries of humanist thought into a brisk narrative with characteristic wit and clarity, resisting the traps of windy abstraction and glib oversimplification.

Judgment at Tokyo by Gary J. Bass

This comprehensive treatment of the prosecution of Japanese war crimes after World War II is an elegantly written and immersive account of a moment that shaped not just the politics of the region, but of the Cold War to come.

King by Jonathan Eig

The first comprehensive biography of Martin Luther King Jr. in decades, Eig’s book draws on a landslide of recently released government documents as well as letters and interviews. This is a book worthy of its subject: both an intimate study of a complex and flawed human being and a journalistic account of a civil rights titan.

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta

Having detailed how President Trump's rise to power occurred amid a years-long civil war within the Republican party in his 2019 book "American Carnage," Alberta, a staff writer for The Atlantic, turns his eye on another institution that has become split in two as a result of the former president: the American evangelical movement.

The Land of Hope and Fear by Isabel Kershner

Published months before the Israel-Hamas war, this book by a longtime correspondent in Jerusalem presents a complicated portrait of the many communities and faiths that constitute Israel three-quarters of a century into its existence.

Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza

In 1990, Rivera Garza’s 20-year-old sister was murdered in Mexico. That case is the inspiration and launching point for this memoir, a personal and cultural look at femicide in Mexico.

Lives of the Wives by Carmela Ciuraru

The relationships at the center of Ciuraru’s lively and absorbing new literary history vary widely, but are united by questions of ego and agency, competition and resentment.

A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung

Chung’s powerful second memoir is a look at family, illness and grief, and the way systemic issues like access to health care, capitalism and racism exacerbate loss.

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

Woo’s book recounts a daring feat: the successful flight north from Georgia in 1848 by an enslaved couple disguised as a sickly young white planter and his male slave. But her meticulous retelling is equally a feat — of research, storytelling, sympathy and insight.

Monsters by Claire Dederer

“Everyone alive is either canceled or about to be canceled,” writes the author of this sometimes maddening, always challenging meditation on polarizing cultural figures (Nabokov, Polanski, et al.) and the struggle to reconcile great art with the misdeeds of its creators.

My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

“I’m the greatest star!” the 21-year-old actress defiantly sang in Broadway’s 1964 hit “Funny Girl.” Nearly six decades later, over 992 pages, Streisand chronicles how she delivered on that promise, a rocket ride from Brooklyn to Malibu.

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley by David Waldstreicher

A beautiful and cogently argued biography offers a radical new vision of the life and work of colonial America’s brilliant Black female poet.

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

In this volume of 248 numbered notes, Sharpe assembles memories and insights, artifacts and artworks, balancing the persistence of racism and brutality with a rich variety of Black life.

Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman

A deeply researched and compulsively readable history digs into the scandal-soaked history of the Academy Awards.

Our Migrant Souls by Héctor Tobar

Tobar, a longtime journalist, delivers a kaleidoscopic account of Latino American experience, dispelling stereotypes and underscoring diversity in prose that is by turns lyrical, outraged, scholarly and affectingly personal.

Pageboy by Elliot Page

The Oscar-nominated actor offers a brutally honest account of child stardom, the pressure to conform in Hollywood and, ultimately, the announcement of his gender transition in 2020.

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

The central claim of this manifesto by the Princeton sociologist is that poverty in the United States is the product not only of larger economic shifts, but of choices and actions by more fortunate Americans.

The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk

This ambitious retelling of the American story, by a historian who is also a Native American, places Indigenous populations at the center, a shift in perspective that yields fresh insights and thought-provoking questions.

The Rigor of Angels by William Egginton

Challenging, ambitious and elegant, this mind-expanding book explores nothing less than “the ultimate nature of reality” through the work of three figures: the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, the German quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg and the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Schoenberg by Harvey Sachs

Sachs has written well for decades about conventional classical music. This impassioned defense of Arnold Schoenberg — creator of some of the most challenging music ever — might seem surprising from him, but Schoenberg’s life was one of the 20th century’s great narratives.

Sink by Joseph Earl Thomas

The lush prose of this memoir perfectly suits the author’s tender, teeming boyhood imagination, in which video-game and manga characters offered more guidance than volatile adults did. Most remarkable is Thomas’s matter-of-fact depiction of the daily depredations he faced without losing his spirit or his abundant creative gifts.

The Slip by Prudence Peiffer

From Ellsworth Kelly to Agnes Martin to Robert Indiana, a group of scrappy artists gathered in illegal studios at the tip of Lower Manhattan in the 1950s, trying to provide an answer to Abstract Expressionism. This group biography reflects the excitement of those years — and our debt to them.

Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista

In powerful, gripping prose, a Philippine journalist recounts her investigation into the campaign of extrajudicial murders under former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Spoken Word by Joshua Bennett

Bennett’s engaging history of a literary and cultural movement that took hold in many realms — including music, theater, film, television and, of course, poetry — tracks its evolution from the earliest days of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on the Lower East Side to the first iterations of slam poetry and beyond.

A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connell

O’Connell brings literary flourish and a philosophical bent to this investigation of an infamous and confounding Irish murder case.

Time’s Echo by Jeremy Eichler

This cultural history takes up works by Schoenberg, Britten, Shostakovich and Richard Strauss that reflect on World War II and the Holocaust, urging listeners to consider the link between music and remembrance.

The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet

Anxious about America’s political divides, and fearful that they presage the end of the union, Sharlet spent a year speaking with conservative pastors, gun fanatics and QAnon adherents, among others. The result is an eloquent cri de coeur by a writer struggling to meet political and moral unreason with compassion and grace.

Unscripted by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams

This jaw-dropping chronicle by two Times reporters of the final years of Sumner Redstone, the head of Paramount, is an epic tale of toxic wealth and greed populated by connivers and manipulators, not least Redstone himself.

Up Home by Ruth J. Simmons

Simmons’s evocative account of her remarkable trajectory from Jim Crow Texas, where she was the youngest of 12 children in a sharecropping family, to the presidencies of Smith College and Brown University shines with tenderness and dignity.

The Wager by David Grann

After the H.M.S. Wager was shipwrecked off the coast of Patagonia in 1742, surviving crew members returned to England with dramatic — and starkly conflicting — tales about what had transpired. Grann recreates the voyage in all its enthralling horror.

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night by Tahir Hamut Izgil

Offering a rare glimpse into the life and culture of China’s brutally persecuted Muslim Uyghur minority, this eloquent memoir by a poet who escaped with his family to the United States (and translated by Joshua L. Freeman) unfolds a horror story with calm restraint.

What An Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman

There are some 260 species of owls spread across every continent except Antarctica, and in this fascinating book, Ackerman explains why the birds are both naturally wondrous and culturally significant.

Wifedom by Anna Funder

Even George Orwell, whose dealings with women were often problematic, admitted that he behaved badly toward his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy. This book focuses on O’Shaughnessy, and combines her story with a bravura analysis of female invisibility.

You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live by Paul Kix

The 1963 campaign to integrate Birmingham, Ala., led to shocking brutality: youths blasted by fire hoses and set upon by snarling police dogs. Kix, a journalist, weaves those images into a harrowing narrative of a crucial juncture in the civil rights movement.

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Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies

The best biographies of 2023: the national book critics circle shortlist, recommended by elizabeth taylor.

Winner of the 2023 NBCC biography prize

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

Talented biographers examine the interplay between individual qualities and greater social forces, explains Elizabeth Taylor —chair of the judges for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award for biography. Here, she offers us an overview of their five-book shortlist, including a garlanded account of the life of J. Edgar Hoover and a group biography of post-war female philosophers.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century by Jennifer Homans

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman

Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs

1 G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage

2 the grimkés: the legacy of slavery in an american family by kerri k. greenidge, 3 mr. b: george balanchine’s twentieth century by jennifer homans, 4 metaphysical animals: how four women brought philosophy back to life by clare mac cumhaill & rachael wiseman, 5 up from the depths: herman melville, lewis mumford, and rediscovery in dark times by aaron sachs.

I t’s a pleasure to have you back , Elizabeth—this time to discuss the National Book Critics Circle’s 2023 biography shortlist. You’ve been chair of the judging panel for a while, so you’re in a great position to tell us whether it has been a good year for biography.

That comes through in the shortlist, I think. There’s a real range here. I think any reader is bound to find something to appeal to their tastes.

Shaping a shortlist seems quite like arranging a bouquet. A clutch of peony, begonia, or orchid stems…each may be lovely, an exemplar in its own way. We aspire to assemble a glorious arrangement—a quintet of blooms that reflect the wildly varied human experiences represented in the verdant garden of biography.

Let’s talk about G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century first, then, shall we? It is your 2023 winner of the NBCC’s prize for best biography; it also won a Pulitzer Prize . It’s also, and correct me if I’m wrong, the most traditional of the biographies that made the list.

G-Man is traditional in as much as Beverly Gage captures the full sweep of Hoover’s life, cradle to grave: 1895 to 1972. In that way, structurally G-Man sits aside the epics of David McCullough ( Truman , John Adams ) and Ron Chernow ( Grant , Alexander Hamilton ).

Unlike those valorized national leaders, Hoover answered to no voters. The quintessential ‘Government Man,’ a counselor and advisor to eight U.S. presidents , of both political parties, he was one of the most powerful, unelected government officials in history. He reigned over the Federal Bureau of Investigations from 1924 to 1972. Hoover began as a young reformer and—as he accrued power—was simultaneously loathed and admired. Through Hoover, Gage skilfully guides readers through the full arc of 20th-century America, and contends: “We cannot know our own story without understanding his.”

In G-Man , Yale University professor Gage untangles the contradictions in Hoover’s aspirations and cruelty, and locates the paradoxical American story of tensions and anxieties over security, masculinity, and race.

“This year, many biographies were deeply rooted in American soil that required years of research to till”

Hoover lived his entire life in Washington D.C., and Gage entwines his story in the city’s evolution into a global power center and delves deeply into the dark childhood that led him to remain there for college. Critical to understanding Hoover, Gage demonstrates, was his embrace of the Kappa Alpha fraternity; its worldview was informed by Robert E. Lee and the ‘Lost Cause’ of the South , in which racial equality was unacceptable. He shaped the F.B.I. in his image and recruited Kappa Alpha men to the Bureau.

For Hoover, Gage writes, Kappa Alpha was a way to measure character, political sympathies, and, of course, loyalty. One of those men was Clyde Tolson, and Gage documents their trips to nightclubs, the racetrack, vacations, and White House receptions. Hoover did not acknowledge that he and Tolson were a couple, but in the end their separate burial plots were a few yards from one another.

While Hoover feels very much alive on the page, Gage captures the full sweep of American history, chronicling events from the hyper-nationalism of the early part of the century, moving into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., making use of newly unclassified documents. When Hoover’s F.B.I. targeted Nazis and gangsters, there was clarity about good guys and bad guys. But by the mid-century, as the nation began to fracture, he regarded calls for peace and justice as threats to national security. Among the abuses of power committed by Hoover’s F.B.I., for instance, was the wiretapping and harassment of King.

Beyond Hoover’s malfeasance, Gage emphasizes that Hoover was no maverick. He tapped into a dark part of the national psyche and had public opinion on his side. Through Hoover, Americans could see themselves, and, as Gage argues, “what we valued and refused to see.”

