Observer’s Must-Read Memoirs and Best Biographies of 2026

This is shaping up to be a strong year for life writing, with a number of powerful and palpable life stories chronicled in memoirs and biographies well worth checking out. Take A Hymn to Life, an unguarded self-portrait chronicling one woman’s bravery in becoming the face of a rape scandal that angered the world. Or read about one seasoned journalist finally tackling his figurative white whale: the Rolling Stones, who after almost 60 years in the business, remain as popular and beloved as ever. After surveying the year’s new releases and publishing calendar, we have picked our best biographies and memoirs of 2026 so far. Each is sure to excite, educate or simply entertain you, revealing human lives—both rich and unremarkable—shaped by resilience, hope and passion.

The best biographies and memoirs

• Backtalker by Kimberlé Crenshaw
• Western Star by David Streitfeld
• A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot
• We the Women by Norah O’Donnell
• Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt
• The Rolling Stones by Bob Spitz
• The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• Judy Blume by Mark Oppenheimer
• In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod
• Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found by Andrew Graham-Dixon

Backtalker by Kimberlé Crenshaw

Kimberlé Crenshaw may not be a household name, but her scholarship certainly is. The African American academic coined the term “intersectionality,” a framework for understanding how identities such as race and gender overlap within broader systems of privilege. She also helped establish “critical race theory,” the fiercely debated idea that systemic racial bias shapes public life—now a lightning rod for cultural panic and political outrage. In Backtalker, the Harvard law professor steps away from abstract theory and turns attention to herself, tracing how her experience as a Black woman shaped the concepts that have radically transformed conversations about discrimination and privilege today. With unembellished prose and much candor, the book charts how Crenshaw’s lived experiences have shaped her political awakening and influential writing.

Western Star by David Streitfeld

In Western Star, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Streitfeld reckons with the life of the Texan literary icon Larry Mcmurtry. The biography sees the close friend chart the writer’s long career wrestling with the American frontier—a project that told the “world what Texas was and what it wanted to be”—to ultimately produce many acclaimed novels like The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment and Lonesome Dove (a work that persists in popularity many decades after its publication). Apparently, McMurtry gave Streitfeld the proverbial “keys to his past” to help interrogate his many identities beyond simply author: rancher, Hollywood screenwriter, rare book collector and even free speech advocate. The resulting Western Star proves a startling and fully realized portrait of one giant of American letters.

A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot

It feels almost like an understatement to say that Gisèle Pelicot was brave in identifying herself as the woman behind France’s worst mass rape. The crimes perpetrated against the 73-year-old shocked the world for both their banality and depravity: over a decade, her husband drugged her into unconsciousness to rape her while inviting countless men to do the same in their home. In A Hymn to Life, Pelicot delivers a heartrending account of devastation at its most intimate that also powerfully argues that shame should never be reserved for victims of rape: it should only be allotted to the perpetrators. The mass rape trial prompted women around the world to protest domestic sexual abuse, a cause Pelicot advocates for in this rousing self-portrait that shows extraordinary valor.

We the Women by Norah O’Donnell

This inspiring group biography honors some known but also many forgotten American women who shaped this country’s history. Across 35 chapters, Emmy Award-winning journalist Norah O'Donnell profiles familiar women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins, as well as many unfamiliar ones, like Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman admitted to an American medical school. We the Women is an energized reminder of the many women who, throughout America’s making from its early founding to the present day, have played remarkable roles shaping its social, economic and cultural fabric. Courage, perseverance and sheer fearlessness characterize the many unsung heroes who are expertly cataloged in this volume.

Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt charts her 43-year love affair with novelist and filmmaker Paul Auster in Ghost Stories, starting from their first meeting in New York City in the early 1980s to his cancer diagnosis and death in 2024. Hustvedt, the author of celebrated novels What I Loved and The Summer Without Men, memorializes her extraordinary marriage to the acclaimed writer while also advancing a wider examination of grief, intimacy and loss—from its frontlines. The memoir serves as a heartfelt and searching effort to “hunt for my lost partner by writing about him.” Beyond her many intimate admissions, Ghost Stories includes new and unpublished correspondence from Auster, including his final piece of writing: a letter to his infant grandson.

The Rolling Stones by Bob Spitz

Bob Spitz has already tackled titans of music—the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin—so it seems only inevitable he turned his attention to rock’s greatest export. In The Rolling Stones, the sharp-eyed journalist delivers a deft and wide-ranging retelling of the making—and staying power—of the masterminds behind “Satisfaction” and “Start Me Up.” The rock band remains widely popular and is still touring after 60 years, which Spitz puts down to their rebellious rock star image, infallibility and provocative sexualized public image. The biography is sure to titillate Stones fans with its many insider stories; skeptics may be converted by the book’s electrifying history of a group that has remained at rock’s forefront for countless decades.

The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

In this raw and moving memoir, poet and writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths remembers a period when immense grief, loss and violence besieged her life. Her best friend of almost two decades, poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, died suddenly the morning of her wedding. Not a year later, her husband, Salman Rushdie, would endure a near-death experience when he was almost fatally stabbed by a radicalized man wielding a knife. The Flower Bearers may be lined with tragedy and devastation, but it also captures how creativity and healing can be life-affirming and restorative, especially in the depths of dark emotions. This self-portrait is sure to resonate with many readers thanks to its disarming vulnerability and lyrical prose.

Judy Blume by Mark Oppenheimer

Mark Oppenheimer may have had a long friendship with Judy Blume but has recently found his biography of her has caused a major rift. Judy Blume charts the life of the celebrated author of young adult novels, a writer who boldly wrestled in the 1970s with puberty, sexuality and body image to influential—and infamous—ends. The fallout between biographer and subject may be owed in part to Oppenheimer revealing private details about Blume, including her three marriages, medical procedures and sexual experiences that would all inform her books. Even decades after their publication, works like Forever and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret continue to attract the ire of book bans, which speaks to their potency in honestly tackling sex and sexuality in adolescence. Oppenheimer’s project is at once an insightful biographical study and a fitting tribute to Blume.

In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod

Tom Junod is a master reporter (he penned the acclaimed “The Falling Man” for Esquire), so it comes as no surprise that he is exhaustive and exacting in his account of his father’s masculinity project in In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man. The project sees Junod examine the private life and psychic construction of his magnetic and philandering father, Lou, and the patriarch’s construction of masculinity that he tried to school his son in. But it’s at his funeral that Junod realizes his father led a life far more toxic and furtive than he ever thought: adultery, addiction, alcoholism and even traits of toxic masculinity. Oral histories, archival research and musings on manhood braid together to form a haunting portrait of mid-century masculinity and its injurious influence on later generations.

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found by Andrew Graham-Dixon

Johannes Vermeer, the 17th-century Dutch artist best known for his radiant paintings of daily life, receives a major biographical reassessment in Vermeer. Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, author of the excellent Caravaggio, closely maps the biography of the Dutch master, weaving in new historical records to help re-examine the role Vermeer’s relationship to the dissenting Christian movement, the Collegiants, played, especially in imbuing his images with subliminal religious symbolism. (For example, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Graham-Dixon argues, was likely a baptismal portrait of the patron’s own daughter.) The historical record might be sparse, but Vermeer nevertheless offers a riveting reappraisal of a life far more shaped by Christianity and religion than previously thought.