Americans have always been intrigued by the lives, both professional and personal, of our elected officials. Nowadays, all we have to do is log onto Twitter to see what our Commander in Chief is thinking, but before that, readers had to rely on the best presidential memoirs to give them insight into the lives of their leaders, and the inner workings of Washington. What better way to learn about these fascinating figures and the most important historical events of their presidencies than from the politicians themselves?
Writing a memoir is basically part of the job description for presidents and politicians in America. Just recently, Barack and Michelle Obama made headlines with their major post-presidency book deal that is reportedly worth more that $65 million dollars. From Jefferson to Eisenhower to Bush and beyond, nearly every United States president has written about their lives and politics, either as a way to help them gain notoriety before running for office, or after their presidency as a kind of rite of passage. While many of these books are insightful, inspiring, and intriguing stories about incredible political achievements, unbelievable challenges, and some of the most dramatic moments from our history, there are others that are, to put it simply, duds. How do you know which ones to choose?
Luckily, you don't have to, because I have rounded up the best nine presidential memoirs written. From our earliest Commanders in Chief to some of the most recent, these are the autobiographies you don't want to miss.
The travel memoirs below capture destinations as far-flung as India, Australia, and Antarctica, and are all worth adding to your to-read list. Travels with Charley in Search of America, John. Over the past several decades, books falling under the umbrella of 'addiction memoir' have become omnipresent. Whether you’re well-versed in the subject or totally new to it, here are nine of the smartest and most moving examples. RELATED: The 38 Best Memoirs We’ve Ever Read. The actress was contracted to write a memoir but after hours of conversation with her ghostwriter, changed her mind; this book is drawn from those tapes. On the time she nearly killed Howard. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr. Karr’s funny, terrifying, scalpel-sharp first book was one of the first to open the contemporary memoir floodgates: yes, the public screamed, wept, whispered.Yes. Memoir inherently brings the dilemma of writing about other people, and Karr’s book is a grand study in how one of the best has dealt with this conundrum. Poet and author of three bestselling memoirs (Lit, Cherry and The Liar’s Club) Karr teaches at Syracuse University. The best parts of this book, for me, were feeling so deeply understood.
A prolific thinker and a gifted writer, Thomas Jefferson is not only responsible for writing the Declaration of Independence, but the third president also penned over 70,000 letters in his life. In The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, many of those letters, both personal and professional, along with journal entries, notes, and addresses come together to form a clear and insightful view of the remarkable man who made some of the most important contributions to early American politics. Intimate and intriguing, this is one of the earliest and one of the best presidential memoirs to ever hit shelves.
Considered one of the finest books written by an American president, Ulysses S. Grant'sPersonal Memoirs & Selected Letters is an exceptional work written under extraordinary circumstances. Penned in 1885 while Grant was suffering from throat cancer and published by none other than Mark Twain, this autobiography and selected letters is a frank and sincere collection that will reshape the way you see one of America's finest generals and most well-known presidents.
Soldier, rancher, reformer, hunter, historian, and the youngest man to serve as president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt led such an intriguing life, it's impossible to pick just one of his works to name as 'the best.' That's what makes Theodore Roosevelt: Rough Riders/An Autobiography the perfect read for anyone interested in learning about his extraordinary life. Starting with his famous and fascinating stories of the Rough Riders, the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry who fought in the Spanish-American war, and moving into his own autobiography covering everything from how he got his start in politics to his work as New York City's police commissioner to his eventual rise to the presidency and lifelong commitment to conservation, this collection will give you the full view of one of the country's most celebrated politicians.
The work that is often credited with transforming the approach to presidential memoir writing, Dwight D. Eisenhower's Mandate for Change is personal, insightful, and an absolute must-read. Covering the years of his first term in office, this revelatory memoir covers not only the personal and national events between 1953-1956, but also takes a deep-dive into the president's thinking process, the lessons he learned, and how he felt during some of the most crucial decisions he made. Filled with honesty, wit, humor, and sincerity, Mandate for Change should be on every political junkie's reading list.
One of the most controversial presidents in American history, Richard Nixon is an intriguing figure whose early writing give readers insight to the man who would later become the 37th president of the United States (and the only one to resign from office.) In Six Crises, the politician chronicles six major events, including an attack he suffered at the hands of a mob in Venezuela, Eisenhower's heart attack, and the 1960 presidential campaign. While it's not the juiciest read (this is pre-Watergate), it does offer insight to one of American politics most complicated figures.
Jimmy Carter has penned over two dozen books in his lifetime, and while his earlier memoir Keeping Faith is considered to be one of the most revealing presidential memoirs ever written, his 2015 memoir A Full Life offers a fresh new perspective on one of America's most dedicated public servants. A retrospective look back at some of the most pivotal moments in Carter's private and public life, including his youth growing up in rural Georgia and his lost bid for re-election, A Full Life is a clear, candid, and captivating read perfect for any politics lover.
One of America's most beloved presidents, Ronald Reagan lived in the public eye for most of his life, but his memoir shows another side of the actor, politician, and husband. In An American Life, Reagan discusses honestly and in detail his childhood during the Depression, his incredible acting career, his transition into politics, his enduring love for his wife, and so much more. Including some of the most crucial moments of his presidency — his run for governor of California, his 1985 Geneva meeting with the Soviet leaders, an assassination attempt on his life — An American Lifeis a warm, personal, and inspiring book about an extraordinary man and a remarkable politician.