A biography like this does make you realize how deeply world events might be impacted or even partially predicted by the family background or the personalities of a small number of key individuals.

We should step through the rest of the books on your 2023 biography shortlist. Let’s start with Kerri K. Greenidge’s The Grimkés: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family , which is the story not only of the Grimké Sisters Sarah and Angelina, two well-known abolitionists, but Black members of their family as well.

I was eager to read The Grimkés as I had admired Greenidge’s earlier biography, Black Radical , about Boston civil rights leader and abolitionist newspaper editor William Monroe Trotter. Greenidge, a professor at Tufts University, brings her unique, perceptive eye to African American civil rights in the North.

Now Greenidge’s The Grimkés sits on my bookshelf next to The Hemingses of Monticello , the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Annette Gordon-Reed who exposed the contradictions of one of the most venerated figures in American history, Thomas Jefferson. In the Grimke family, Greenidge has found a gnarled family tree, deeply rooted in generations of trauma.

Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke have been exalted as brave heroines who defied antebellum Southern piety and headed northward to embrace abolition. Greenridge makes the powerful case that, in clinging to this mythology, a more troubling story is obscured. In the North, as the Grimké sisters lived comfortably and agitated for change, they enjoyed the financial benefits of their slaveholding family in South Carolina.

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After the Civil War, they learned that their brute of a brother had fathered at least two sons with a woman whom he had enslaved. The sisters provided some financial assistance in the education of these two young men, one attended Harvard Law School and the other Princeton Divinity School—and did not let their nephews forget it.

Not only does Greenidge provide a revisionist history of the Grimke sisters, but she also takes account of the full Grimké family and extends their story beyond the 19th century. She delves into the dynamics of racial subordination and how free white men who conceive children — whether from rape or a relationship spanning decades with enslaved women—destroy families. Generations of children are haunted by this history.  Poignantly, Greenidge evokes the life and work of the sisters’ grandniece Angelina (‘Nana’) Weld Grimké , a talented—and troubled—queer playwright and poet, who carried the heavy weight of the generational trauma she inherited.

This sounds like a family saga of the kind you might be more likely to find in fiction.

Let’s turn to Mr B . : George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans, the story of the noted choreographer. Why did this make your shortlist of the best biographies of 2023?

The perfect match of biographer and subject! A dancer who trained with Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York and is now dance critic for The New Yorker, Homans has written a biography of the man known as ‘the Shakespeare of Dance.’ In felicitous prose, Homans channels the dancer’s experience onto the page, from the body movements that can produce such beauty to the aching tendons and ligaments. Training is transformation, Homan writes, and working with Balanchine was a kind of metamorphosis tangled with pain. She evokes the dances so vividly that one can almost hear the music.

“At the heart of biography is the quest to understand the interplay between individual and social forces”

Homans captures Balanchine in a constant state of reinvention, tracing his life from Czarist Russia to Weimar Berlin , finally making his way to post-war New York where he revitalized the world of ballet by embracing modernish, founding New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine was genius whose personal history shape-shifted over the years. Homans grounds Mr. B in more than a hundred interviews, and draws from archives around the world.

Homans captures Balanchine’s charisma and cultural importance, but Mr. B. is no hagiography. Homans grasps the knot of sex and power over women used in his work. He married four times, always to dancers. They were all the same kind of swan-necked, long-waisted, long-limbed women, and although Homans does not write this, his company often sounds more like a cult than art.

And, of course, there is the matter of weight, which Homans dealt with directly, as did Balanchine. He posted a sign: ‘BEFORE YOU GET YOUR PAY—YOU MUST WEIGH.’

I don’t think I’ve ever considered reading a ballet biography before, but it sounds fascinating.

The next book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist brings us to Oxford, England. This is Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman.

At the outset of World War II , a quartet of young women, Oxford students—Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley—were “bored of listening to men talk about books by men about men,” as Mac Cumhaill, a Durham University professor, and Wiseman, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, write. In their marvelous group biography, MacCumhaill and Wiseman vivify how the friendships of these women congealed to bring “philosophy back to life.”

As their male counterparts departed for the front lines, this brilliant group of women came together in their dining halls and shared lodging quarters to challenge the thinking of their male colleagues. In the shadows of the Holocaust and Hiroshima, these friends rejected the logical positivists who favoured empirical scientific questions. They didn’t really create a distinct philosophical approach as much as they shared an interest in the metaphysics of morals.

Brilliant. A book that is ostensibly ‘improving’ but which turns out to be absolutely chock-full of gossip sounds perfect to me. Let’s move on to the fourth book on the NBCC’s 2023 biography shortlist, which is Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times by Aaron Sachs.

A biography about writing biography ! Very meta, and very much in the interdisciplinary tradition of American Studies. In his gorgeous braid of cultural history, Cornell University professor Sachs   entwines the lives and work of poet and fiction writer Herman Melville (1819-1891) and the philosopher and literary critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), illuminating their coextending concerns about their worlds in crisis.

While Melville is now firmly ensconced in the American canon, most appreciation and respect for him was posthumous. The 20th-century Melville revival was largely sparked by a now overlooked Mumford, once so prominent that he appeared on a 1936 Time  magazine cover.

Sachs brilliantly provides the connective tissue between Melville and his biographer Mumford so that these writers seem to be in conversation with one another, both deeply affected by their dark times.

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As Mumford grappled with tragedies wrought by World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic and urban decay, Melville had dealt with the bloody Civil War , slavery , and industrialization. In a certain way, this book is about the art of biography itself, two writers wrestling with modernity in a bleak world. In delving into Melville’s angst, Mumford was thrust into great turmoil. Sachs evokes so clearly and painfully this bond that almost did Mumford in, and writes that “Melville, it turns out, was Mumford’s white whale.”

There’s a real sense of range in this shortlist. But do you get a sense of there being certain trends in biography as a genre in 2023?

In many ways, this is a golden era for biography. There are fewer dull but worthy books, more capacious and improvisational ones. More series of short biographies that pack a big punch. We see more group biographies and illustrated biographies. But just as figures and groups once considered marginal are being centered, records that document those lives are vanishing.

The crisis in local news and the homogenization of national and international news will soon be a crisis for biographers and historians. Where would historians be without the ‘slave narratives’ from the Federal Writers Project , or the Federal Theatre Project ? Reconstruction of public events—federal elections, national tragedies, and so on—may be possible, but we lose that wide spectrum of human experience. We need to preserve these artifacts and responses to events as they happen. Biographies are time-consuming labors of love and passion, and are often expensive to produce. We need to ensure that we are generating and saving the emails, the records, the to-do lists of ordinary life.

The affluent among us will always be able to commission histories of their companies or families, but are those the only ones that will endure?

June 30, 2023

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is a co-author of American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley; His Battle for Chicago and the Nation with Adam Cohen, with whom she also cofounded The National Book Review. She has chaired four Pulitzer Prize juries, served as president of the National Book Critics Circle, and presided over the Harold Washington Literary Award selection committee three times. Former Time magazine correspondent in New York and Chicago and long-time literary editor of the Chicago Tribune, she is working on a biography of women in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras for Liveright/W.W. Norton.

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10 Best Biographies/Memoirs of 2023

10 best biographies of 2023.

It’s been a big year for biographies, with everything from Prince Harry to Britney Spear delivering their own books. There have been a lot of excellent books in this category this year .

In this curated list, we delve into the best biographies that captivated us this year. As usual, the books below are listed in no particular order but of course, do let us know your favourites in the comments below!

So join us as we celebrate the narratives that have defined 2023, each a unique testament to the enduring power of storytelling.

The Woman in Me – Britney Spears

The Woman in Me is an intimate and courageous memoir that chronicles the remarkable journey for one of pop music’s most iconic figures, Britney Spears. This deeply personal narrative unfolds against the backdrop of her historic June 2021 court testimony, a moment that not only altered Britney’s trajectory in life, but also resonated with people around the globe. Spears’s story is one of resilience and transformation, capturing the essence of freedom, motherhood, and survival.

Spears opens up about her life in this book with honesty and humor that is both refreshing and profound. She shares her experiences in the limelight, detailing the struggles and triumphs that have defined her career and personal life. Her account goes beyond the sensational headlines, offering readers a glimpse into the heart and soul of an artist who has captivated millions.

Spears’s narrative is more than a memoir; it’s a powerful testament to the strength and resilience inherent in her character. “The Woman in Me” is a celebration of the healing power of music and love, and the vital importance of autonomy in storytelling. Britney’s voice—clear, unfiltered, and unapologetic—echoes throughout the pages, emphasizing the significance of a woman taking control of her narrative and speaking her truth.

This book is not only a milestone in Spears’s life but also an inspiring tale of hope and empowerment, making it a must-read for her fans and supporters of women’s rights alike.

A Memoir of My Former Self – Hilary Mantel

A Memoir of My Former Self is a rich collection of Hilary Mantel’s finest journalistic and personal writings, spanning four decades. Known for her distinguished career as a novelist, Mantel brings her keen insight and eloquent prose to a variety of subjects, offering readers a glimpse into both her life and the broader world as she sees it. Embracing her belief that “ink is a generative fluid,” she crafts essays that resonate with intention and depth.

Mantel’s work traverses a wide array of themes. She reflects on nationalism and her own sense of identity, delves into the interplay between our dreams and waking life, and revisits the enduring mythos of Princess Diana.

From her unique childhood to her obsession with Thomas Cromwell, which culminated in the acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy, this memoir presents the evolution of Hilary Mantel’s life and thoughts. A Memoir of My Former Self is a wonderful book and certainly one of the best released this year.

The Forgotten Girls – Monica Potts

In this poignant and revealing book, an accomplished journalist revisits her roots in a small Arkansas town to unravel the stark contrast between her life and that of her childhood best friend, Darci.

Growing up in the economically declining Ozarks, both Monica and Darci were bright, working-class girls with dreams that stretched far beyond the confines of their troubled community. United by their love for reading and learning, they faced the harsh realities of their town: broken homes, alcoholism, and the gradual decay of local businesses and factories.

While Monica managed to break free, attending college and pursuing her dreams, Darci’s story took a tragically different turn. Years later, as Monica covers poverty and its impacts, she learns of the alarming decrease in life expectancy among women in rural areas like her hometown. 

Darci represents a harrowing statistic: a single mother battling meth and prescription drug addiction, struggling with unemployment and near homelessness. Through her narrative, she sheds light on the critical issues affecting poor, rural white women in America, offering an intimate and eye-opening look at the realities often overlooked in national discourse.

Abroad in Japan – Chris Broad

In Abroad in Japan, Chris Broad shares his adventurous journey into Japan in his often humorous journey of adapting to life in rural northern Japan. Arriving with no experience in teaching and little command of the Japanese language, Chris wonders if his stint as an English teacher might be short-lived. Instead, what unfolds is a decade of rich experiences in one of the world’s most intriguing and complex cultures.

This is a captivating narrative that spans all forty-seven prefectures of Japan, from tranquil rice fields to the vibrant streets of Tokyo. Chris recounts a variety of extraordinary experiences, including a nerve-wracking North Korean missile scare, an embarrassing encounter in a love hotel, and an unforgettable week with Japan’s biggest movie star. His stories are not just entertaining; they offer a deep dive into the heart of Japanese culture.

