10 Great Memoirs to Read

Image 1 of 10

1. Personal History by Katharine Graham (First Vintage Books, $16)
The woman who ran the Washington Post and saw it through the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate crises comes alive in the pages of this outstanding memoir. Actually, outstanding is an understatement. She is honest, blunt and real—fragile, tough and forthright—as she takes the reader through her childhood and upbringing, her marriage to Phil Graham, his passing and her ascendancy to the top spot at one of the most powerful newspapers in the country. The book won the Pulitzer Prize, for its incredible readability and the richness of its stories, plus the way it peels back the pages of our own cultural and political history, guided by a great narrator. Run, do not walk, to either buy or borrow this book if you've not read it before.