Accessibility helpSkip to navigationSkip to contentSkip to footer

Cookies on FT Sites

We use cookies and other data for a number of reasons, such as keeping FT Sites reliable and secure, personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to analyse how our Sites are used.

Accept cookies
Manage cookies
  • Sign In
  • Subscribe
Open side navigation menuOpen search bar
Financial Times
SubscribeSign InmyFT
  • Home
  • World
    Sections
    • World Home
    • Israel-Hamas war
    • Global Economy
    • UK
    • US
    • China
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Emerging Markets
    • Europe
    • War in Ukraine
    • Americas
    • Middle East & North Africa
    Most Read
    • Geert Wilders faces early setback in Dutch coalition talks
    • Argentina’s Javier Milei backs away from dollarisation as central bank pick rejects role
    • Hamas releases 24 hostages as Israel truce takes hold
    • Israeli intelligence ‘dismissed’ detailed warning of Hamas raid
    • Cathay Pacific offers cheap flights to help Hong Kong’s ‘patriots only’ vote
  • US
    Sections
    • US Home
    • US Economy
    • US Companies
    • US Politics & Policy
    Most Read
    • Companies
      Sections
      • Companies Home
      • Energy
      • Financials
      • Health
      • Industrials
      • Media
      • Professional Services
      • Retail & Consumer
      • Tech Sector
      • Telecoms
      • Transport
      Most Read
      • KPMG extends pay freeze to 12,000 UK staff
      • Tesla strikes in Sweden are ‘insane’, says Elon Musk
      • How BP’s ‘Sun King’ court enabled the rise and fall of Bernard Looney
      • Jeff Zucker hits out at rival Telegraph bidders for ‘slinging mud’
      • Electric vehicle failures offer lessons for the next boom
    • Tech
    • Markets
      Sections
      • Markets Home
      • Alphaville
      • Markets Data
      • Cryptofinance
      • Capital Markets
      • Commodities
      • Currencies
      • Equities
      • Fund Management
      • Wealth Management
      • Trading
      • Moral Money
      • ETF Hub
      Most Read
      • Argentina’s Javier Milei backs away from dollarisation as central bank pick rejects role
      • News updates from November 24: Hamas releases hostages as Israel truce begins, Netherlands’ VVD party deals blow to Geert Wilders’ government hopes
      • How BP’s ‘Sun King’ court enabled the rise and fall of Bernard Looney
      • Investors dump dollar in bet that US rates have peaked
      • Montenegro court clears crypto chief Do Kwon for extradition
    • Climate
    • Opinion
      Sections
      • Opinion Home
      • Columnists
      • The FT View
      • Lex
      • Obituaries
      • Letters
      Most Read
      • OpenAI has just fused its corporate ‘kill switch’
      • Europe’s problem? It’s too attractive
      • Slaying the worklessness monster is a thankless but crucial task
      • Fear not — equity is far from cancelled
      • Crypto power struggle enters new stage with Binance settlement
    • Work & Careers
      Sections
      • Work & Careers Home
      • Business School Rankings
      • Business Education
      • Entrepreneurship
      • Recruitment
      • Business Books
      • Business Travel
      • Working It
      Most Read
      • Business Books: What to read this month
      • Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier: ‘The EU is not the same one the UK left’
      • Start-ups challenge culture of the Japanese salaryman
      • In search of chief executives who never grow ‘old’
      • The inescapable tyranny of the bad boss
    • Life & Arts
      Sections
      • Life & Arts Home
      • Arts
      • Books
      • Food & Drink
      • FT Magazine
      • House & Home
      • Style
      • Travel
      • FT Globetrotter
      Most Read
      • Tom Hanks: ‘I was a pretty lucky guy’
      • Napoleon and the mythmakers
      • Why the breakdown of the 9-to-5 job is making us lonelier
      • Leon Black’s downfall confounds the legacy of #MeToo on Wall Street
      • Could younger homebuyers turn Belgravia from staid to ‘buzzy’?
    • HTSI
    MenuSearch
    • Home
    • World
    • US
    • Companies
    • Tech
    • Markets
    • Climate
    • Opinion
    • Work & Careers
    • Life & Arts
    • HTSI
    Financial Times
    SubscribeSign In

    Biography and memoir

    Add to myFT Digest

    Add this topic to your myFT Digest for news straight to your inbox

    • Friday, 17 November, 2023
      FT SeriesBest books of the year 2023
      Best books of 2023 — Sport

