Pull to refresh

Writing lives

The best recent memoirs and biographies

March 26, 2025

2B95E5B Auschwitz-Birkenau Jewish women and children some wearing Nazi designated yellow stars arrive by basic rail trucks to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a WW2 German Nazi Concentration camp. Jewish children were the largest group deported to the camp. They were sent along with adults, beginning in early 1942, as part of the final solution of the Jewish questionthe total destruction of the Jewish population of Europe...Auschwitz concentration camp was a network of German Nazi concentration and extermination camps operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
The Escape Artist. By Jonathan Freedland. Harper; 400 pages; $28.99. John Murray; £20
In 1944 Rudolf Vrba escaped from Auschwitz and helped produce a report on its genocidal horrors. Reluctant as some were to face the truth of the death camps, his bravery and tenacity saved many lives. This harrowing and astonishing story is told with pace and verve, and is an important addition to Holocaust historiography.
The Facemaker. By Lindsey Fitzharris. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 336 pages; $23.99. Allen Lane; £20
An account of the pioneering work done by Harold Gillies in the early 20th century at specialist maxillofacial units in Britain. An engaging biography of a masterful plastic surgeon, it is also a heartening tribute to medical progress.
Agatha Christie. By Lucy Worsley. Pegasus Crime; 432 pages; $29.95. Hodder & Stoughton; £25
On December 3rd 1926 the famous novelist left her husband and young daughter and went missing for 11 days. That mysterious disappearance is at the heart of this colourful new biography, which pieces together what really happened that winter.
The Huxleys. By Alison Bashford. University of Chicago Press; 576 pages; $30. Published in Britain as “An Intimate History of Evolution”; Allen Lane; £30
Julian Huxley and Thomas Henry Huxley, his grandfather, were both acolytes of Darwinism. They shared a scientific genius, an appetite for culture (both were keen poets) and a tragic tint of mental instability. Both lives are painstakingly illuminated in this double biography.
Inventor of the Future. By Alec Nevala-Lee. Dey Street Books; 672 pages; $35 and £25
Buckminster Fuller was a path-breaking American architect and engineer. This portrait gives him his due as a stunningly original thinker and prophet of technology. He comes alive as a visionary who rose above his imperfections to labour for the benefit of humankind.
Hayek. By Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger. University of Chicago Press; 824 pages; $50 and £35
An elegant account of one of the most interesting figures in 20th-century economics. It is packed with great anecdotes and punctures myths about the Austrian-British economist. Mostly it confirms the view that he was a rather strange man, and not always a very nice one. ■
For more on the latest books, films, TV shows, albums and controversies, sign up to Plot Twist, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter
Back to The Economist reads