In this remarkably candid and detailed memoir, Bill Clinton invites readers into not only his life, but the day-to-day goings on of the White House. Recounting his dysfunctional youth with a loving mother and abusive stepfather, his sweeping romance with Hillary Rodham, his journey into politics and his rise to the office of the presidency, and yes, even the Monica Lewinsky scandal that almost ruined his life and career, Clinton doesn't pull any punches in this deeply personal and insightful memoir.
While it is not technically his official presidential memoir because it was published over a decade before his election, Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father is a remarkable work about race, inheritance, and American culture. Chronicling his family's history as well as his own, from his mother's family's move from Kansas to Hawaii, his parent's whirlwind romance, his father's death and subsequent legacy, this incredible story is powerful and inspiring, a must-read before the release of his upcoming memoir about his years in the White House.
This week saw the release of Paul Auster’s second memoir, Winter Journal, wherein he turns his eye from the portrait of fatherhood he explored in The Invention of Solitude to his mother’s life, and her death, and the ever encroaching inevitability of his own death. Inspired by this new and deeply affecting work by one of our greatest contemporary authors, we started thinking about our favorite literary memoirs, from the contemporary to the classic, those that suck us in and leave us gasping for breath as well or better than any novel. Click through to see the books we chose, and if we’ve missed your own favorite, make a case for it in the comments — we can always use another book to read!
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov’s memoir is an account of his childhood and the years before his emigration to the United States in 1940 — but that’s not quite right. More importantly, the book is an account of Nabokov’s art as much as it is an example of it, a study of the themes and symbols that make up his mind as they make up the book. As ever, Nabokov’s prose is unimpeachable, brilliant, devastating, and his almost petulant, playful manner makes even lists of relatives seem fascinating.
The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr
Karr’s funny, terrifying, scalpel-sharp first book was one of the first to open the contemporary memoir floodgates: yes, the public screamed, wept, whispered. Yes, we want more of this. You will feel the same way as this incomparable firebrand leads you through her swampy childhood. Lucky for you, if you’re a first time reader, you’ll have two more of Karr’s memoirs to go when you’re through. They could have made this list too, but we’ve got to give other writers a fighting chance, you know?
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
In this heartbreaking memoir, Official National Treasure Joan Didion writes about the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and the “magical thinking” that followed: “We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss,” she writes. “We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes.” Already a master of writing about loss, this memoir is an essential addition to Didion’s oeuvre.
Maus, Art Spiegelman
Though there are many deeply affecting and wonderful Holocaust memoirs that might have made this list, our favorite will forever be Maus, with its harrowing story wrapped in Spiegelman’s pitch-perfect illustrations. You’d think that imagining the characters as animals would make the horrors of the story seem less intense, more palatable, but in fact it’s the opposite — in true Understanding Comics style, the iconic, blank faces of the mice only allow us to put ourselves in their shoes that much more easily.
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
In this beautiful, bitter memoir, Kingston blends traditional Chinese folk tales — her mother’s “talk-stories” — with her often difficult experiences growing up Chinese American in Stockton, California. What is a ghost? What is a woman’s worth? Who is she? Kingston’s prose burns on the page as she investigates.
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
Published posthumously in 1964, this memoir is made up of Hemingway’s collected accounts of his time as an expat writer in the 1920s, largely in Paris, hanging out with Gertrude Stein, the Fitzgeralds, Ezra Pound, and a host of other characters, all engaged with padding their now-fat legacies. As spare and simply lovely as his novels, it’s enough to make any aspiring writer want to pack up and move to the city of light.
Darkness Visible, William Styron
One of the books that led the memoir charge, Styron’s candid, elegant 1990 memoir of his serious depression — and recovery — is both an extremely personal story of exploring the depths of despair and a meditation on depression in a wider cultural context. It’s still one of the best things we’ve ever read on the topic.
This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff
In Wolff’s elegantly rendered, captivating memoir, he describes a childhood spent wandering the country with his itinerant mother, on the run from an abusive ex-boyfriend — until she meets and marries an equally unsuitable man, with whom the teenaged Wolff engages in furious battle. But he’s also fighting his own battle of self-invention. Darkly comic, deeply piercing and as satisfying as any novel, This Boy’s Life is an irrefutable classic.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Best Memoir Books 2019
This memoir, the first in six volumes of autobiography, is a time-honored classic for a reason. Poetic and incredibly inspiring, the reader watches Angelou develop from a victim to a confident, capable young woman as she learns to process and deal with the racism of the world around her. With her younger self often referred to as “a symbolic character for every black girl growing up in America,” Angelou has undoubtedly changed many lives with this book.
Best Memoirs Ever Written
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
Best Autobiography Books New York Times
Orwell’s gripping account of his time in the Spanish Civil War, told with his trademark journalist’s wink, is one of his best. Unflinching and honest, Orwell approaches his experience without agenda, recording things as he sees them. As Philip Mairet once said, “It shows us the heart of innocence that lies in revolution; also the miasma of lying that, far more than the cruelty, takes the heart out of it.”