Top 5 Musician Memoirs That Hit Harder Than the Albums

Rock star memoirs where the writing is so good you start to worry the music was just a warm-up.

1. 1

   Just Kids — Patti Smith

   A love letter to Robert Mapplethorpe and broke 1970s New York, and it's the rare memoir that won a National Book Award on merit, not fame.

2. 2

   Crying in H Mart — Michelle Zauner

   Grief, Korean food and family, written so precisely that even Japanese Breakfast fans admit the book might be her masterpiece.

3. 3

   Chronicles: Volume One — Bob Dylan

   Rambling, cagey and probably half made up, which is exactly why it reads like a lost Dylan album in prose.

4. 4

   Born to Run — Bruce Springsteen

   Bruce writes about depression and his father as honestly as he writes about the E Street Band, and the honesty is what stays with you.

5. 5

   Life — Keith Richards

   It's every bit as debauched as you'd hope, and also smarter about guitar tunings and friendship than it has any right to be.