Best 2015, Best Books, Best Year-End, Biography & Memoir, History, Nonfiction

The Best Biography & Memoir Books Of 2015 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

January 15, 2016April 1, 2017 by

141 different books were found in the 17 “Best Biography & Memoir” book lists we consulted. Of the 141 books, 34 titles appeared on multiple lists. The top book should come as no surprise, in fact, several of the top books should come as no surprise since they also dominated our list of the top non-fiction books of the year as well.

We added pictures and links for the top 34 biography & memoir books that appear on multiple lists, To see our aggregated year-end lists for other categories, follow the links below.

The Best Non-Fiction Books of 2015

The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2015

The Best Cook Books of 2015

The Best Art & Photography Books of 2015

The Best Graphic Novels of 2015

The Best Poetry Books of 2015

The Best Science Books of 2015

The Best History Books of 2015

28) The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg, translated by Thomas Teal

Appears On: 2 Lists
Learn More About Title

The 107 Additional Title Appearing on a Single List

1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear
A GUEST AT THE SHOOTERS’ BANQUET: MY GRANDFATHER’S SS PAST, MY JEWISH FAMILY, A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH
A Tour Of Bones: Facing Fear And Looking For Life by Denise Inge
A Work in Progress
Accidental Saints: Finding God In All The Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Alex Ferguson – Leading
Alive, Alive Oh!
All I Know Now: Wonderings and Reflections on Growing Up Gracefully
ALL THE WRONG PLACES: A LIFE LOST AND FOUND
American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOLUME 3: THE COMPLETE AND AUTHORITATIVE EDITION
Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American FamilyOct 20, 2015 by Amy Ellis Nutt
Binge
Born with Teeth
Buy Me the Sky
Charlotte Brontë: A Life
Dear Mr. You
Destiny And Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham
Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt by Kristin Hersh
Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, And The Quest For A Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
Every Day I Fight
Everything She Wants
Fatherland: A Family History by Nina Bunjevac
Find a WayOct 20, 2015 by Diana Nyad
First Lady: The Life and Wars of Clementine Churchill
Going into the City by Robert Christgau
Guantánamo Diary
Henry IV Parts I and II
I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda
If You Feel Too Much: Thoughts on Things Found and Lost and Hoped For
In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World
In Search of Mary: the Mother of All Journeys
In Search of Sir Thomas Browne—Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Intimacy Idiot by Isaac Oliver
It Was Me All Along: A MemoirJan 6, 2015 by Andie Mitchell
James Merrill by Langdon Hammer
Joan Of Arc: A History by Helen Castor
John Aubrey: My Own Life
Josephine Tey by Jennifer Morag Henderson
Judas: The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle
Kid Gloves
Killing a King—Dan Ephron
Kissinger: The Idealist, 1923-1968. By Niall Ferguson
Lafayette In The Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
Leaving Before the Rains ComeJan 22, 2015 by Alexandra Fuller
Live Like Line, Love Like Ellyn: One Community’s Journey from Tragedy to Triumph by Bill Hoeft
Living on Paper
LORD FEAR: A MEMOIR
Maggie Smith
March: Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell
Mr & Mrs Disraeli
My Fight / Your Fight
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers her Family’s Nazi Past,” by Jennifer Teege
My History, by Antonia Fraser
My Journey,” by Donna Karan
My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl
No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money
Open the Cage, Murphy
Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. Smith
Orson Welles: One-Man Band
Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers
Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin
Reckless: My Life as a PretenderSep 8, 2015 by Chrissie Hynde
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice
Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
Showa: A History of Japan 1953-1989 by Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Zack Davisson
Showdown: Thurgood Marshall And The Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood
Sisters In Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor And Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went To The Supreme Court And Changed The World by Linda Hirshman
Slice Harvester: A Memoir In Pizza by Colin Atrophy Hagendorf
Spectacle: The Astonishing Life Of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk
Spectacles by Sue Perkins
Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own
Steve Jobs – The Man Who Thought Different
Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg SlimAug 4, 2015 by Justin Gifford
Sue Perkins – Spectacles
The Arab Of The Future: A Childhood In The Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir by Riad Sattouf
The Billion Dollar Spy—David E. Hoffman
THE DOGS ARE EATING THEM NOW: OUR WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
THE FOLDED CLOCK: A DIARY
THE GIRL FROM HUMAN STREET: GHOSTS OF MEMORY IN A JEWISH FAMILY
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
The Light Of The World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander
The New Tsar: The Rise And Reign Of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers
THE OREGON TRAIL: AN AMERICAN JOURNEY
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin
The Speechwriter: A Brief Education In Politics by Barton Swaim
The Strategist by Bartholomew Sparrow
The Sweden File: Memoir of an American Expatriate, Letters and Comments,” by Bruce Stevens Proctor
THE WHITE ROAD: JOURNEY INTO AN OBSESSION
THE WORLD’S LARGEST MAN: A MEMOIR
Then Comes Marriage: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA,” by Robert Kaplan
Threads
Troublemaker
Ty Cobb by Charles Leerhsen
Virginia Woolf by Vivane Forrester
Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku” by David Davis
We Were Brothers by Barry Moser
Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
Widow Basquiat: A Love Story by Jennifer Clement
Wildflower by Drew Barrymore
Winner: A Racing Life
WORLDS APART: A MEMOIR
Year of the Fat Knight
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir by Felicia Day
Young Ovid by Diane Middlebrook

