13 New Memoirs We Can’t Wait to Read in 2022

In Growing Up Biden, Valerie Biden Owens lovingly chronicles her childhood as the sole daughter of the Biden family, as well as the vital role she plays in her brother President Joe Biden’s life and political career. Biden Owens stands as one of the first female campaign managers in United States history. She’s directed nearly all of her brother’s campaigns — including Joe Biden’s successful run for the U.S. presidency in 2020. Here, Biden Owens offers an illuminating look at her career and personal life, and she delivers a moving meditation on family, tragedy, and triumph.

Publication date: April 12, 2022

In this highly anticipated true crime memoir, famed investigator Paul Holes looks back on a career of solving America’s most notorious cold cases, revealing the rewards and harsh realities of bringing criminals to justice. Holes was instrumental in closing a number of high-profile cases, from the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard to the years-long murder spree of the Golden State Killer. Yet his professional triumphs often came at the expense of his health, happiness, and personal relationships. Hailed by Patton Oswalt as “a fascinating and sometimes disturbing journey inside the mind of someone who hunts monsters for a living,” Unmasked is sure to keep readers rapt until the last page is turned. 

Publication date: April 26, 2022

In this candid new memoir, Academy Award winner Viola Davis looks back on her extraordinary career and offers guidance on leading a life of passion, purpose, and radical honesty. Davis retraces her journey from growing up in a crumbling Rhode Island apartment to overcoming obstacles and finding her voice as an esteemed actress of stage and screen. Inspiring and wholehearted, Finding Me is an “unvarnished chronicle of hard-won, well-earned success” (Kirkus Reviews).

Publication date: April 5, 2022

You might already know Stephanie Foo as an award-winning radio producer of This American Life. In her upcoming memoir, she pulls back the curtain on her personal health and her fight to reclaim her life. After years of enduring debilitating panic attacks, Foo was diagnosed with complex PTSD — a condition caused by sustained trauma spread out over years. Foo sought guidance to overcome her C-PTSD, only to find a dearth of resources on the condition. So she set out on a personal journey to restore her health, all of which is documented here. Powerfully told and thoroughly researched, What My Bones Know captures Foo’s interviews with scientists and psychologists, as well as her personal experience learning to move forward with C-PTSD.

Publication date: February 22, 2022

Tell Me Everything chronicles Erika Krouse’s immersion into the world of a private investigator, detailing her work on a landmark sexual assault case at a university. A stirring mix of true crime and memoir, Krouse’s “compelling [and] empathetic” account (Booklist) follows her over the course of five years as she investigates the sexual assault and the culture of abuse coursing through the school’s football program, all while grappling with her own history of sexual violence.

Publication date: March 15, 2022

Growing up in the United States, TV writer Rafael Agustin (Jane the Virgin) considered himself a typical kid. That is, until the day he applied to get his driver’s license and discovered he was undocumented. Everything he thought he knew about his family and his identity flipped — and young Rafa now faced an uncertain future in the country he called home. Rich with humor and heart, Illegally Yours traces the Agustin family’s journey, laying bare the struggle of immigrant families and exploring what it really means to be American.

Publication date: July 12, 2022

From New York Times bestselling author Amy Bloom comes this moving memoir of marriage, love, and the end of a life. A few years ago, Bloom began noticing changes in her husband Brian’s behavior — changes that ultimately led to an Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 2019. In Love re-creates the couple’s time together, as Amy and Brian grapple with the repercussions of the degenerative disease and Brian makes the difficult decision to go to Dignitas, a Switzerland-based organization that empowers individuals to end their life with dignity and on their own terms. Called one of the most anticipated books of 2022 by Oprah Daily and BookPage, In Love is as hopeful as it is heartbreaking.

Publication date: March 8, 2022

Indigenous artist Sasha LaPointe delivers a rousing debut memoir that blends her love of punk rock and Coast Salish cultural pride. Red Paint follows LaPointe as she searches for a true home, driven by her passion for the punk scene of the Pacific Northwest and her determination to live up to the legacy of her great-grandmother, who preserved her family’s indigenous Lushootseed language. LaPointe boldly navigates personal experience and family history throughout her narrative, reckoning with the lasting traumas of the Native American experience as she pursues a future for herself and her loved ones.

Publication date: March 8, 2022

Award-winning journalist Keri Blakinger delivers an unflinching account of addiction, recovery, and renewal in this “groundbreaking debut from an extraordinary writer” (Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black). Blakinger always pushed herself to the limit. In her youth, she was a successful competitive figure skater, but when her skating career collapsed, Blakinger turned to heroin, while finishing a degree at Cornell. A drug bust landed Blakinger behind bars, and she served nearly two years in New York’s correctional system. Upon her release, Blakinger, now sober, was determined to make the most of her second chance. She landed a job as a journalist and began covering America’s carceral system, exposing its flaws and shortcomings with firsthand insight. Corrections in Ink documents Blakinger’s inspiring journey and her fight for change.

Publication date: June 7, 2022

In Lost & Found, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Kathryn Schulz intertwines the stories of three distinct families — her father’s, her wife’s, and the new family she established through her marriage — into a tender exploration of everyday joy and heartbreak, discovery and loss. Schulz expertly weighs both the individual and universal in this moving memoir, delivering a “poignant, loving, wise, and comforting meditation on grief from both a personal and collective perspective” (Booklist, starred review).

Publication date: January 11, 2022

Beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante presents four brilliant essays on life and literature in this illuminating self-portrait. Across the pages of In the Margins, Ferrante traces her evolution into the reader and writer she is today, revealing her struggles and inspirations. Ferrante also discusses the ways in which “bad language” excludes the female experience and explores the works of luminaries such as Gertrude Stein and Emily Dickinson. Brimming with insight, In the Margins offers “a candid look into Ferrante’s development of not only her craft, but also her life-long passion for literature” (TIME Magazine).

Publication date: March 15, 2022

In This Boy We Made, Taylor Harris delivers a deeply moving account of a Black mother’s search for answers and the unbreakable bond between parent and child. When Harris’s young boy wakes up unwell, she rushes him to the hospital for what would be the first of many examinations. Rounds of tests and appointments turn up few answers for her son’s troubling symptoms, but they do reveal inequities in America’s healthcare industry and offer surprising insights into Harris’s own health. An unforgettable look into the anxieties of motherhood and the fight to move forward in the face of the unexpected, This Boy We Made is a stunning debut.

Publication date: January 11, 2022

In 1979, Iran was in the midst of a revolution, and Neda Toloui-Semnani’s parents left the United States to join in the fight. But the Islamic Republic’s rise to power ushered in an era of new struggles, both politically and, for Neda’s family personally: Her father was arrested, forcing her pregnant mother to flee with a young Neda in tow. Years later, Neda Toloui-Semnani, now fully grown, still struggles with her parents’ fateful decisions — and decides to face them head-on. They Said They Wanted Revolution follows the author as she reckons with her past. Through extensive research and detailed interviews, Toloui-Semnani dissects her family history in a bid to find peace with what occurred and finally move forward.

Publication date: February 1, 2022