Chris’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of travel and the value of embracing the unknown with an open mind and heart.

Strong Female Character – Fern Brady

Strong Female Character is a ground-breaking memoir by Fern Brady that confronts the intersection of sexism and neurodiversity. Brady, a neurodivergent, working-class woman from Scotland, offers an eye-opening exploration of how societal expectations clash with the realities of being an autistic woman. The book challenges the preconceived notions of both autism and femininity, highlighting the unique struggles and triumphs that come with navigating these identities.

Brady’s narrative is unflinchingly honest, delving into deeply personal experiences such as sex work, abusive relationships, and her time in teenage mental health units. She critically examines the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype, a trope often misleadingly associated with neurodiverse women, and dismantles it with the force of her lived experience.

This memoir is not just a personal account; it’s a powerful statement on the complexities of being a neurodivergent woman in a world that often misunderstands and overlooks such experiences.

Friendaholic – Elizabeth Day

In Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, Elizabeth Day delves into the oft-overlooked yet vital world of friendships, challenging the societal emphasis on romantic love.

Growing up with few friends, Elizabeth equated the number of friendships with being loved and secure. As an adult, she prides herself on being a Good Friend, only to realize that this pursuit sometimes comes at the cost of her own boundaries and mental health.

The onset of the global pandemic in 2020 sees Elizabeth re-evaluate her understanding of friendship. Confronted with the reality that her closest friends weren’t necessarily those she spent the most time with, she begins to question the nature of these relationships. This introspection leads to broader inquiries: Is there such a thing as having too many friends? How well does one truly understand the role they play as a friend?

The Strength of Love – Kate Garraway

Kate Garraway’s The Strength of Love offers a profound and moving account of resilience and hope amidst life’s most challenging circumstances. This deeply personal narrative unfolds in the wake of her husband Derek’s battle with the severe impacts of Covid, a struggle that has dramatically altered their family life, requiring 24-hour care and frequent hospitalizations.

Kate’s journey is one of constant uncertainty and daily challenges, testing her strength and that of her family at every turn.

Garraway’s book delves into universal themes that resonate with many: the nature of trauma, the critical role of resilience and adaptability, and the power of staying curious and positive in the face of adversity. She candidly discusses the concepts of identity and purpose, offering insights into how to embrace uncertainty and regain control in times of turmoil. Her experiences and reflections provide solace and wisdom to those grappling with loneliness, loss, or fear of the unknown.

Spare – Prince Harry

Much has been made of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, with opinion swinging like a pendulum between outright hatred to incredulous disbelief. Following their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey and the subsequent fall-out with the Royal Family, Harry and Meghan have attempted to lift the curtain and explain exactly what’s happened and what’s led them to where we are today.

Spare is a revealing and deeply personal memoir in that respect, ghost-written by J.R. Moehringer but written in first-person perspective to authenticate the feel of what’s in here. Prince Harry’s book is split across three parts in this 410 page book. After a brief prologue starting at Prince Philip’s death, we cut back to just before Princess Diana’s death, leading through Harry’s years growing up as the “Spare” to Prince William (the “heir”) along with his time in the military and up to the Queen’s death.

The writing itself is mostly reserved to short and snappy sub-chapters, which are split into three parts, the first focusing on the past and growing up, the second on Harry’s time in the military and the third on Harry’s love life and meeting Meghan Markle.

It’s a book that reveals far more about the underbelly of the Royal Family than you’re likely to see anywhere else. Quite how this story will eventually end is anyone’s guess but for anyone remotely interested in the Royal Family, this is an absolute must-read.

Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson

In his latest biography, the acclaimed author of “Steve Jobs” presents an intimate and compelling portrait of Elon Musk, one of the most enigmatic and influential figures of our time. This book delves deep into Musk’s journey from a bullied child in South Africa to a visionary entrepreneur reshaping the future with electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. It also explores his dramatic takeover of Twitter, a platform that symbolizes both a personal and professional battleground for him.

Author Isaacson provides an unprecedented look into Musk’s world, having shadowed him for two years, witnessing first-hand the workings of his mind and operations. Through extensive interviews with Musk, as well as those who know him best—family, friends, co-workers, and rivals—the biography paints a vivid picture of a man who is as complex as he is visionary. It raises probing questions: Are the very traits that make Musk a relentless innovator also the sources of his deepest struggles? This biography offers a fascinating exploration of Musk’s life, achievements, and the inner demons that drive him, making it a standout addition to the best biographies of 2023.

Seventeen – Joe Gibson

Seventeen is a shocking and eye-opening memoir, written by Joe Gibson. In this revealing book, we’re whisked back to 1992. Like every other seventeen-year-old boy, Joe has one eye on his studies, the other on his social life. He’s looking ahead to a gap year full of travel and adventure before university. Only, there’s a problem. When Joe’s teacher – attractive, mid-thirties – takes an interest in him, it seems like a fantasy come true.  

For his final two years at school, Joe is bound to her, a woman twice his age, in an increasingly tangled web of coercion, sex and lies. Their affair, a product of complex grooming and a shocking abuse of authority, is played out in the corridors of one of Britain’s major private schools, under the noses of people who suspected, even knew, but said nothing. 

With a heady dose of nostalgia for the 90’s, and the perfectly captured mood of those final months at school, Joe charts the legacy of deceit and indelibility of decisions made at seventeen. 

Closing Thoughts

2023 has been a big year for biography fans. There have been some great selections this year and above our just our favourite picks!

What will 2024 have in store for us? Hopefully more of the same!

So, there we have it, our picks for the best biographies of 2023! Let us know what you think of our choices in the comments below and remind us of any others you enjoyed this year above all others!

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The 14 fall 2023 pop culture memoirs and biographies we're most excited to read

From Barbra to Peloton instructors, there's no shortage of great pop culture reads this fall.

Here at EW, we're pop culture junkies.

If there's a behind-the-scenes story or a personal hot take from a celeb, we are here for it. Chances are, if you're reading this you are too. And this fall, there is no shortage of engrossing, juicy new memoirs and biographies shedding light on all corners of the entertainment industry.

From Old Hollywood (Charlie Chaplin, Lena Horne, Greta Grabo) to the music industry (Barbra Streisand, Britney Spears, Geddy Lee) to the virtual gym (Cody Rigsby), pop culture figures across the gamut are telling their stories (or receiving new evaluation) in a slew of new titles hitting shelves this season.

Here are the 14 pop culture memoirs and biographies we're most excited about in fall 2023.

Ideal Beauty: The Life and Times of Greta Garbo by Lois W. Banner

Historian and biographer Lois Banner ( Marilyn: The Passion and The Paradox ) takes one of Hollywood's most enigmatic figures as her latest subject. Drawing on over a decade of research in archives across ​​Sweden, Germany, France, and the United States, Banner examines the shadowy personal life of the woman most famous for stating, "I want to be alone." While Garbo captivated audiences with her beauty and mysterious persona, this book offers an insightful portrait of her private life, interrogating her feminism, sexuality, mental health, and more. Garbo rose to fame on the silent screen, but this new biography gives voice to her life in unparalleled fashion. (Sept. 5) — Maureen Lee Lenker

XOXO, Cody by Cody Rigsby

With XOXO Cody , the beloved Peloton instructor shows he has range. His memoir aims to make readers laugh and tear up in equal measure. He delivers his hot takes and humorous advice about living life right while also diving into the difficult moments in his life that shaped the adult he is. As he delves into growing up gay and his issues with his parents, Rigsby provides an opportunity for folks to get to know him better. XOXO Cody is inspiring and raw, but also a great reminder that laughing our way through something is a solid option. (Sept. 12) — Alamin Yohannes

Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones

Saturday Night Live alum Leslie Jones is known for her disarming frankness, and in her new memoir, Leslie F*cking Jones , the comic invites readers even deeper inside her brutally honest thoughts. Jones' sense of humor is intact even as she opens up about her experiences with childhood sexual abuse, abortion, and family tragedy, as well as the racism and sexism she's fought in stand-up comedy and from online trolls who made her life hell after she was cast in the women-led Ghostbusters . SNL fans will be especially interested in her tales from the show, including who she did and did not get along with, and hilarious details of an unaired sketch about killing Whoopi Goldberg . (Sept. 19) —Jillian Sederholm

Sondheim: His Life, His Shows, His Legacy by Stephen M. Silverman

Stephen Sondheim may have died in 2021, but his spirit lives on among the Broadway faithful. This month alone marks the premiere of the third Sondheim revival since his passing, as well as the premiere of Here We Are , a posthumous presentation of the Luis Buñuel-inspired musical he was working on until the end. Somewhere between a biography and a coffee-table book, Stephen M. Silverman's new title makes a perfect companion to our current age of Sondheim remembrance. The master of the modern musical is chronicled with textual highlights of his life story (with Sondheim's sardonic wit on display in frequent direct quotes), but also helpfully accompanied by many, many photos of his legendary Broadway career — and the actors, artists, and celebrities he crossed paths with along the way. (Sept. 19) — Christian Holub

Thicker Than Water by Kerry Washington

In her memoir, Kerry Washington bares it all. After a long-kept family secret is revealed, the actress and producer looks back at her life to share what she has overcome and learned over the years. From past traumas to wisdom she's received through her roles, Washington is bringing fans into her world like never before. Through these stories, she tells readers of her fight to redevelop her own understanding of family as she started her own. Thicker Than Water is a poignant and captivating exploration of how she became the woman she is today. (Sept. 26) — A.Y.

Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith

Though Jada Pinkett Smith has spent the last couple of years peeling back the layers on Red Table Talk , she still feels like people misunderstand her. In Worthy, she attempts to tell her story, her way. From Baltimore to Hollywood, and through suicidal ideation to self-acceptance and healing, Pinkett Smith recounts her journey to reflection and healing. (Oct. 4) — Yolanda Machado

Thank You: Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin by Sly Stone

In the late '60s, Sly Stone was the embodiment of cool, an impossibly stylish funk master and preternatural hitmaker. He was also a man who carted around a violin case filled with cocaine wherever he'd go. If his drug use could conjure magic in the studio, it also destroyed the Sly and the Family Stone frontman's relationships, wiped out his earnings, and made him a recluse. Now 80 years old and sober, the living legend is finally releasing his memoir, a cautionary tale and the story of one of rock's true great visionaries. (Oct. 17) — Jason Lamphier

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

Britney Spears is finally ready to tell her story the way she's never been able to before. One of the world's biggest and most misunderstood pop icons is releasing her memoir, The Woman In Me , a little over two years after revealing harrowing details in open court about how her life wasn't her own under the conservatorship of her father for over 13 years. Now that the court-ordered conservatorship has been dissolved, Spears' chronicles her "brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope," allowing her fans to finally see the woman behind the music. (Oct. 24) — Sydney Bucksbaum

Being Henry: The Fonz...and Beyond by Henry Winkler

The guy who played one of the coolest characters ever on-screen is also known as one of the nicest ever off it. So how exactly did mild mannered Henry Winkler transform himself into the Fonz? The Emmy-winning actor takes us inside his original Happy Days audition as part of a memoir that goes through Winkler's entire career — from The Lords of Flatbush through Barry . And yes, he explains in full detail why in the world he jumped that damn shark. (Oct. 31) —Dalton Ross

Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed by Donald Bogle

Donald Bogle, revered historian of Black Hollywood, tackles one of the most iconic Black Golden Age stars — Lena Horne. Using a combination of interviews, press accounts, studio archives, and historical research, Bogle offers up a lush portrait of Horne, from her professional triumphs and bitter disappointments to her activism and role in breaking barriers for Black performers and Black women throughout her career. Bogle tells Horne's story accompanied by stunning photographs in this coffee table-style book that allows for never-before-published images of Horne to shine. (Oct. 31) — M.L.L.

Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman

While Charlie Chaplin's life has been chronicled many times, biographer Scott Eyman ( John Wayne: The Life and Legend; Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise ) drills down on Chaplin's fall from grace and exile from America in the back half of the Little Tramp's career. In the wake of the Red Scare and Chaplin's own sexual scandals, he was denied re-entry into the United States in 1952 following a trip to Europe. Eyman examines the events leading to this exile, the political turmoil at play, and Chaplin's years making his final two films in London. It's both a fascinating historical study and a cautionary tale about the perils of hysteria and extremism pervading government practices. (Oct. 31) — M.L.L.

My Name Is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

For years now, Barbra Streisand has spoken of her long-gestating memoir, and it's finally here. In her inimitable way, Streisand tells the story of her life, from her childhood in Brooklyn to her legendary Broadway breakout in Funny Girl to her success in Hollywood as an actress and director. Full of her signature frankness and dry humor, the memoir gives fans an unprecedented look at Streisand's life, from her personal struggles to her professional triumphs, all with a reminder that through the decades, nobody was going to rain on her parade. (Nov. 7) — M.L.L.

My Effin' Life by Geddy Lee

Living in the limelight may be the universal dream for some, but for Rush frontman Geddy Lee, it's simply another chapter in his effin' excellent life. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer — who played bass, keyboards, and sang on the progressive rock band's biggest hits — holds nothing back in his highly-anticipated memoir. From being named after his grandfather who was murdered during the Holocaust to sharing intimate tales of life on the road with bandmates Alex Lifeson and the late Neil Peart, Lee puts aside the alienation and gets on with the fascination surrounding his extraordinary life in an honest, hilarious, and heartfelt way all his own. (Nov. 14) — Emlyn Travis

The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story by Sam Wasson

If he had only made The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola would already be remembered as one of the most successful American directors of all time. But his ambitions always went far beyond that, and the filmmaker promises he has one more masterpiece on the way in the form of the mysterious utopian magnum opus Megalopolis . This new book by Sam Wasson (who already proved himself one of the great modern chroniclers of the New Hollywood era with the Chinatown making-of story The Big Goodbye ) chronicles the road to heaven Coppola trod after descending to Hell with Apocalypse Now. The Vietnam War epic is already the subject of much reporting, but Wasson boasts unprecedented access to Coppola's personal archive — as well as a first-hand look at the making of a movie we can't wait to see. (Nov. 28) — C.H.

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Spring 2023 Announcements: Memoirs & Biographies

While this season’s titles focus largely on identity, fans of celebrity memoirs have offerings from Paris Hilton and Elliot Page, among others, to look forward to.

Beyond This Harbor: Adventurous Tales of Heart and Home

Rose Styron. Knopf, June 13 ($32, ISBN 978-0-525-65902-0)

Poet, journalist, and Amnesty International USA cofounder Styron reflects on her marriage to Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist William Styron and their shared literary life.

King: A Life

Jonathan Eig. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, May 16 ($35, ISBN 978-0-374-27929-5)

Journalist and PEN/ESPN Award winner Eig takes an in-depth look at the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and his lasting impact on social justice and American history. 100,000-copy announced first printing.

A Living Remedy: A Memoir

Nicole Chung. Ecco, Apr. 4 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-063-03161-6)

Chung recounts her father’s death from kidney disease, her mother’s cancer diagnosis, and the complicated bonds between a daughter and her adoptive parents. 75,000-copy announced first printing.

Pageboy: A Memoir

Elliot Page. Flatiron, June 6 ($29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-87835-9)

Umbrella Academy star Page opens up about coming out as transgender, his personal relationships, and his experiences in Hollywood. 750,000-copy announced first printing.

Paris: The Memoir

Paris Hilton. Dey Street, Mar. 21 ($29.99, ISBN 978-0-063-22462-9)

Socialite Hilton reveals the woman behind the carefully crafted public persona. 200,000-copy announced first printing.

A Renaissance of Our Own: A Memoir & Manifesto on Reimagining

Rachel Elizabeth Cargle. Ballantine, May 16 ($28.99, ISBN 978-0-593-13473-3)

Activist and The Cut contributor Cargle crafts a guide to personal transformation that doubles as a toolkit for cultural liberation.

Sink: A Memoir

Joseph Earl Thomas. Grand Central, Feb. 21 ($28, ISBN 978-1-538-70617-6)

Thomas details growing up in a dysfunctional, abusive family and plunging headfirst into the world of geek culture to escape his grim environment.

True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times

Robert Greenfield. Crown, Apr. 11 ($30, ISBN 978-0-525-57595-5)

Former Rolling Stone editor Greenfield examines the meteoric rise of actor and playwright Sam Shepard, along with his relationships with pop culture trailblazers.

Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir

Rachel Louise Snyder. Bloomsbury, Mar. 7 ($29, ISBN 978-1-635-57912-3)

Guggenheim Fellow Snyder chronicles her path from being a teenage runaway to a globe-trotting reporter determined to amplify the voices of those who are ignored or silenced. 100,000-copy announced first printing.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir

Maggie Smith. One Signal, Apr. 11 ($28, ISBN 978-1-982-18585-5)

Poet Smith recounts the breakdown of her marriage and her struggle to reach a place of self-forgiveness.

Memoirs & Biographies Listings

Abrams Image

Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto by Zachary Zane (May 9, $26, ISBN 978-1-4197-6471-4). Sex and relationship columnist Zane mines his experiences as a bisexual man in essays that deconstruct conventions and stigmas attached to sex, sexual identity, and relationships.

Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It by Greg Marshall (June 13, $28, ISBN 978-1-4197-6360-1). Marshall recalls his Utah childhood and how he has navigated adulthood as a gay man with cerebral palsy.

Toxic: The Story of Nine Famous Women in the Tabloid 2000s by Sarah Ditum (July 25, $27, ISBN 978-1-4197-6311-3) examines the misogynistic celebrity culture of the 2000s and some of the women who were mistreated by the media.

Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult: A Memoir by Michelle Dowd (Mar. 7, $28, ISBN 978-1-64375-185-6). Journalism professor Dowd recalls growing up in an apocalyptic cult founded by her grandfather, and how she gathered the courage to escape.

Top Billin’: Stories of Laughter, Lessons, and Triumph by Bill Bellamy (Apr. 25, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-323762-9). The actor and former MTV VJ offers a no-holds-barred look at his time at MTV in the 1990s. 100,000-copy announced first printing.

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America by Abraham Riesman (Mar. 28, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-982169-44-2) chronicles the ascent of former WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, from his impoverished Southern youth to his reign as a billionaire businessman and champion of the Republican Party.

Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA by Theresa Runstedtler (Mar. 7, $29, ISBN 978-1-64503-695-1) offers an “illuminating” reappraisal of the world of 1970s professional basketball, according to PW ’s starred review, that foregrounds the racial equality and social justice efforts of Black players.

Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime by Anjan Sundaram (Apr. 11, $26, ISBN 978-1-64622-115-8). Journalist Sundaram takes stock of the physical, mental, and emotional toll of war reportage as he grapples with his responsibilities as a husband and a father to a newborn.

Coffee House

In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation by Isabel Zapata, trans. by Robin Myers (May 9, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-56689-675-7), ruminates on motherhood, pregnancy, and in vitro fertilization.

Counterpoint

Life B: Overcoming Double Depression by Bethanne Patrick (May 16, $26, ISBN 978-1-64009-129-0). Expanding on an article published on Elle.com , Patrick excavates her maternal family history to understand how mental illness and trauma have shaped her identity.

When the World Didn’t End: A Memoir by Guinevere Turner (May 23, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-23759-5) describes how growing up in the Lyman Family cult irrevocably altered Turner’s idea of home and shattered her fragile understanding of the world.

Earth to Moon: A Memoir by Moon Unit Zappa (May 9, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-311334-3). The daughter of musician Frank Zappa recounts a whirlwind coming-of-age in 1980s California and forging a sense of self free from her father’s celebrity.

Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style, and Breaking All the Rules by Patricia Field (Feb. 14, $35, ISBN 978-0-06-304832-4). “Costume designer Field makes a sparkling debut with this recollection of her influential career,” according to PW ’s review.

Choosing to Run: A Memoir by Des Linden (Apr. 4, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-18664-0). Two-time Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon winner Linden details the highs and lows of being a professional athlete and offers words of encouragement to help tackle life’s challenges.

A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again by Joanna Biggs (May 9, $28.99, ISBN 978-0-06-307310-4) combines memoir, criticism, and biography to explore the lives and works of nine influential women writers.

Twentieth-Century Man: The Wild Life of Peter Beard by Christopher Wallace (July 4, $29.99, ISBN 978-0-06-306641-0) provides a warts-and-all biography of naturalist and wildlife photographer Peter Beard, whose passion for adventure matched his thirst for decadence.

Grand Central

Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother & Daughter Ponder Life’s Big Questions by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd (Apr. 25, $30, ISBN 978-1-5387-2037-0). Academy Award–winning actor Dern and her mother, BAFTA-winning actor Ladd, reflect on life and their relationship. 500,000-copy announced first printing.

Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain by Andrew McCarthy (May 9, $28, ISBN 978-1-5387-0920-7). Former Brat Pack member McCarthy details his trek with his eldest son across Spain’s Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. 100,000-copy announced first printing.

Orphan Bachelors by Fae Myenne Ng (May 9, $28, ISBN 978-0-8021-6221-2) examines the 1882 Exclusion Act and the immigration service’s mid-20th-century Confession Program, and how they shaped her family’s history and life in San Francisco.

Belonging: A Daughter’s Search for Identity Through Love and Loss by Michelle Miller (Mar. 14, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-322043-0). CBS journalist Miller details her search for her birth mother, a white-passing Chicana hospital worker who had an affair with Miller’s Black doctor father. 60,000-copy announced first printing.

The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Drag by Sasha Velour (Apr. 4, $35, ISBN 978-0-358-50808-3) traces the cultural evolution of drag and its ability to serve as both artistic expression and collective activism. 75,000-copy announced first printing.

Chita: A Memoir by Chita Rivera (Apr. 25, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-06-322679-1). Three-time Tony Award–winning actor Rivera recounts the challenges she overcame during her life and career.

Directions to Myself: A Memoir of Four Years by Heidi Julavits (June 27, $27, ISBN 978-0-451-49851-9). The founding editor of The Believer contemplates how to prepare her young son for life’s disappointments and heartaches while reflecting on her childhood in Maine.

Through the Groves: A Memoir by Anne Hull (June 20, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-8050-9337-7). Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Hull recalls her childhood in 1960s Florida, her parents’ dysfunctional marriage, and the growing pains of girlhood.

We Are Too Many: A Memoir [Kind Of] by Hannah Pittard (May 2, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-250-86904-3) puts a magnifying glass on the author’s marriage, which ended after her husband had an affair with her best friend.

Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg (May 2, $35, ISBN 978-0-525-65685-2) offers a portrait of the marriage between former South African president Nelson Mandela and his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. 60,000-copy announced first printing.

A Place for Us: A Memoir by Brandon J. Wolf (May 2, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-5420-3646-7). LGBTQ activist Wolf chronicles his search for chosen family after leaving his rural Oregon hometown, and later turning grief into action following the 2016 Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando.

Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West by Bryce Andrews (Feb. 7, $27.99, ISBN 978-0-358-46827-1) reconsiders the settling of the American West, and the roles violence and firearms played in it.

The Critic’s Daughter: A Memoir by Priscilla Gilman (Feb. 7, $28.95, ISBN 978-0-393-65132-4) recounts life in 1970s New York as the daughter of critic Richard Gilman and literary agent Lynn Nesbit, as well as the secrets uncovered after their divorce.

How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind by Clancy Martin (Mar. 28, $30, ISBN 978-0-593-31705-1). Expanding on his Huffington Post essay “I’m Still Here,” philosophy professor Martin recalls his suicide attempts and considers the philosophical roots of self-destruction.

Penguin Press

Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming by Ava Chin (Apr. 25, $28, ISBN 978-0-525-55737-1). Chin, an M.F.K. Fisher Prize winner, unearths her Chinese American family’s past and reckons with the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Random House

Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper (May 9, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-24238-4). The author ruminates on growing up in the 1970s, the beauty of the natural world, and his 2020 Central Park confrontation that made international headlines.

The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts (Apr. 18, $28, ISBN 978-0-525-51991-1). Journalist Potts researches poverty in rural Arkansas as she tries to make sense of the fate of her childhood best friend.

The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science by Kate Zernike (Feb. 28, $30, ISBN 978-1-982131-83-8) chronicles the efforts of MIT molecular biologist Nancy Hopkins and others to get the university to acknowledge discrimination against women on its science faculty.

Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir by Beth Nguyen (July 4, $27, ISBN 978-1-982196-34-9). American Book Award winner Nguyen writes of new parenthood and coming to terms with her mother, who stayed in Vietnam at the end of the war.

Seven Stories

A Matter of Appearance: A Memoir of Chronic Illness by Emily Wells (Mar. 21, $20, ISBN 978-1-64421-276-9) combines memoir and literary analysis to detail a childhood marked by ballet dancing and a mysterious chronic illness, as well as the author’s eventual path to wellness.

Simon & Schuster

Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia by Hadley Freeman (Mar. 7, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-982-18983-9). Guardian writer Freeman grapples with her history of anorexia nervosa and examines how treatments for the eating disorder have changed over the years.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton (June 6, $28, ISBN 978-1-66800-053-3) visits America’s dwindling lesbian bars and celebrates the sanctity of queer spaces.

St. Martin’s

The Education of Kendrick Perkins by Kendrick Perkins, with Seth Rogoff (Feb. 21, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-250-28034-3). Perkins, an ESPN commentator and former NBA player, opens up about his ascent from small-town Texas athlete to championship winner.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong (May 16, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-953534-67-5) reflects on identity and growing up on the 1980s Jersey shore as the daughter of working-class Asian American parents.

Nobody Needs to Know by Pidgeon Pagonis (June 20, $28.99, ISBN 978-1-5420-2946-9). Activist Pagonis charts their path to self-acceptance as a person who was born intersex and challenges society’s misconceptions and stigmas about gender identity.

Univ. of Chicago

On Christopher Street: Life, Sex, and Death After Stonewall by Michael Denneny (Mar. 17, $22.50 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-226-82463-5). Christopher Street magazine cofounder Denneny spotlights the queer community of 1970s and ’80s New York City, incorporating as well his journal entries, articles, and interviews.

Don’t Call Me Home: A Memoir by Alexandra Auder (Apr. 25, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-29995-1). The actor recounts her upbringing as the daughter of Warhol muse Viva and French filmmaker Michael Auder, and considers the impact of family on self-fulfillment.

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The best biographies to read in 2023

• Nik Rawlinson

Discover what inspired some of history’s most familiar names with these comprehensive biographies

The best biographies can be inspirational, can provide important life lessons – and can warn us off a dangerous path. They’re also a great way to learn more about important figures in history, politics, business and entertainment. That’s because the best biographies not only reveal what a person did with their life, but what effect it had and, perhaps most importantly, what inspired them to act as they did.

Where both a biography and an autobiography exist, you might be tempted to plump for the latter, assuming you’d get a more accurate and in-depth telling of the subject’s life story. While that may be true, it isn’t always the case. It’s human nature to be vain, and who could blame a celebrity or politician if they covered up their embarrassments and failures when committing their lives to paper? A biographer, so long as they have the proof to back up their claims, may have less incentive to spare their subject’s blushes, and thus produce a more honest account – warts and all.

That said, we’ve steered clear of the sensational in selecting the best biographies for you. Rather, we’ve focused on authoritative accounts of notable names, in each case written some time after their death, when a measured, sober assessment of their actions and impact can be given.

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Best biographies: At a glance

• Best literary biography: Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley | £20
• Best showbiz biography: Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood | £6.78
• Best political biography: Hitler by Ian Kershaw | £14

How to choose the best biography for you

There are so many biographies to choose from that it can be difficult knowing which to choose. This is especially true when there are several competing titles focused on the same subject. Try asking yourself these questions.

Is the author qualified?

Wikipedia contains potted biographies of every notable figure you could ever want to read about. So, if you’re going to spend several hours with a novel-sized profile it must go beyond the basics – and you want to be sure that the author knows what they’re talking about.

That doesn’t mean they need to have been personally acquainted with the subject, as Jasper Rees was with Victoria Wood. Ian Kershaw never met Adolf Hitler (he was, after all, just two years old when Hitler killed himself), but he published his first works on the subject in the late 1980s, has advised on BBC documentaries about the Second World War, and is an acknowledged expert on the Nazi era. It’s no surprise, then, that his biography of the dictator is extensive, comprehensive and acclaimed.

Is there anything new to say?

What inspires someone to write a biography – particularly of someone whose life has already been documented? Sometimes it can be the discovery of new facts, perhaps through the uncovering of previously lost material or the release of papers that had been suppressed on the grounds of national security. But equally, it may be because times have changed so much that the context of previous biographies is no longer relevant. Attitudes, in particular, evolve with time, and what might have been considered appropriate behaviour in the 1950s would today seem discriminatory or shocking. So, an up-to-date biography that places the subject’s actions and motivations within a modern context can make it a worthwhile read, even if you’ve read an earlier work already.

Does it look beyond the subject?

The most comprehensive biographies place their subject in context – and show how that context affected their outlook and actions or is reflected in their work. Lucy Worsley’s new biography of Agatha Christie is a case in point, referencing Christie’s works to show how real life influenced her fiction. Mathew Parker’s Goldeneye does the same for Bond author Ian Fleming – and in doing so, both books enlarge considerably on the biography’s core subject.

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1. Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood by Jasper Rees: Best showbiz biography

Price: £6.78 | Buy now from Amazon

It’s hardly surprising Victoria Wood never got around to writing her own autobiography. Originator of countless sketches, songs, comedy series, films, plays, documentaries and a sitcom, she kept pushing back the mammoth job of chronicling her life until it was too late. Wood’s death in 2016 came as a surprise to many, with the entertainer taking her final bow in private at the end of a battle with cancer she had fought away from the public eye.

In the wake of her death, her estate approached journalist Jasper Rees, who had interviewed her on many occasions, with the idea of writing the story that Wood had not got around to writing herself. With their backing, Rees’ own encounters with Wood, and the comic’s tape-recorded notes to go on, the result is a chunky, in-depth, authoritative account of her life. It seems unlikely that Wood could have written it more accurately – nor more fully – herself.

Looking back, it’s easy to forget that Wood wasn’t a constant feature on British TV screens, that whole years went by when her focus would be on writing or performing on stage, or even that her career had a surprisingly slow start after a lonely childhood in which television was a constant companion. This book reminds us of those facts – and that Wood wasn’t just a talented performer, but a hard worker, too, who put in the hours required to deliver the results.

Let’s Do It, which takes its title from a lyric in one of Wood’s best-known songs, The Ballad of Barry & Freda, is a timely reminder that there are two sides to every famous character: one public and one private. It introduces us to the person behind the personality, and shows how the character behind the characters for which she is best remembered came to be.

Key specs – Length: 592 pages; Publisher: Trapeze; ISBN: 978-1409184119

Let's Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood

2. the chief: the life of lord northcliffe, britain’s greatest press baron by andrew roberts: best business biography.

Lord Northcliffe wasn’t afraid of taking risks – many of which paid off handsomely. He founded a small paper called Answers to Correspondents, branched out into comics, and bought a handful of newspapers. Then he founded the Daily Mail, and applied what he’d learned in running his smaller papers on a far grander scale. The world of publishing – in Britain and beyond – was never the same again. The Daily Mail was a huge success, which led to the founding of the Daily Mirror, primarily for women, and his acquisition of the Observer, Times and Sunday Times.

By then, Northcliffe controlled almost half of Britain’s daily newspaper circulation. Nobody before him had ever enjoyed such reach – or such influence over the British public – as he did through his titles. This gave him sufficient political clout to sway the direction of government in such fundamental areas as the establishment of the Irish Free State and conscription in the run-up to the First World War. He was appointed to head up Britain’s propaganda operation during the conflict, and in this position he became a target for assassination, with a German warship shelling his home in Broadstairs. Beyond publishing, he was ahead of many contemporaries in understanding the potential of aviation as a force for good, as a result of which he funded several highly valuable prizes for pioneers in the field.

He achieved much in his 57 years, as evidenced by this biography, but suffered both physical and mental ill health towards the end. The empire that he built may have fragmented since his passing, with the Daily Mirror, Observer, Times and Sunday Times having left the group that he founded, but his influence can still be felt. For anyone who wants to understand how and why titles like the Daily Mail became so successful, The Chief is an essential read.

Key specs – Length: 556 pages; Publisher: Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 978-1398508712

The Chief: The Life of Lord Northcliffe Britain's Greatest Press Baron

3. goldeneye by matthew parker: best biography for cinema fans.

The name Goldeneye is synonymous with James Bond. It was the title of both a film and a video game, a fictional super weapon, a real-life Second World War plan devised by author Ian Fleming, and the name of the Jamaican estate where he wrote one Bond book every year between 1952 and his death in 1964. The Bond film makers acknowledged this in 2021’s No Time To Die, making that estate the home to which James Bond retired, just as his creator had done at the end of the war, 75 years earlier.

Fleming had often talked of his plan to write the spy novel to end all spy novels once the conflict was over, and it’s at Goldeneye that he fulfilled that ambition. Unsurprisingly, many of his experiences there found their way into his prose and the subsequent films, making this biography as much a history of Bond itself as it is a focused retelling of Fleming’s life in Jamaica. It’s here, we learn, that Fleming first drinks a Vesper at a neighbour’s house. Vesper later became a character in Casino Royale and, in the story, Bond devises a drink to fit the name. Fleming frequently ate Ackee fish while in residence; the phonetically identical Aki was an important character in You Only Live Twice.