      Simon Kuper selects his must-read titles

      Montage of book covers
    • Thursday, 16 November, 2023
      Non-Fiction
      ‘Thrillingly told’ account of Canadian wildfire scoops Baillie Gifford prize

      ‘Fire Weather’ named winner of UK’s leading award for non-fiction at ceremony in London

      John Vaillant, writer of ‘Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World’
    • Thursday, 16 November, 2023
      ReviewNon-Fiction
      Best books of 2023 — Literary non-fiction

      Carl Wilkinson selects his must-read titles

      Montage of book covers
    • Wednesday, 15 November, 2023
      FT SeriesBest books of the year 2023
      Best books of 2023 — Pop music

      Ludovic Hunter-Tilney selects his must-read titles

      Montage of book covers
    • Friday, 10 November, 2023
      The best of TV and streaming this week
      Robbie Williams, Netflix — the polished inside story of the megastar

      The latest biographical documentary to land on the streaming service has the usual carefully managed narrative

      A photo of a younger Robbie Williams smiling and holding a framed platinum album
    • Friday, 3 November, 2023
      ReviewBooks
      Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga — tales with a twist

      The Rwandan writer playfully explores storytelling and colonialism

      Woman walking among sown fields
    • Friday, 27 October, 2023
      Review
      The Fall by Michael Wolff — a combative view of Murdoch’s endgame

      The biographer returns to the media mogul and finds a once-powerful figure shaded by ‘doubt, ambivalence, regret’

    • Tuesday, 17 October, 2023
      Review
      Father and Son by Jonathan Raban — a moving coda to a writer’s life

      The English novelist’s final book blends a memoir of his convalescence in America with the story of his parents’ WWII romance

      English author Jonathan Raban
    • Friday, 13 October, 2023
      Review
      Alone by Daniel Schreiber — seeking seclusion

      A heartfelt memoir on being single, living alone and the existential experience of loneliness

    • Wednesday, 4 October, 2023
      Review
      Pure Wit — Margaret Cavendish as protofeminist

      Dismissed by Virginia Woolf as ‘an elf’, the prolific 17th-century poet and playwright is given a more positive appraisal in a new biography

    • Wednesday, 27 September, 2023
      Review
      The Maverick — George Weidenfeld, publisher to saints and sinners

      Thomas Harding’s biography uncovers the secrets of a chameleonic outsider who made himself a fixture of the cultural establishment

    • Wednesday, 13 September, 2023
      Review
      Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson — clashes of the titan

      An exploration of the tech billionaire’s epic feats, which is long on reporting detail but shorter on the meaning of Musk

    • Monday, 11 September, 2023
      ReviewNon-Fiction
      The Dictionary People — a homage to the eclectic lexicographers of the OED

      Sarah Ogilvie brings to life the unexpected characters — from murderers and a vicar to Karl Marx’s daughter — who were its early contributors

      A team of people and an old man with a long, white beard sit at desks working in an office filled with books and paper
    • Friday, 8 September, 2023
      ReviewFiction
      A Dictator Calls — what did Stalin really say on the phone?

      Ismail Kadare digs deep into a fabled telephone conversation that may have sealed the fate of a dissident Russian poet

    • Tuesday, 29 August, 2023
      Review
      Before the Light Fades — Natasha Walter’s passionate and moving portrait of her mother

      A compelling reconstruction of Ruth Walter’s remarkable life explores grief, survival and sudden loss

    • Friday, 25 August, 2023
      ReviewNon-Fiction
      Lifescapes by Ann Wroe — seeking the essence of our being

      The obituarist brings a poetic sensibility to an exploration of what defines our soul

    • Wednesday, 2 August, 2023
      ReviewFT Books Essay
      Two sides of George Orwell

      Contrasting perspectives on the author — and the invisible life of his first wife

    • Tuesday, 1 August, 2023
      History books
      All That She Carried — the extraordinary history of a mother’s gift

      Tiya Miles traces a simple cotton sack across generations of enslaved women to tell a powerful story of love and survival

    • Tuesday, 25 July, 2023
      Review
      High Caucasus by Tom Parfitt — Russia’s haunted hinterland

      A redemptive memoir-cum-travel book explores personal and national memories in a region blighted by trauma

