How to choose must-read books to enjoy this year and into 2022
Holiday season calls for a good book or three!
Certainly my book stack is ever-growing with informative and entertaining life stories.
But I’ve selected a shortlist of must-reads for the latest Forever Young Autobiographies life-story reading list!
This best life stories of 2021 list features writers from Australia, the United Kingdom plus the USA.
And it includes bestsellers and award winners.
Also, stay tuned as I plan to review each book on the website during 2022 and include suggestions to help when we sit down to write.
So let’s take a look at what autobiographies, memoirs, biographies and other life stories made the list for the best life stories of 2021 …
Related article – Best life stories of 2020: Award-winning books to read this holiday season
Related article – Best books of 2019: Must-read books about life stories to enjoy this summer
The Happiest Man on Earth: A Holocaust survivor shares how he found gratitude, kindness and hope in the darkest of places by Eddie Jaku, Pan Macmillan Australia
Australian Book Industry Awards 2021 Biography Book of the Year
“Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you.”
Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country.
But all of that changed in November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp.
Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march.
He lost family, friends, his country.
Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day.
He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life.
He now believes he is the ‘happiest man on earth’.
Published as Eddie turns 100, this is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.
Related article – The Happiest Man on Earth: Bestseller by 100yo Auschwitz survivor Eddie Jaku
Tell Me Why: The story of my life and my music by Archie Roach, Simon and Schuster Australia
Australian Book Industry Awards 2021 Audiobook of the Year
Not many have lived as many lives as Archie Roach – stolen child, seeker, teenage alcoholic, lover, father, musical and lyrical genius, and leader – but it took him almost a lifetime to find out who he really was.
Roach was only two years old when he was forcibly removed from his family.
Brought up by a series of foster parents until his early teens, his world imploded when he received a letter that spoke of a life he had no memory of.
In this intimate, moving and often shocking memoir, Archie’s story is an extraordinary odyssey through love and heartbreak, family and community, survival and renewal – and the healing power of music.
Related article – Tell Me Why: Award-winning life story by singer-songwriter Archie Roach
Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty, Little Toller Books
British Book Awards 2021 Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year
Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles the turning of 15-year-old Dara McAnulty’s world.
From spring and through a year in his home patch in Northern Ireland, Dara spent the seasons writing.
These vivid, evocative and moving diary entries about his connection to wildlife and the way he sees the world are raw in their telling.
Diary of a Young Naturalist portrays Dara’s intense connection to the natural world, and his perspective as a teenager juggling exams and friendships alongside a life of campaigning.
“I was diagnosed with Asperger’s/autism aged five … By age seven I knew I was very different, I had got used to the isolation, my inability to break through into the world of talking about football or Minecraft was not tolerated. Then came the bullying. Nature became so much more than an escape; it became a life-support system.”
Related article – Diary of a Young Naturalist: British Book Awards winning memoir by Irish teen Dara McAnulty
All That She Carried: The journey of Ashley’s sack, a black family keepsake by Tiya Miles, Penguin Random House
National Book Awards 2021 Nonfiction winner
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis, the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley.
Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag with a few precious items as a token of love and to try to ensure Ashley’s survival.
Soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold.
Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the bag in spare yet haunting language – including Rose’s wish that ‘It be filled with my Love always’.
Ruth’s sewn words, the reason we remember Ashley’s sack today, evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations.
Now, in this illuminating, deeply moving book inspired by Rose’s gift to Ashley, historian Tiya Miles carefully unearths these women’s faint presence in archival records to follow the paths of their lives – and the lives of so many women like them – to write a singular and revelatory history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States.
Related article – All That She Carried: A National Book Awards winning family story by Tiya Miles
The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land and a Killing at Croppa Creek by KateHolden, Black Inc
2022 Walkley Awards Book Award
July 2014, a lonely road at twilight outside Croppa Creek, New South Wales: 80-year-old farmer Ian Turnbull takes out a .22 and shoots environmental officer Glen Turner in the back.
On one side, a farmer hoping to secure his family’s wealth on the richest agricultural soil in the country.
On the other, his obsession: the government man trying to apply environmental laws.
The brutal killing of Glen Turner splits open the story of our place on this land.
Is our time on this soil a tale of tragedy or triumph – are we reaping what we’ve sown? Do we owe protection to the land, or does it owe us a living?
And what happens when, in pursuit of a legacy, a man creates terrible consequences?
Related article – The Winter Road: Walkley winning true crime by Kate Holden
Final say: Best life stories of 2021
The Forever Young Autobiographies best life stories of 2021 book list is full of super holiday reading.
Indeed it has life stories by youngsters to singers and much more.
Certainly there is a book to tempt you!
And keep an eye out for my upcoming book reviews on the website of the best life stories of 2021.
Finally, have a wonderful holiday break and I’ll catch you all again in a few weeks when I return with more helpful articles.
Happy writing and reading!
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