I'm going to break this into two sections - celebrity memoirs, and those told by other people. I was going to say "ordinary people," but let's face it - if you are not a celebrity and yet your life is interesting enough to merit someone publishing your autobiography, your life is probably not so ordinary. So let's just call them "non-celebrity memoirs."
Celebrity Memoirs
Bossypants - Tina Fey - I'm sure everyone who enjoys celebrity memoirs has already read this one, as it is kind of the gold standard of the comedic celebrity memoir. Part memoir, part comedy bits, all told in a very entertaining and self-deprecating style. Funny and smart and charming.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling - Though Mindy Kaling (who you may know from either "The Mindy Project" or "The Office") is younger than me, she's somehow managed to already write two memoirs! Like "Bossypants," both books are basically part memoir, part comedy - a series of chapters/essays about different topics or eras in her life. They are light and fun reads that made me laugh out loud and really wish that I could be friends with Mindy Kaling in real life.
Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick - Like the other celebrity memoirs above, this is more humorous essays than a straightforward autobiography. Anna Kendrick in this book comes across exactly as you would hope and expect her to be in real life - funny and charming and self-deprecating and down to earth and surprisingly candid and real.
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer - I'm not a huge Amy Schumer fan - I've seen "Trainwreck," but never watched her tv show or standup, but I really enjoyed this one. The book is definitely more crass and raunchy than my usual fare, but since this is in the service of both humor and honesty, it didn't bother me. There were a lot of laugh out loud moments, but there was also some very moving personal stuff, and some political stuff too. Overall, she comes across as a very genuine and open person.
Troublemaker by Leah Remini - Not sure if it is cheating to include this one here, as it is not just a celebrity memoir but also an expose on Scientology, which Remini was introduced to as a kid and only left a few years before writing the book. But I'm going to include it on this list nonetheless, as most of it is written from her perspective, and it's an extremely fascinating book. She comes across as an incredibly candid and real person. Kudos to her for the bravery it took to write this.
Non-celebrity Memoirs
The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls - A gripping memoir, about a woman who grew up in a crazy family, literally - with her parents first living life basically like free-spirited nomads despite their children, later devolving into more depressing poverty and mental illness. As a reader some of it is pretty horrifying, yet although she managed to overcome her upbringing and go on to live a normal life, she displays a surprising amount of compassion for her parents. If this book were fiction rather than non-fiction, you would say it was totally over the top and not believable. I do wish she hadn't been so brief about her life once she made it to New York City, even if it wasn't as colorful as her early life.
Educated by Tara Westover - Fascinating, disturbing, memoir about a young woman raised in a very isolated life on a mountain in Idaho, where she does not attend school (with only a pretense of homeschooling), but somehow goes on to attend college and even obtain her PhD. Her father has some very extreme views, including no medical treatment allowed (even for the most disturbing of injuries, which seem to happen a lot in her family), no contact with the government, a general belief that the end of days are coming - which he couches as religious but in her adulthood looking back she can see are really a symptom of mental illness, and her mother is extremely passive, not to mention her disturbingly abusive brother... This is another of those truth is stranger than fiction memoirs like "The Glass Castle." Although at times it is frustrating that it takes Tara so long to break out from her family, not just physically but also mentally even after she has physically left Idaho, she is certainly a sympathetic figure. There are some things the memoir kind of glosses over, but it was definitely a powerful read.
Find Me Unafraid by Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner - A very moving memoir told in alternating chapters by Kennedy, a young man who grew up in a slum in Kenya and became a community organizer, and Jessica, who goes to Kenya for her junior year abroad from Wesleyan, and meets Kennedy. Kennedy's story is fascinating and inspiring from the start; Jessica's perspective starts out a a bit annoying as she portrays herself at first (whether intentionally or not) as a naive white college student out to save the world, but you can't help but to respect her when she actually starts making a difference. The writing of this book is perhaps not the most polished, but I can't imagine anyone reading it without becoming impressed and moved by what Kennedy and Jessica have accomplished together. This book is a bit more obscure than the others I'm recommending here; I actually read it about their story in the Wesleyan alumni magazine which is how I came to read the book.
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast - I suppose you could argue that Roz Chast is a celebrity, though she's hardly as famous as the actresses whose books I recommended above. She is a cartoonist for The New Yorker, so if you are a New Yorker reader you might recognize her drawing style even if you don't know her name. And in fact, this book is actually a memoir in the form of a graphic novel, about the last years of her parents' lives. Very poignant and emotionally affecting, both sad and funny. A quick read not just because it is a short graphic novel, but because it is so compelling. Definitely different for me since I read even fewer graphic novels than I do memoirs, but I was amazed at how moving it was to read even in that format.
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What other memoirs do you guys recommend?
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