Parker finds more subtle references, too, observing that anyone who kills a bird or owl in any of the Bond stories suffers the spy’s wrath. This could easily be overlooked, but it’s notable, and logical: Fleming had a love of birds, and Bond himself was named after the ornithologist James Bond, whose book was on Fleming’s shelves at Goldeneye.

So this is as much the biography of a famous fictional character as it is of an author, and of the house that he occupied for several weeks every year. So much of Fleming’s life at Goldeneye influenced his work that this is an essential read for any Bond fan – even if you’ve already read widely on the subject and consider yourself an aficionado. Parker’s approach is unusual, but hugely successful, and the result is an authoritative, wide-ranging biography about one of this country’s best-known authors, his central character, an iconic location and a country in the run-up to – and immediately following – its independence from Britain.

Key specs – Length: 416 pages; Publisher: Windmill Books; ISBN: 978-0099591740

Goldeneye: Where Bond was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica

4. hitler by ian kershaw: best political biography.

The latter portion of Adolf Hitler’s life, from his coming to power in 1933 to his suicide in 1945, is minutely documented, and known to a greater or lesser degree by anyone who has passed through secondary education. But what of his earlier years? How did this overlooked art student become one of the most powerful and destructive humans ever to have existed? What were his influences? What was he like?

Kershaw has the answers. This door stopper, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, is an abridged compilation of two earlier works: Hitler 1889 – 1936: Hubris, and Hitler 1936 – 1946: Nemesis. Yet, abridged though it may be, it remains extraordinarily detailed, and the research shines through. Kershaw spends no time warming his engines: Hitler is born by page three, to a social-climbing father who had changed the family name to something less rustic than it had been. As Kershaw points out, “Adolf can be believed when he said that nothing his father had done pleased him so much as to drop the coarsely rustic name of Schicklgruber. ‘Heil Schicklgruber’ would have sounded an unlikely salutation to a national hero.”

There’s no skimping on context, either, with each chapter given space to explore the political, economic and social influences on Hitler’s development and eventual emergence as leader. Kershaw pinpoints 1924 as the year that “can be seen as the time when, like a phoenix arising from the ashes, Hitler could begin his emergence from the ruins of the broken and fragmented volkisch movement to become eventually the absolute leader with total mastery over a reformed, organisationally far stronger, and internally more cohesive Nazi Party”. For much of 1924, Hitler was in jail, working on Mein Kampf and, by the point of his release, the movement to which he had attached himself had been marginalised. Few could have believed that it – and he – would rise again and take over first Germany, then much of Europe. Here, you’ll find out how it happened.

If you’re looking for an authoritative, in-depth biography of one of the most significant figures in modern world history, this is it. Don’t be put off by its length: it’s highly readable, and also available as an audiobook which, although it runs to 44 hours, can be sped up to trim the overall running time.

Key specs – Length: 1,072 pages; Publisher: Penguin; ISBN: 978-0141035888

5. Stalin’s Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow by Deyan Sudjic: Best historical biography

Boris Iofan died in 1976, but his influence can still be felt today – in particular, through the architectural influences evident in many mid-century buildings across Eastern Europe. Born in Odessa in 1891, he trained in architecture and, upon returning to Russia after time spent in Western Europe, gained notoriety for designing the House on the Embankment, a monumental block-wide building containing more than 500 flats, plus the shops and other facilities required to service them.

“Iofan’s early success was based on a sought-after combination of characteristics: he was a member of the Communist Party who was also an accomplished architect capable of winning international attention,” writes biographer Deyan Sudjic. “He occupied a unique position as a bridge between the pre-revolutionary academicians… and the constructivist radicals whom the party saw as bringing much-needed international attention and prestige but never entirely trusted. His biggest role was to give the party leadership a sense of what Soviet architecture could be – not in a theoretical sense or as a drawing, which they would be unlikely to understand, but as a range of built options that they could actually see.”

Having established himself, much of the rest of his life was spent working on his designs for the Palace of the Soviets, which became grander and less practical with every iteration. This wasn’t entirely Iofan’s fault. He had become a favourite of the party elite, and of Stalin himself, who added to the size and ambition of the intended building over the years. Eventually, the statue of Lenin that was destined to stand atop its central tower would have been over 300ft tall, and would have had an outstretched index finger 14ft long. There was a risk that this would freeze in the winter, and the icicles that dropped from it would have been a significant danger to those going into and out of the building below it.

Although construction work began, the Palace of the Soviets was never completed. Many of Iofan’s other buildings remain, though, and his pavilions for the World Expos in Paris and New York are well documented – in this book as well as elsewhere. Lavishly illustrated, it recounts Iofan’s life and examines his work in various stages, from rough outline, through technical drawing, to photographs of completed buildings – where they exist.

Key specs – Length: 320 pages; Publisher: Thames and Hudson; ISBN: 978-0500343555

Stalin's Architect: Power and Survival in Moscow

6. agatha christie: a very elusive woman by lucy worsley: best literary biography.

Agatha Christie died in 1976 but, with more than 70 novels and 150 short stories to her name, she remains one of the best-selling authors of all time. A new biography from historian Lucy Worsley is therefore undoubtedly of interest. It’s comprehensive and highly readable – and opinionated – with short chapters that make it easy to dip into and out of on a break.

Worsley resists the temptation to skip straight to the books. Poirot doesn’t appear until chapter 11 with publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which Christie wrote while working in a Torquay hospital. Today, Poirot is so well known, not only from the books but from depictions in film and television, that it’s easy to overlook how groundbreaking the character was upon his arrival.

As Worsley explains, “by choosing to make Hercule Poirot a foreigner, and a refugee as well, Agatha created the perfect detective for an age when everyone was growing surfeited with soldiers and action heroes. He’s so physically unimpressive that no-one expects Poirot to steal the show. Rather like a stereotypical woman, Poirot cannot rely upon brawn to solve problems, for he has none. He has to use brains instead… There’s even a joke in his name. Hercules, of course, is a muscular classical hero, but Hercule Poirot has a name like himself: diminutive, fussy, camp, and Agatha would show Poirot working in a different way to [Sherlock] Holmes.” Indeed, where Holmes rolls around on the floor picking up cigar ash in his first published case, Poirot, explains Worsley, does not stoop to gather clues: he needs only his little grey cells. Worsley’s approach is thorough and opinionated, and has resulted not only in a biography of Christie herself, but also her greatest creations, which will appeal all the more to the author’s fans.

As with Matthew Parker’s Goldeneye, there’s great insight here into what influenced Christie’s work, and Worsley frequently draws parallels between real life events and episodes, characters or locations in her novels. As a result of her experiences as a medical volunteer during the First World War, for example, during which a rigid hierarchy persisted and the medics behaved shockingly, doctors became the most common culprit in her books; the names of real people found their way into her fiction; and on one occasion Christie assembled what today might be called a focus group to underpin a particular plot point.

Worsley is refreshingly opinionated and, where events in the author’s life take centre stage, doesn’t merely re-state the facts, but investigates Christie’s motivations to draw her own conclusions. This is particularly the case in the chapters examining Christie’s disappearance in 1926, which many previous biographers have portrayed as an attempt to frame her husband for murder. Worsley’s own investigation leads to alternative conclusions, which seem all the more plausible today, when society has a better understanding of – and is more sympathetic towards – the effects of psychological distress.

Key specs – Length: 432 pages; Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton; ISBN: 978-1529303889

Buy now from Waterstones

Most Anticipated Memoirs of 2023

The magic of memoirs lies in the way they encourage the author to delve deeply in to personal experiences, excavating truths they may not have discovered otherwise, as well as allowing to reader to experience the author’s truth alongside the author. If you love exploring true stories directly from the people who experienced them, don’t miss these truly exceptional memoirs coming to booksellers in 2023.

Spare by Prince Harry (1/10)

In this honest and powerful memoir, Prince Harry shares the story of his life after the death of his mother, the beloved Princess Diana. Only 12 years old at the time, millions mourned alongside Harry and wondered how he and his brother would cope with this loss—and what it would mean for their futures. Insightful, compelling, and unflinchingly truthful, Harry’s story is a poignant depiction of love, grief and resilience.

Buy the book: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman (1/10)

Renowned collegiate athlete and national champion Lauren Fleshman is taking a stand for young women in the sporting world. Fleshman’s experiences coaching young female runners and representing brands like Nike and Oiselle have exposed her to all of the ways in which our sports systems work against women. She discusses injuries, eating disorders, and mental health struggles that many female athletes experience as they attempt to push through natural dips in performance after a certain age. She also shares her own stories of how she fell in love with running, pushed her limits, and sustained multiple catastrophic injuries. Both a memoir and a call to action to rebuild the world of competitive sports, Good for a Girl is uplifting, inspiring, and revelatory.

Call Me Anne by Anne Heche (1/24)

In this personal, vulnerable and post-humous memoir, Emmy-award winning actress Anne Heche opens up about her rise to fame. She includes details about her time working with Harrison Ford, her relationship with Ellen Degeneres, her experience with Harvey Weinstein, her childhood history of sexual abuse, her relationship with God, and her journey of self-love. Also included are poems and exercises that helped Anne through hard times. Along with personal anecdotes, Anne encourages readers to embark on their own journey of self-love and acceptance.

Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir by Iliana Regan (1/24)

Iliana Regan’s successful debut  Burn the Place  helped Iliana and her new wife, Anna, create a culinary destination located in Michigan, the Milkweed Inn. Here, Regan forages a lot of the food, and has been given the chance to return to their rural roots. The youngest of three older sisters, Regan’s childhood relationships were shaped by her childhood identification as a boy. Treating her like the son he never had, Regan’s father would take her foraging and fishing, sharing stories of his own parents as she got older. Regan learns to navigate Michigan’s boreal forest, trying to conceive a child, and keeping a new business afloat during the peak of the pandemic, all while loggers decimate surrounding areas.

Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson (1/31)

This unforgettable memoir by actress/model Pamela Anderson reveals personal truths about her life before superstardom, her rise to fame, and her time in the spotlight. Growing up in Vancouver, Pamela was initially a shy girl with a deep love of nature and a powerful imagination—which is what eventually led to her glamorous life in Hollywood. But along with the glamour came the struggles of maintaining her image during a time when paparazzi was determined to destroy it. Resolute and resilient, Pamela continued to push through the dark side of fame, seeking comfort in art and literature. Now a devoted mother, activist, and Broadway performer, Pamela is sharing her journey of growth and self-discovery.

Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary by Toshio Meronek and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (1/31)

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy has lived a legendary life seeking justice, survival and freedom. A lifetime of struggle as a transgender and activist, having participated in the Stonewall Riots, living through the HIV/AIDS crisis, and helping found one of America’s first needle exchange programs from the back of her van, this book showcases a woman in search of trans liberation, as well as collective liberation. Miss Major Speaks is a documentation of these struggles, a roadmap for the challenges that Black, brown, queer, and trans youth will face, told through intimacy and offering a vision of hope.

Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir by Lamya H (2/7)

Born in South Asia, Lamya H has always felt out of place in the Middle East. When she realizes she has a crush on her female teacher at age fourteen, she does everything she can to hide her feelings. Lamya learns the story of Maryam in Quran class, and how she insisted she had never been touched by a man, and yet was pregnant. From that moment, Lamya wondered if they were similar. She soon uses other famous stories from the Quran, making sense of her life and her choices by owning her queerness, and figuring out what it means for her to be a devout Muslim immigrant.

