The best memoirs and biographies blend fascinating anecdotes with deeper meditations that make us reflect on our own lives. From poignant coming-of-age tales to candid confessionals, these are our top picks.

On Friendship

The novelist Andrew O’Hagan’s latest book is a “paean to the joys and power of friendship”, said Michael Kalisch in The New Statesman . It consists of eight “amiable” essays, each devoted to one of his friends. In one, he describes his “first best friend”, Mark MacDonald, a boyhood neighbour in North Ayrshire. Later pieces are about friendships “forged in the literary world”, such as with Seamus Heaney and Edna O’Brien. For O’Hagan, the best friendships are an antidote to the constrictions of family, said Anthony Cummings in The Guardian . He recalls his boyhood hom

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