      Stone towers on a hillside
    • Tuesday, 18 July, 2023
      Review
      Osip Mandelstam — a Russian poet who could not be silent

      Ralph Dutli’s rounded biography of the Soviet-era writer murdered by Stalin deftly examines his literary legacy

    • Friday, 14 July, 2023
      Review
      Nick Drake and Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler — twinned under a musical dark star

      Born a year apart and just miles from each other, two books chart the singers’ contrasting careers of decibels, debauchery, depression — and death

    • Friday, 14 July, 2023
      Review
      Three Worlds by Avi Shlaim — a fascinating memoir of an Arab-Jewish life

      The historian recounts his experience of growing up in Iraq, Israel and England — and brilliantly evokes a lost world

      A family portrait of a man and woman in 1940s dress, with a little boy and a smiling three-year-old girl
    • Friday, 23 June, 2023
      Summer Books 2023
      Best summer books of 2023: Pop music

      Ludovic Hunter-Tilney selects his best mid-year reads

    • Friday, 23 June, 2023
      Summer Books 2023
      Best summer books of 2023: Sport

      Simon Kuper selects his best mid-year reads

      book cover montage
    • Tuesday, 20 June, 2023
      Summer Books 2023
      Best summer books of 2023: Classical music

      Richard Fairman selects his best mid-year reads

    Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

    Useful links

    Support

    View Site TipsHelp CentreContact UsAbout UsAccessibilitymyFT TourCareers

    Legal & Privacy

    Terms & ConditionsPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyManage CookiesCopyrightSlavery Statement & Policies

    Services

    Share News Tips SecurelyIndividual SubscriptionsProfessional SubscriptionsRepublishingExecutive Job SearchAdvertise with the FTFollow the FT on XFT ChannelsFT Schools

    Tools

    PortfolioToday’s Newspaper (FT Digital Edition)Alerts HubBusiness School RankingsEnterprise ToolsNews feedNewslettersCurrency Converter

    Community & Events

    FT CommunityFT Live EventsFT ForumsFT Board DirectorBoard Director Programme

    More from the FT Group

    Markets data delayed by at least 15 minutes. © THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2023. FT and ‘Financial Times’ are trademarks of The Financial Times Ltd.
    The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice.
    Financial Times

    International Edition

    Subscribe for full access
    • Switch to UK Edition

    Top sections

    • Home
    • World
      • Israel-Hamas war
      • Global Economy
      • UK
      • US
      • China
      • Africa
      • Asia Pacific
      • Emerging Markets
      • Europe
      • War in Ukraine
      • Americas
      • Middle East & North Africa
    • US
      • US Economy
      • US Companies
      • US Politics & Policy
    • Companies
      • Energy
      • Financials
      • Health
      • Industrials
      • Media
      • Professional Services
      • Retail & Consumer
      • Tech Sector
      • Telecoms
      • Transport
    • Tech
      • Artificial intelligence
      • Semiconductors
      • Cyber Security
      • Social Media
    • Markets
      • Alphaville
      • Markets Data
      • Cryptofinance
      • Capital Markets
      • Commodities
      • Currencies
      • Equities
      • Fund Management
      • Wealth Management
      • Trading
      • Moral Money
      • ETF Hub
    • Climate
    • Opinion
      • Columnists
      • The FT View
      • Lex
      • Obituaries
      • Letters
    • Work & Careers
      • Business School Rankings
      • Business Education
      • Entrepreneurship
      • Recruitment
      • Business Books
      • Business Travel
      • Working It
    • Life & Arts
      • Arts
      • Books
      • Food & Drink
      • FT Magazine
      • House & Home
      • Style
      • Travel
      • FT Globetrotter
    • Personal Finance
      • Property & Mortgages
      • Investments
      • Pensions
      • Tax
      • Banking & Savings
      • Advice & Comment
      • Next Act
    • HTSI
    • Special Reports

    FT recommends

    • Lex
    • Alphaville
    • Lunch with the FT
    • FT Globetrotter
    • #techAsia
    • Moral Money
    • Visual and data journalism
    • Newsletters
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • News feed
    • FT Live Events
    • FT Forums
    • Board Director Programme
    • myFT
    • Portfolio
    • Today’s Newspaper (FT Digital Edition)
    • Crossword
    • Our Apps
    • Help Centre
    • Subscribe
    • Sign In