My What If Year: A Memoir by Alisha Fernandez Miranda (2/7)

CEO of her own consulting firm, Alisha Fernandez Miranda is almost forty, at the peak of her personal and professional success. Exhausted, Miranda decides to take a break, pausing her career. When her family, husband and eight-year-old twins, hesitantly give their blessing for her to explore her dream jobs for a year, she leaves her home in London in search of the answers to “What If?” What ensues is a hilarious journey that involves yoga, million-dollar artwork, and Broadway as we experience what it means to always have a beginner’s mind, and never say no to second chances.

The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Bozoma Saint John (2/21)

Live life urgently: Even in her brokenness, that is Bozoma Saint John’s main goal when she loses her husband, Peter, to cancer. Knowing his cancer was terminal, Peter gave Bozoma a list of two things: cancel their divorce and fix the wrongs immediately. But Bozoma is no stranger to adversity, having lost her college boyfriend to suicide, an interracial marriage, a premature child, and a separation from Peter. Through outstanding courage, she navigates multiple griefs, while holding strong to her desire for a remarkable life.

A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung (4/4)

After fleeing from her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown to an East Coast university, Nicole Chung finally found a sense of community she’d always wanted as an Asian American adoptee. But as her life progresses, the middle-class world she begins to raise a family in—large homes and disposable income—is much different from what she thought was her middle-class childhood, where people often live paycheck to paycheck and safety nets hard to come by. When a family death and cancer diagnosis brings up deep feelings of rage at the lack of accessibility to health care and financial instability, Chung explores class, inequality and grief in this searing memoir.  

The Big Reveal by Sasha Velour (4/4)

Crafting together real life stories with rich queer history, The Big Reveal is a celebration of an expressive art form and the ways it has revolutionized over time. As Sasha Velour uncovers her life and journey as a drag queen, she weaves herself into the history of it, revealing how she learned the craft while bringing substance to our understanding of queer liberation.

Chita: A Memoir by Chita Rivera (4/25)

Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero but renamed by the entertainment world, Chita takes us behind the curtain to show how Dolores inspired some of her most famous Broadway roles, and the highs and lows through it all. A front row seat to Chita’s career that gives gratitude to her loyal and longstanding fans, we are invited into rehearsals, on stage, and to work next to some of the greatest talents of their time. Documenting her childhood and heritage as well as her work and career life, Chita shows how she managed to inspire so many people to forge their own unique paths.

Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto by Zachary Zane (5/9)

In this series of essays, a sex and relationship columnist tells their personal coming out and coming-of-age stories, while also exploring the idea of sex without shame. Even as a young boy, Zachary Zane felt ashamed by the thoughts that popped into his head. Through the lens of self-proclaimed sluttiness and bisexuality, Zane highlights the ways shame negatively impacts our relationships. With essays of personal experience, Boyslut shows how we can begin to detach from the harmful messages that society sends us, and begin to embrace our sexuality to live healthier, happier lives.

Pageboy by Elliot Page (6/6)

Elliot Page was on the brink of discovering himself as a queer person when the massively successful movie,  Juno , came out. Forced to play the role of glossy, young starlet both on and off the screen, Elliot found himself suffocating. Where acting once had been an outlet for his imagination, it soon became a bitter reality, and Elliot felt those dreams of finding himself as a trans person become further out of reach, until enough was enough. With Hollywood behind the scenes and personal insights, Pageboy is a winding journey of what it means to be ourselves when society is trying to create a different version of us.

A Place for Us by Brandon J. Wolf (6/6)

Brandon Wolf grew up in rural Oregon, grappled by the loss of his mother and the ongoing homophobia and racism within his community. Moving to Orlando, he finally found a community where he felt he belonged, a safe space and a chosen family. When his new normal is shaken up by unimaginable tragedy, the chaos and pain involved gave Brandon a new power, the power of purpose. Turning this purpose into a transformative journey of healing, Wolf showcases the power of community and how there’s hope where there is compassion.

Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen (7/4)

When Beth Nguyen was just eight months old, her family fled Saigon for America, leaving their mother behind. It wasn’t until Beth was nineteen that they would meet again, and over the course of her adult life, they’ve spent less than twenty-four hours together. Framed through a series of visits between mother and daughter, this memoir explores what it means to be a parent and a refugee, and finding belonging amongst the two.

If You Would Have Told Me by John Stamos (Fall 2023)

In this long-anticipated memoir, actor John Stamos shares stories of his life that are both heartbreaking and heartening. He discusses Hollywood, fame, fortune, and the mistakes he made along the way, and honors all of the people that helped him become who he is today. Honest and powerful, Stamos encourages readers to find moments of beauty in their own lives, practice gratitude, and trust in something bigger than themselves.

Recommend These Reads:

About the author: she reads editors.

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Read Ahead: A Release Calendar of Music Books & Biographies Being Published in 2023

Highly anticipated books by Britney Spears, Barbra Streisand and more are hitting shelves this year.

By Hannah Dailey

Hannah Dailey

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In the upcoming chapters of 2023, quite a few promising page-turners are expected to hit the “Music” shelf in a bookstore near you.

Spanning all genres and time periods, the second half of this year holds dozens of commentaries, historical deep dives, juicy biographies and more music-related volumes in store. So whether you’re in need of a rainy day read, beach suntanning entertainment or a before-bed future bestseller, Billboard has rounded up a list of upcoming books fit for even the most casual of music fans to pour over in the coming months – and it’s bound to have something you’ll love.

Take Britney Spears ‘ memoir The Woman In Me , for example. One of the most anticipated memoirs of all time (with a price tag of $15 million ), Spears announced that the autobiographical project would finally arrive in October just three months ahead of time. And speaking of highly anticipated memoirs, Barbra Streisand ‘s My Name Is Barbra finally has a November release date, after years of delay. The book, which will detail the Broadway icon’s astronomical career, has been in the making since 2015.

Plus, look out for books by or featuring words from such other legends as Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Jeff Tweedy on the list below. Make sure to bookmark this page so you can keep checking back for updates as more titles are announced in the future.

See Billboard ‘s list of music books to watch out for this year, including release dates, below:

• Alan Paul, Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the ’70s
• Kiana Fitzgerald, Ode to Hip-Hop: 50 Albums That Define 50 Years of Trailblazing Music
• Amy Winehouse, Amy Winehouse: In Her Words
• Jeremy Eichler, Time’s Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance
• Melissa Etheridge, Talking to My Angels
• Juicy J & Soren Baker, Chronicles of the Juice Man: A Memoir
• Laura Flam, Emily Sieu Liebowitz, But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?: An Oral History of the ’60s Girl Groups
• Holly Gleason, Prine on Prine: Interviews and Encounters with John Prine
• Paula Blackman, Night Train to Nashville: The Greatest Untold Story of Music City
• Stephen M. Silverman, Sondheim: His Life, His Shows, His Legacy
• Jann S. Wenner, The Masters: Conversations with Dylan, Lennon, Jagger, Townshend, Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen
• Jeff Apter, Keith Urban
• Reba McEntire, Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots
• Sowmya Krishnamurthy, Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion
• Joe Coscarelli,  Rap Capital: An Atlanta Story
• Dolly Parton, Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones
• Brian Southall, Bee Gees – The Illustrated Story
• Britney Spears, The Woman in Me
• Thurston Moore, Sonic Life: A Memoir
• Philip Norman, George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle
• Mary Gabriel, Madonna: A Rebel Life
• Michael Azerrad, The Amplified Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana
• Willie Nelson, Energy Follows Thought: The Stories Behind My Songs
• Barbra Streisand, My Name Is Barbra
• Jeff Tweedy, World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music
• Ralph H. Craig III, Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner
• Benoit Clerc, Metallica All the Songs: The story behind every track
• Kenneth Womack, Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans
• Johnny Cash & John Carter Cash with Mark Stielper, Johnny Cash: The Life in Lyrics
• Snoop Dogg & E-40: Goon With the Spoon
• Greg McDonald & Marshall Terrill, Elvis and the Colonel: An Insider’s Look at the Most Legendary Partnership in Show Business

(Releases TBD)

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Where Is Gypsy Rose Blanchard Now?

Released from prison in December 2023, Gypsy Rose Blanchard just announced she’s having her first child.

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Blanchard, 32, announced in a video posted to her YouTube channel Tuesday that she is expecting her first child with boyfriend Ken Urker in January 2025. “We’re both very excited; this was not planned at all,” she said. “It was completely unexpected, but we’re both very excited to take on this new journey of parenthood.”

The new baby is the latest surprise from Blanchard, who has stayed in the public eye ever since her release on December 28, 2023. She is already the subject of two television series and has revealed plans for her memoir, My Time to Stand , available this December.

Here’s what to know about all the recent changes in Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s life.

She wants people to learn from her mistake

Her first book published, plus she has another on the way, gypsy is getting divorced from her estranged husband, she’s having a baby with her new boyfriend, gypsy stars in a new reality series, she’s still learning to navigate social media as a public figure, gypsy was released from prison in december 2023.

According to The Cincinnati Enquirer , Blanchard was released on parole from the Chillicothe Correctional Center at around 3:30 a.m. on December 28, 2023, after serving 85 percent of her 10-year sentence for second-degree murder. “I’m ready for freedom,” she told People in an interview just before her release. “I’m ready to expand, and I think that goes for every facet of my life.”

Blanchard conspired with an ex-boyfriend to kill her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard, in June 2015 after suffering years of abuse. Experts have surmised that Dee Dee suffered from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental disorder in which a caretaker makes someone sick or gives the illusion of being ill to garner attention. She led doctors and the community to believe that Gypsy suffered from an array of fake illnesses, such as asthma, leukemia, and muscular dystrophy, subjecting her to unnecessary treatments and procedures.

In 2021, Gypsy told The Springfield News-Leader she hoped to rebuild relationships with the rest of her family upon her eventual release. Her stepmother, Kristy Blanchard, told NewsNation host Ashleigh Banfield she looked forward to belatedly celebrating Christmas with Gypsy Rose upon her release and also planned a spa day for her. Today, Gypsy lives with Kristy and her father, Rod, in Cut Off, Louisiana.

In an interview with People , Blanchard expressed remorse about her mother’s murder and the events that preceded it.

Blanchard testified she met ex-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating website in 2012, and they initially carried out a secret relationship. They met in person for the first time in March 2015 and, shortly after, began plotting to kill her mother. Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee 17 times inside her home in June 2015. Gypsy said in 2018 , she “talked him into it” because she wanted to be free from her mother. Godejohn was eventually found guilty of first-degree murder in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison.

“If I had another chance to redo everything, I don’t know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I’m not sick and mommy makes me sick. Or, if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go tell the police everything.’ I kind of struggle with that,” she told People in December 2023.

Gypsy Rose wants to use her story to help people in abusive relationships. No matter how dire the circumstances, she wants to make sure they don’t resort to murder. “It may seem like every avenue is closed off, but there is always another way. Do anything, but don’t take this course of action,” she said.

Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom

Hoping to be an advocate for other victims of Munchausen by proxy, Blanchard first told The News-Leader in 2021 that she was writing a book detailing the years-long abuse by Dee Dee and her incarceration. True to her word, Blanchard published an e-book titled Released: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom in January 2024. The book includes exclusive information about Blanchard’s time in prison and personal photos, drawings, and illustrations from her past.

Even before the book’s release, Blanchard had already opened up about the effect of her incarceration on her life. “I’m the type of person that, I will make a mistake, learn from it and move on, and hopefully never make it again,” she told The Hollywood Reporter . “So I definitely think that that level of maturity kicked in, and you can see the transformation from when I first got to prison to me actually walking out of prison and feeling, as a confident woman like I could stand my ground, say no when I need to, be my best advocate.”

On April 29, 2024, Blanchard revealed plans for her next writing project—a full memoir titled My Time to Stand —set for publication in December 2024. “Now, I can stand with other victims as they take steps toward doing whatever work is necessary to stand for themselves. My Time to Stand is about reclaiming my footing so others can be inspired to walk a life of purpose and meaning and build a future sturdy enough so others can stand for something, too,” she told People .

Years removed from her relationship with Godejohn, Blanchard found love while imprisoned. She married Ryan Anderson, a teacher from Louisiana, in June 2022. According to People , Anderson, now 38, picked up Blanchard from prison when she was released.

Before gaining her freedom, Blanchard told People , “When I’m at home with my family, with my husband’s arms around me and I’m surrounded by my loved ones, that is when I will be happy.” However, she had an apparent change of heart. Blanchard announced in a March 2024 post to Facebook she had moved in with her father and stepmother amid a separation from Anderson and, on April 8, filed for divorce, according to Louisiana court records. The legal grounds for the filing weren’t made public.

Anderson later told Daily Mail.com the pair separated over Blanchard’s rekindled relationship with her ex-fiancé, Ken Urker. “I’m not doing well with it. For me it just came out of the blue,” Anderson said.

TMZ reported on April 30 that Blanchard and her ex-fiancé Ken Urker were an official couple, with her telling the outlet, “After reconnecting earlier this month, we realized that our love for each other is simply undeniable, and life is too short to not take a chance.” They have repeatedly appeared in public together and were spotted with matching tattoos .

On July 9, Blanchard announced she was 11 weeks pregnant and expecting her first child with Urker in January 2025. “It is so going to be a long journey ahead, but I’m up for it,” said Blanchard, who vowed to focus on her and her child’s health. “I feel a shift in myself. When I found out that I was pregnant, none of anything else mattered.”

In the meantime, Blanchard and her family are currently featured in the Lifetime reality series Gypsy Rose: Life After Lock Up , which began on June 3. According to the network, the show provides a “raw and revealing look at Gypsy’s new life on the outside,” including her relationship with Anderson and rising media fame. The eight-episode series continues through July 22, with a new episode airing each Monday night at 9 p.m. ET.

Lifetime previously aired the three-night docuseries The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard in January 2024. Prison Confessions was a major hit for the network, averaging 1.1 million viewers with three days of delayed viewing, according to The Hollywood Reporter . “Millions have followed Gypsy’s story and are invested in seeing what is in store for her next,” said Elaine Frontain Bryant, executive vice president and head of programming for Lifetime.

In addition to her TV projects, Blanchard wasted little time establishing a presence on social media upon her release. Only one day after leaving prison, Blanchard posted a photo to her Instagram account with a celebratory caption: “First selfie of freedom!” Then, on New Year’s Eve, she revealed via TikTok that she was celebrating with family members—including her father, her stepmother, and her husband—and had joined Snapchat ( gr_blanchard ).

Blanchard had amassed as many as 7.8 million followers on her public Instagram but, in March 2024, deleted that page as well as several others on social media, including her X and TikTok accounts. “I do my best to live my authentic life, and what’s real to me, and what’s not real is social media,” Blanchard said in a TikTok video before logging off, according to Rolling Stone . “Social media is literally a doorway to hell.”

But Blanchard had an apparent change of heart and has since returned to social media. She regularly posts on her verified Instagram ( gypsy.rose.blanchard.insta ) and TikTok ( gypsyblanchard.tiktok ) accounts. She also posted the first video to her YouTube channel on June 27.

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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A drama based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office. A drama based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office. A drama based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time in the oval office.

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'Birth/Rebirth': Release Date, Trailer, Cast, and Everything We Know

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The 10 Strangest Horror Movies to Get a Wide Release

The 10 best horror trilogies, ranked, 10 horror movies with no subtext or social commentary.

Mary Shelly ’s Frankenstein is more than two centuries old, but it still manages to make us cringe and our skin crawl. And that’s why Shelly’s iconic work remains a significant influence on modern filmmakers, who bring in their views on the horrifying subject of reanimating the dead. That's the case with director Laura Moss and their new film, Birth/Rebirth . The psychological thriller film is directed and co-written by Moss in their debut feature and is said to be inspired by Shelly’s Frankenstein . Birth/Rebirth follows a morgue technician who is fascinated by the idea of bringing the dead back to life. She even successfully reanimates a dead girl, but to keep her alive she must harvest body parts/organs from pregnant women. When the little girl’s mother discovers the truth about her child, she would do anything to keep her girl alive, which takes her and the doctor down a sinister path. Besides a horrifying tale of the living dead, this horror thriller film also explores motherhood, medical science fiction, and two women who are from contrasting backgrounds but are both drawn toward the concepts of life and death.

Released at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Birth/Rebirth had rave reviews from the audience and was highly acclaimed for its story, cast performance, and brilliant execution of the classic, with critics calling it , "Firmly rooted in classic horror, Birth/Rebirth uses a familiar framework to tease at fundamental fears from a chillingly relatable angle." In our staff review from the film’s Sundance premiere, Chase Hutchinson describes it as “While it may not be for the squeamish, the sinister delights and dread to be found in this horror romp prove to be delicious for the sickos among us.” So, for those with a penchant for horrifying, Frankensteinian characters, this is a must-watch. While you wait for the film to arrive at the theaters this August, check out our guide below about the film’s plot, trailer, release date, cast and characters, and everything else that we know so far about Birth/Rebirth.

RELATED: ‘Birth/Rebirth’ Filmmakers on Making a Movie About the Horror of Having a Body

When Is Birth/Rebirth Coming Out?

Birth/Rebirth had its global premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2023, and now the horror film will get a limited theatrical release by IFC on August 18, 2023.

Where Can You Stream Birth/Rebirth?

Birth/Rebirth will be made available to stream on Shudder at an unspecified date later this year. A platform dedicated exclusively to all things horror, Shudder is available on subscription, starting at $6.99/month.

Watch the Birth/Rebirth Trailer

IFC recently released the official trailer for Birth/Rebirth , and it is not for the faint-hearted. The film is in no way like your garden-variety horror films with supernatural beings or dark spirits. On the contrary, as the trailer shows, this film explores the dangerous sides of the human mind, while also dealing with the outcomes of such a psyche, which, eventually, results in the dreaded reawakening of the dead. In other words, while you might not see an abundance of terrifying imagery/characters, the concepts, and the film’s atmosphere have all the potential to chill your bones and make your skin crawl. If you think that this description is unsettling, then you might feel it doubly while watching the trailer. The clip shows a doctor dedicated to her passion for reanimating the dead who manages to do so but is unaware of how far the outcomes can go. Then there’s a grieving mother who is at a loss after the death of her six-year-old daughter. The surprising part of the trailer, and also perhaps the plot’s highlight, is that the mother is not traumatized or shocked that her daughter is back from the dead. Rather, she wants to be a part of this process and will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter’s body alive.

When and Where Was Birth/Rebirth Filmed?

The filming for Birth/Rebirth began in late 2022, with principal photography taking place in New York City’s Co-op City.

Related: 'Birth/Rebirth' Cast Wants a Marvel Horror Movie About Motherhood

Who's In the Cast of Birth/Rebirth?

Law and Order and Sneaky Pete star Marin Ireland leads the cast of the horror thriller as the pathologist Rose, who is obsessed with reawakening the dead. She has also appeared in several episodes of The Umbrella Academy . Besides Birth/Rebirth , her horror filmography also includes The Dark and the Wicked and The Empty Man , and she was recently seen in the supernatural thriller The Boogeyman . Judy Reyes of Claws and Scrubs fame stars as Celie, the nurse and mother of the six-year-old, Lila who is brought back to life by Rose. Child actor A.J. Lister ( A Haunting ) stars as Lila. In other roles, The Color Purple ’s (the musical) LaChanze features as Colleen, Away ’s Monique Gabriela Curnen appears as Rita, New Amsterdam ’s Rina Mejia plays Pauline, Snafu ’s Grant Harrison plays Scott, and Orange is the New Black ’s Richard Gallagher appears as Kevin. Breeda Wool , Bryant Carroll , Erica Sweany , Sean Michael Harrison , Katie Kuang , Ezra Barnes , Eric Yang , Pavel Shatu , and Sarah Dacey-Charles also star in supporting roles.

Who's Making Birth/Rebirth?

Birth/Rebirth is the brainchild of filmmaker Laura Moss, who marks their directorial debut with this horror thriller film. Moss also co-writes the script with Brendan O’Brien . Before their feature debut, Moss directed shorts like Fry Day , Porn Without Sex , and Rising Up: The Story of the Zombie Rights Movement , as well as an episode of the comedy sci-fi series, Neurotica . Their co-writer on Birth/Rebirth , O’Brien, has previously collaborated with them as a writer and producer for all three of those short films we mentioned. Birth/Rebirth is produced by Shudder and Retrospecter Film with Mali Elfman and Churchill Viste serving as producers under their production banner, Elfman + Viste, along with David Grove . O’Brien and Jordan Barker serve as executive producers.

RELATED: The 10 Best Shudder Exclusives, According to Rotten Tomatoes

So What Is Birth/Rebirth About?

As per the official synopsis, Birth/Rebirth can be summarized as follows:

“Rose, a pathologist, prefers her work rather than engaging in social interactions and has a profound fixation on bringing the dead back to life. Celie, a maternity nurse, has centered her life around her lively and talkative six-year-old daughter, Lila. However, their lives collide tragically one night when Lila unexpectedly dies. Together, they must confront their deepest fears and grapple with the lengths they are willing to go in order protect their loved ones.”

Red Sox mourn the loss of Claudia Franc Williams

BOSTON, MA – With permission from the family, the Red Sox today announced that Claudia Franc Williams, daughter of Hall of Famer Ted Williams, passed away this past December 2023. Born on October 8, 1971, in Vermont, Claudia was the only remaining immediate family member of the late Red Sox left fielder before her passing. She is survived by her husband of 17 years, Eric Abel, who has been the Williams family attorney for more than 30 years. Claudia was preceded in death by her brother, John Henry Williams, who passed away in 2004.

“We were deeply saddened to learn of Claudia Williams’ passing this past winter,” said Red Sox President & CEO Sam Kennedy. “Out of respect for the family’s wishes, we have honored their desire to mourn privately until they felt ready to share the news with the public. Claudia was a cherished member of the Red Sox family, known for her deep dedication to preserving her father’s legacy and all of us feel a responsibility to carry on her mission in her absence. Claudia’s commitment and passion were inspiring and she will be profoundly missed by all of us at the Red Sox and all who knew her.”

Attached please find an elegy from Eric Abel about the passing of his wife, Claudia.