You’ve probably noticed that everyone is reading Lena Dunham’s new memoir Famesick. Dunham’s second memoir – her first, Not That Kind of Girl, was published back in 2014 – unpacks how a toxic convergence of chronic illness, bad relationships, global fame, and burnout came to shape her twenties and thirties.

She details the whirlwind of media attention she received after creating and starring in Girls at 24, positioning this as a catalyst for the innumerable illnesses and conditions that wreaked havoc on her body and brain thereafter: from OCD, to endometriosis, to addiction. It’s everything you’d want from a memoir – equal parts candid, gripping, and comprehensive – providing a pretty much exhaustive account of the young adulthood of one of the foremost writers of our generation.

If you’ve read Famesick and are looking for another memoir to read – or you’re simply in the market for a good book – we’ve compiled a list of our favourites below: from a revered meditation on grief by the late, great Joan Didion, to an action-packed autobiography by the inimitable director Werner Herzog.

JOAN DIDION, THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING

The Year of Magical Thinking charts the year following the death of Joan Didion’s husband, John Gregory Dunne. In this memoir, Didion throws some of the less understood aspects of grief into painfully sharp relief: notably, she recounts how her thoughts are yet to catch up to her new reality, and in one particularly affecting moment she recalls the instinct to keep hold of Dunne’s shoes because “he would need shoes if he was to return” (the kind of irrational, ‘magical’ thinking referred to in the title). The memoir was almost immediately acclaimed as one of the most affecting works on grief and mourning ever written, but I’d recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether you’ve experienced loss or not (and, besides, as Didion writes: “it will happen to you. The details will be different, but it will happen to you.”) (SS)

ANNIE LORD, NOTES ON HEARTBREAK

Notes on Heartbreak is a memoir by British Vogue dating columnist Annie Lord that details the aftermath of a five-year relationship. Billed as “a love story told in reverse”, the narrative opens with Lord being unceremoniously dumped outside King’s Cross station, before going on to delve into the anatomy of heartbreak: from the crushing, soul-razing lows to the occasional moments of clarity and peace. Sentimental and warm without ever veering into saccharine, Notes on Heartbreak should be required reading for anyone in their twenties. (SS)

JULIA FOX, DOWN THE DRAIN

I first read Julia Fox’s memoir Down the Drain on a trip to New York City and found myself audibly gasping on the subway. From running away from home and travelling across the world to working as a dominatrix in a New York dungeon, every few pages are packed with anecdotes that seem to contain more life than some people experience in a lifetime.

What struck me most was Fox’s ability to be brutally honest with herself. There is no sugarcoating the chaos of her experiences, which makes the more touching moments – like the friendships she finds with women who become her anchors – all the more affecting. You cannot help but cheer her on as she continuously finds the strength to reset, time and time again. Every time I meet someone who thinks Julia Fox is just another celebrity, I make it my life’s mission to get them to read her book. (HD)

ELIZABETH WURTZEL, PROZAC NATION

Before it was developed into a film starring Christina Ricci, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America by Elizabeth Wurtzel was a memoir that divided a nation. An account of her experiences with clinical depression and addiction, Wurtzel does not shy away from the ugly reality of debilitating illness. Written in her early to mid-20s, the book has a sense of fleeting promise that perfectly captures losing the alleged “best years” of your life to your own mind.

While Wurtzel’s writing itself has mostly been praised, many critics took issue with how she comes across. The term “self-indulgent” was, and continues to be, used time and time again to describe the book. In some ways, there is truth to that. But in others, the moments that might be deemed shallow or whiny are what feel most real about it. Wurtzel perfectly demonstrates how a mental spiral can make a person’s world close in on itself. As she says in the book, “mental illness is so much more complicated than any pill that any mortal could invent”. (HD)

LAMYA H, HIJAB BUTCH BLUES 

I picked up Hijab Butch Blues at Aesop’s annual pride initiative, Queer Library, last year because I wanted to learn and understand more about the queer lives that don’t often get represented (“A book is not supposed to be a mirror. It’s supposed to be a door,” as Fran Lebowitz says). Lamya H grew up as part of a Muslim family in a Middle Eastern country, experiences completely different to my own non-religious London upbringing. And yet her writings about her relationship with her sexuality, struggles with queer dating, and efforts to allow herself to be vulnerable enough to form real connections with people resonated with me more so than almost any other book I’ve read. I wasn’t expecting to relate so strongly to Lamya or to feel so seen. The fact that I did shows how powerful memoirs are, and how magical reading is – once you’re through the door you never know who, or what, you’re going to find. (AP)