Book Scrolling

The Best Biography & Memoir Books Of 2015 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

The Top 34 Biography & Memoir Books of 2015

1) Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

2) H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald

3) Ted Hughes: The Unauthorized Life by Jonathan Bate

4) The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

5) Blackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget by Sarah Hepola

6) Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein

7) It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life Of Love And War by Lynsey Addario

8) My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

9) The Seven Good Years: A Memoir by Etgar Keret

10) The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

11) Bettyville: A Memoir by George Hodgman

12) Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

13) M Train by Patti Smith

14) On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks

15) Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand

16) A House in St John’s Wood by Matthew Spender

17) Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

18) Barefoot to Avalon: A Brother’s Story by David Payne

19) Between You & Me: Confessions Of A Comma Queen by Mary Norris

20) Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon

21) Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs by Sally Mann

22) Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus

23) John le Carré: The Biography by Adam Sisman

24) Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson

25) Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film by Patton Oswalt

26) Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot By Mark Vanhoenacker

27) The Art Of Memoir by Mary Karr

28) The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg, translated by Thomas Teal

29) The Fortunes of Francis Barber by Michael Bundock

30) The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf

31) The Story Of My Tits by Jennifer Hayden

32) The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

33) Words Without Music: A Memoir by Philip Glass

34) Young Eliot: From St Louis to The Waste Land by Robert Crawford

The 107 Additional Title Appearing on a Single List

The 17 “Best Biography & Memoir Book” Year-End Lists Consulted

The Best Biography & Memoir Books Of 2015 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

The Top 34 Biography & Memoir Books of 2015

1) Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

2) H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald

3) Ted Hughes: The Unauthorized Life by Jonathan Bate

4) The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

5) Blackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget by Sarah Hepola

6) Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein

7) It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life Of Love And War by Lynsey Addario

8) My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

9) The Seven Good Years: A Memoir by Etgar Keret

10) The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

11) Bettyville: A Memoir by George Hodgman

12) Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

13) M Train by Patti Smith

14) On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks

15) Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand

16) A House in St John’s Wood by Matthew Spender

17) Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

18) Barefoot to Avalon: A Brother’s Story by David Payne

19) Between You & Me: Confessions Of A Comma Queen by Mary Norris

20) Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon

21) Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs by Sally Mann

22) Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus

23) John le Carré: The Biography by Adam Sisman

24) Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson

25) Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film by Patton Oswalt

26) Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot By Mark Vanhoenacker

27) The Art Of Memoir by Mary Karr

28) The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg, translated by Thomas Teal

29) The Fortunes of Francis Barber by Michael Bundock

30) The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf

31) The Story Of My Tits by Jennifer Hayden

32) The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

33) Words Without Music: A Memoir by Philip Glass

34) Young Eliot: From St Louis to The Waste Land by Robert Crawford

The 107 Additional Title Appearing on a Single List

The 17 “Best Biography & Memoir Book” Year-End Lists Consulted

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