The recurring themes in 2021’s biographies were undeniably love, connection, vulnerability, and resilience.
These were beautifully addressed in the complex and moving memoirs about trauma and survival by Amani Haydar, Rick Morton and Yumiko Kadota, but also in Ann Patchett’s collection of personal essays written during lockdown. Reflecting on what matters most in this precarious life, These Precious Days is warm, generous and life-affirming.
Following an unprecedented year where the arts and entertainment industries locked down and celebrities had time on their hands to write, 2021 delivered some great celebrity bios. Dave Grohl, Will Smith and Miriam Margolyes proved why they are everyone’s favourite talk show guests, bringing their wonderful anecdotes and charismatic storytelling to the page. And Stanley Tucci’s Taste … what can I say? It’s about food, Italian culture and growing up in New York in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Oh, and it has a Negroni recipe in it. What’s not to love?!
Lisa Wilkinson then sent the tabloids into a lather ahead of the release of her biography in late 2021, and the year ended with Sean Kelly’s portrait of Scott Morrison, which has quickly become the quintessential political exposé of our PM ahead of a new year that will see us back at the polling booths.
—Stefania Capogna, Non-Fiction Category Manager
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
by Dave Grohl
Read our review here.
‘So, I’ve written a book. Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (‘It’s a piece of cake! Just do four hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!’), I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand.’
Buy it here
The Mother Wound
by Amani Haydar
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. Writing with grace and beauty, Amani has drawn from this a story of female resilience and the role of motherhood in the home and in the world. In The Mother Wound, she uses her own strength to help other survivors find their voices.
Buy it here
Emotional Female
by Yumiko Kadota
Read a Q&A with Yumiko Kadota here and listen to our podcast with her here.
Yumiko Kadota was every Asian parent’s dream: model student, top of her class in medical school and on track to becoming a surgeon. A self-confessed workaholic, she regularly put ‘knife before life’, knowing it was all going to be worth it because it would lead to her longed-for career. But if the punishing hours in surgery weren’t hard enough, she also faced challenges as a young female surgeon navigating a male-dominated specialty. Eventually it was too much and Yumiko quit. Emotional Female is her account of what it was like to train in the Australian public hospital system, and what made her walk away.
Buy it here
The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison
by Sean Kelly
Read a Q&A with Sean Kelly here.
Australia wanted Scott Morrison. In a time of uncertainty, the country chose in 2019 to turn to a man with no obvious beliefs, no clear purpose and no famous talents. That we wanted Scott Morrison was the secret we did not know about ourselves. What precisely that secret is forms the subject of this book. In The Game, Sean Kelly gives us a portrait of a man, the shallow political culture that allowed him to succeed and the country that crowned him.
Buy it here
This Much is True
by Miriam Margolyes
Listen to our podcast with Miriam Margolyes here.
BAFTA-winning actor, voice of everything from Monkey to the Cadbury’s Caramel Rabbit, creator of a myriad of unforgettable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, Miriam Margolyes, OBE, is the nation’s favourite (and naughtiest) treasure. Now, at the age of 80, she has finally decided to tell her extraordinary life story – and it’s well worth the wait.
Buy it here
My Year Of Living Vulnerably
by Rick Morton
Listen to our podcast with Rick Morton here.
In early 2019, Rick Morton, author of acclaimed, bestselling memoir One Hundred Years of Dirt, was diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – which, as he says, is just a fancy way of saying that one of the people who should have loved him the most during childhood didn’t. So, over the course of twelve months, he went on a journey to rediscover love. To get better. Not cured, not fixed. Just, better. This is a book about his journey to betterness, his year of living vulnerably. It’s a book about love.
Buy it here
These Precious Days
by Ann Patchett
Read our review here.
As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this as she explores family, friendship, marriage, failure, success, and what it all means. Ranging from the personal – her portrait of the three men she called her fathers; how a chance encounter with Tom Hanks led to one of the most important friendships of her life; how to answer when someone asks why you don’t have children – to the sublime – the unexpected influence of Snoopy; the importance of knitting; the pleasure to be found in children’s books – each essay transforms the particular into the universal, letting us all see our own worlds anew.
Buy it here
Will
by Will Smith and Mark Manson
Read our review here.
One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.
Buy it here
Taste: My Life Through Food
by Stanley Tucci
Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the table. Taste is an intimate reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about growing up in Westchester, NY, preparing for and filming the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia, falling in love over dinner, and teaming up with his wife to create conversation-starting meals for their children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burnt dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.
Buy it here
It Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This
by Lisa Wilkinson
Listen to our podcast with Lisa Wilkinson here.
Lisa Wilkinson has lived much of her life in the public eye. One of Australia’s most respected journalists and media personalities, her warm, intelligent and elegant presence has graced our television screens for many years, where she has shared, shaped and even shifted many important national conversations. But it all could have been so different …
Buy it here
We’re rounding up the Best Books of 2021 — check it out!
All the big winners from the 2022 ABIAs!
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