TINA BROWN, THE VANITY FAIR DIARIES 1983-1992

All the celebrity gossip you will ever need from a memoir! If you are interested in magazines, especially when they were at the height of their decadent heyday, this is the book for you. Following Tina Brown during her years as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, the diaries are a fascinating insight into what it takes to create a successful magazine, the cutthroat politics of Condé Nast, and the cultural and political milieu of 80s New York when money was absolutely flying around. Anyone who was anyone at the time makes an appearance in the diaries – Brown mingled with them all and recorded her amusing judgements for posterity. If you enjoy this, I would also recommend Graydon Carter’s When the Going Was Good and Dana Brown’s Dilettante. (And Griffin Dunne’s The Friday Afternoon Club, which isn’t about magazines, but does include some fun celebrity anecdotes – and his father was a high-profile contributor to Vanity Fair, so I’m sneaking it in). (AP)    

DEREK JARMAN, MODERN NATURE

Despite covering a similar time period, Derek Jarman’s diaries couldn’t be more different to Tina Brown’s. Shortly after being diagnosed with Aids in 1987, the filmmaker and artist bought a little fisherman’s cottage next to a nuclear power plant in Dungeness and began planting a garden. As he chronicles the fate of each new plant and the struggles to grow anything in such barren land, he weaves in details of his past, his own increasingly sick body, the art he was still making until the end, and the rising number of friends dying around him. (AP)

SALLY MANN, HOLD STILL

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve recommended photographer Sally Mann’s memoir, Hold Still. It’s one of the most inspiring, poetic, thoughtful and intelligent books I’ve read (and reread), and I always find solace in Mann’s wisdom. While there’s no celebrity gossip here, her family history is filled with enough salacious incidents to satisfy the memoir-reader’s itch for something juicy. But alongside that are explorations into the creative process, photography (and its ability to be both transcendent and harmful), the landscape and troubled history of the American South, motherhood, and the international controversy her work has caused over the years. (AP)

WERNER HERZOG, EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AGAINST GOD AND ALL

A lot of Werner Herzog’s memoir reads like fiction, or... a Werner Herzog film. Yes, there are life-threatening journeys through the jungle with crazed actor Klaus Kinski and descents into active volcanoes, but moments from his ‘normal’ life are equally bizarre. From playing with a cache of Nazi weapons in the forest as a child, to the time he was almost snatched away by a witch, to his time as a rodeo clown and smuggler, it’s unclear what actually 100 per cent happened and what’s an “ecstatic truth”. Even the more banal moments are delivered in a deadpan style that only Herzog could achieve, conjuring up his deep Bavarian voice. “I can still milk a cow, and I recognise others who can as well.” (TW)

DEBORAH LEVY, THE COST OF LIVING

I’m at a point where I am generally quite tired of men’s voices. For me, there is often more value and pleasure in reading about women’s lives, especially when they are older and can share some wisdom for the road ahead. The Cost of Living is the second – and my favourite – in a trio of memoirs by renowned writer Deborah Levy. It doesn’t necessarily need to be read in conjunction with the other two; it’s a self-contained story written by the author in the wake of her divorce. That might sound unrelatable, but really, at its heart, it’s about a woman trying to establish a new model of living from the one she imagined would be hers. Amid the autobiographical passages, she takes many fascinating tangents into the experiences of other writers and artists, and reflects on selfhood, friendship, family, home, love, writing, and more. It’s a book that really stays with you. I’ve read it more than once and, each time, it feels a bit like becoming embroiled in an engrossing conversation with a stranger in a bar or at a dinner or wherever, and being captivated as she tells you about her life. (ED)

NINA STIBBE, LOVE NINA

Nina Stibbe was 20 when she moved from Leicester to London in the 1980s to work as a live-in nanny for Mary-Kay Wilmers, the longtime editor of the London Review of Books. Looking after the two sons of Wilmers and her ex-husband, film director Stephen Frears, Stibbe found herself in the heart of Primrose Hill’s literary intelligentsia. Love, Nina, is composed of the less-than-starry-eyed letters she wrote home to her sister during these years, dryly narrating the eccentric comings and goings of family life in this brilliant and unconventional household. This is one of the most charming and deeply comforting books I’ve ever read. It’s also hilarious. I return to it whenever I feel like I need to read something restorative and it never fails to make me feel happier. (ED)