How to pick the best books for your 2023 reading list
Welcome to my last and favourite article of the year!
I’m excited to bring you the Forever Young Autobiographies shortlist of life stories to win awards during the past 12 months.
This best life stories of 2022 list features male and female writers from Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA.
Also stay tuned because I will review each book on the website during 2023 …
Related article – Best life stories of 2021: Award-winning books to read this holiday season
My Adventurous Life by Dick Smith, Allen & Unwin
Australian Book Industry Awards 2022 Biography Book of the Year
“I have been charmed by good fortune to be born in Australia in the 1940s. I have lived through a time of great prosperity and every day I am reminded of my good luck.”
Dick Smith is a remarkable and proud Australian.
He has been part of our national consciousness for over 50 years as an innovative and astute businessman, a ground-breaking adventurer, a generous philanthropist and a provocateur for the causes he feels deeply about.
Yet, despite his great successes and achievements, Dick has remained down to earth and close to his roots.
Related article – My Adventurous Life: Australian Book Industry Awards winner by Dick Smith
Related article – Best life stories of 2020: Award-winning books to read this holiday season
The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar, Pan Macmillan Australia
Australian Book Industry Awards 2022 Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year
“I am from a family of strong women.”
Amani Haydar suffered the unimaginable when she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father.
Five months pregnant at the time, her own perception of how she wanted to mother (and how she had been mothered) was shaped by this devastating murder.
After her mother’s death, Amani began reassessing everything she knew of her parents’ relationship.
They had been unhappy for so long – should she have known that it would end like this?
Related article – The Mother Wound: A multi award-winning debut memoir by Amani Haydar
Related article – Best books of 2019: Must-read books about life stories to enjoy this summer
Currowan: The Story of a Fire and a Community During Australia’s Worst Summer by Bronwyn Adcock, Black Inc.
2022 Walkley Awards Book Award
The Currowan fire – ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest and growing to engulf the New South Wales South Coast – was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s Black Summer.
It burnt for 74 days, consuming nearly 5000 sq km of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered.
Bronwyn Adcock fled the inferno with her children.
Her husband, fighting at the front, rang with a plea for help before his phone went dead, leaving her to fear – will he make it out alive?
In Currowan, Bronwyn tells her story and those of many others – what they saw, thought and felt as they battled a blaze of never-before-seen intensity.
Related article – Currowan: Surviving one of Australia’s worst bushfires by Bronwyn Adcock
Related article – Best books of 2019: Must-read books about life stories to enjoy this summer
Windswept and Interesting: My Autobiography by Billy Connolly, John Murray Press
British Book Awards 2022 Book of the Year Audiobook Non-Fiction
“It’s the first time I’ve done this. Other people have written about me – or for me – but this time it’s just my own life in my own words.”
In his first full-length autobiography, comedy legend and national treasure Billy Connolly reveals the truth behind his windswept and interesting life.
Born in a tenement flat in Glasgow in 1942, orphaned by the age of four, and a survivor of appalling abuse at the hands of his own family, Billy’s life is a remarkable story of success against all the odds.
Billy found his escape first as an apprentice welder in the shipyards of the River Clyde.
Later he became a folk musician – a ‘rambling man’ – with a genuine talent for playing the banjo.
But it was his ability to spin stories, tell jokes and hold an audience in the palm of his hand that truly set him apart.
Related article – Windswept and Interesting: Autobiography by Glasgow joker Billy Connolly
Related article – Diary of a Young Naturalist: British Book Awards winning memoir by Irish teen Dara McAnulty
Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South by the late Winfred Rembert as told to Erin I. Kelly, Bloomsbury Publishing
2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Biography
Winfred Rembert grew up in a family of Georgia field laborers and joined the Civil Rights Movement as a teenager.
He was arrested after fleeing a demonstration, survived a near-lynching at the hands of law enforcement, and spent 7 years on chain gangs.
During that time he met the undaunted Patsy, who would become his wife.
Years later, at the age of 51 and with Patsy’s encouragement, he started drawing and painting scenes from his youth using leather tooling skills he learned in prison.
Chasing Me to My Grave presents Rembert’s breathtaking body of work alongside his story, as told to Tufts Philosopher Erin I. Kelly.
Related article – Chasing Me to My Grave: Jim Crow memoir by Georgia artist Winfred Rembert
Final say: Best life stories of 2022
Find a perfect holiday read with The Forever Young Autobiographies best life stories of 2022 book list.
Discover stories by adventurers, comedians, artists and much more.
Certainly you will find a page-turner to suit you!
Also look out for my reviews of these books when I return from a summer break in the new year.
Happy holidays, writing and reading!
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Your say: Best life stories of 2022
Got a book suggestion to share in addition to these best life stories of 2022? I always love hearing from different people. Drop me an email or leave a reply in the comments section at the end of this article.
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