Books like Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

01

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Phil Knight · Memoir

Shoe Dog is Phil Knight's account of the first two decades of Nike, from the $50 loan he borrowed from his father in 1964 to fund his first shipment of Japanese running shoes to the company's IPO in 1980.

A kindred memoir read.

02

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah · Memoir

Born a Crime is Trevor Noah's memoir about growing up mixed-race in South Africa during the final years of apartheid and its chaotic aftermath.

A kindred memoir read.

03

Open: An Autobiography

Andre Agassi · Memoir

Andre Agassi's autobiography opens with one of the most famous confessions in sports memoir: he hates tennis.

A kindred memoir read.

04

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand · Biography

Unbroken follows Louis Zamperini from his juvenile delinquency in Depression-era California to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he ran the 5,000 meters at nineteen and briefly caught Hitler's attention.

A kindred memoir read.

05

Becoming

Michelle Obama · Memoir

Becoming is Michelle Obama's account of how a girl from a modest house on Chicago's South Side became one of the most recognized people in the world — and what that journey cost and revealed.

A kindred memoir read.

06

Born Standing Up

Steve Martin · Memoir

Born Standing Up is Steve Martin's account of the decade-long grind that preceded his sudden, seemingly overnight fame as America's biggest stand-up comedian of the late 1970s.

Shares ambition and success with Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story.

07

10% Happier

Dan Harris · Memoir

10% Happier is Dan Harris's account of discovering meditation after a panic attack live on Good Morning America in 2004 forced him to confront an anxiety problem he'd been managing with cocaine and a punishing work schedule.

Both dig into ambition.

08

Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen · Memoir

Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is among the most substantive rock memoirs written, in part because Springsteen is a better prose writer than his public image suggests and in part because he chose to write about the things that actually shaped him rather than the things that made him famous.

Both dig into ambition.

09

Bossypants

Tina Fey · Memoir

Bossypants is Tina Fey's memoir and comic essay collection about her upbringing in suburban Pennsylvania, her years doing improv comedy in Chicago, her time as a writer and head writer at Saturday Night Live, her creation of 30 Rock, and the experience of being a woman in charge in show business.

Both dig into ambition.

10

Chronicles: Volume One

Bob Dylan · Memoir

Chronicles: Volume One is the first installment of what Dylan announced as a multi-volume memoir, and it is one of the stranger and more rewarding books any major artist has written about their own formation.

Both dig into reinvention.

11

Greenlights

Matthew McConaughey · Memoir

Greenlights is Matthew McConaughey's memoir-philosophy hybrid, built around decades of journals he kept starting in his teens.

Both dig into success.

12

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Anthony Bourdain · Memoir

Kitchen Confidential began as an essay in The New Yorker in 1999.

Both dig into ambition.