Many genres explore the beauty and misery of being human, but few get to the heart of it quite like bios and memoirs. This year offered a bounty of personal stories and intimate reflections, zeroing in on everything from community to coming of age. Yet these 10 listens stood out above the rest for their depth of storytelling, emotional resonance, unbridled vulnerability, and shimmers of humor and hope. And when paired with artful, nuanced performances (often from the authors themselves), these stories brim with all the complicated wonder of our species. From a literary great’s brush with death to a catfish tale for the ages, here are our picks for the 10 best bios and memoirs of 2024.
Save this list to your Library Collections, or explore more from the Best of 2024.
In Knife, literary hero and fatwa survivor Salman Rushdie reckons with being stabbed nearly to death at a lecture in 2022. The resulting swirl of emotions and struggle for comprehension are poignant to hear in Rushdie’s captivating and erudite reading. But what comes through most vividly is his wonder and triumph in surviving, a testament to the good in humanity—like that of his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and those who helped him in the aftermath of the attack—even as he encountered the worst. —Kat J.
Deborah Jackson Taffa’s tremendous Whiskey Tender is so many things, all at once: a singular coming-of-age story, a complex family narrative, a quest for belonging, a history of violent federal policies. With reflective clarity and a gift for language, Taffa, a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo, crafts a soaring dialogue on survival and identity, in the process reclaiming a story of the self that so many share. Oglala Lakota and Mohawk actor Charley Flyte breathes soft-spoken resonance into each of Taffa’s heartrending recollections, mirroring the story’s defiant tenderness. The result is something brilliantly, boldly alive. —Alanna M.
I'd venture to say that the brilliance of David Henry Hwang's Obie-winning, Pulitzer-nominated play Yellow Face is elevated without visual accompaniment. In this acerbically funny “unreliable memoir,” we hear but don't see the character of the playwright wrestle his way through the shifting motivations of an entertainment landscape that seems to constantly rewrite the expectations of Asians in American culture. The inspired cast, including Daniel Dae Kim and Jason Biggs, delivers an immersive space for personal reckoning, leaving the listener to grapple with their own internal assumptions about race and the complexities of living in America in a body you can't change. —Emily C.
Considering wellness lit has long vowed to offer protection from sociopaths, Patric Gagne’s reflection on what she calls her “emotional learning disability” comes as a welcome perspective. What struck me about this unique memoir is that the author, grappling with an absence of empathy, experienced quite a bit of recognizable discomfort: from self-soothing compulsions to the early childhood revelation of being different. As someone who has long struggled with my own mood disorder, I so related to Gagne’s frustrated attempts to understand why she experiences her emotions uniquely, only to be met with stigma. For anyone who’s ever embarked upon their own mental health journey, you might locate a piece of yourself within this narrative. —Haley H.
The former Pentagon official who ran a program investigating unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) is knocking listeners’ socks off with his memoir, Imminent. Whether you take his account as gospel—and there are plenty of folks on all sides!—it’s undeniably a ripping account. From Area 51 and Skinwalker Ranch to the notorious “Tic Tac” objects spotted in the USS Nimitz encounter, it’s all here. Elizondo resigned from his post to protest government secrecy about UAPs; it seems he’s found a new calling as an author, disclosure proponent, and a damn good narrator. —KJ
I found myself getting very emotional while listening to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir. I have a feeling that had I met her as a young woman in college, I would’ve instantly known that she was destined to do great things. I loved that she sang in this audiobook, took us to debates with her, and introduced us to the love of her life. We hear from her daughters too—both are so loved. Excuse me for saying this but when she was appointed, as a Black woman, I felt her victory was mine too. And the voice! She’s Supreme. —Yvonne D.
OMG! Anna Akbari took me on a JOURNEY with her stranger-than-fiction memoir about how a stranger can be ... fiction. A feisty young sociologist in the early days of online dating, Akbari began chatting with a witty New Yorker named "Ethan." Anna fell hard for his clever, sexy messages—irresistibly voiced by Justin Price, the perfect complement to Akbari’s own narration. But as their intimacy deepened, Ethan’s excuses to avoid meeting raised major red flags. Akbari investigated, found solidarity in other victims, and soon uncovered jaw-dropping revelations about the “real” Ethan Schuman. Emotionally invested yet professionally fascinated, this is the catfishing memoir to end all catfishing memoirs. —KJ
Grief memoirs represent the genre in its most human form. After all, love and loss are the two inevitabilities we universally share as mortal beings. Alexandra Fuller’s tender, nuanced Fi gets to the heart of that reality as she reflects on the agony of her son’s death. Unequivocally honest, evocative, and elegiac, she shares her journey as she attempts to find peace in the wake of the unthinkable, learning to coexist with grief while living on for those left behind. Fuller narrates her own story, and what a gift that is. Throughout, she balances heartbreak with wit, tracing every moment in the nonlinear path toward healing in her expressive British-Zimbabwean lilt. —AM
Author, editor, and activist Alice Wong has been amplifying the voices of disabled persons for more than a decade. In Disability Intimacy, a deeply personal anthology of first-person reflections that Wong edited, she lifts the veil on the intimate lives of disabled persons, forcing listeners to question what they think of when they consider what constitutes closeness. Brought to vivid life by a full cast, this necessary and uplifting listen challenges preconceived notions and rejects the lens of ableism, instead broadening the definition of intimacy and ultimately illuminating a new way of thinking about desire and connection. —Madeline A.
Podcaster and social media star Drew Afualo has made a name for herself as an unapologetic voice for women, confronting misogyny with a head-on, no-holds-barred approach. With an acerbic wit and ferocious, full-bodied laugh, her roasts of hateful rhetoric have rallied millions of fans around the globe. In Loud, Afualo chronicles her confidence journey, inviting listeners to set out on their own quest for unflinching self-possession. Whether meditating on her Samoan identity or the choice to be child-free, she’s as real, relatable, and affirming as ever. As for her narration, it’s everything you’d expect: down-to-earth, funny, and full of heart. —AM
