The memoir that changed my mind – 11 experts share a perspective‑shifting read

Our beliefs aren’t fixed. They’re shaped, stretched and sometimes overturned by the ideas we encounter as we move through life. For many of us, memoirs are the moments where that shift happens, through an argument that unsettles us or an inspiring story that re-frames how we see the world. We asked 11 academic experts to share a memoir that challenged their assumptions and changed their thinking in a lasting way. Read more: The book that changed my mind – 12 experts share a perspective-shifting read 1. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir (1958) Penguin Classics I first read Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter when I was quite young. I still imagined the self as something waiting to be uncovered – a private, essential core beneath family, society and the expectations that begin to shape us long before we know their names. Beauvoir unsettled that belief. In her memoir, identity is not something found intact, but something made over time – often through the difficult unlearning of what once seemed unquestionable. I was struck by the idea that becoming oneself can involve a kind of departure: from the life others have imagined for us and from versions of ourselves we had mistaken for our own. That thought has never quite left me. We inherit ways of seeing so quietly that they can feel like instinct, even truth. Beauvoir made me understand that becoming oneself is not only a journey inward. Sometimes it begins when we recognise the imprint of all that has shaped us and shed what, in the end, is no longer ours to keep. Katayoun Shahandeh is a lecturer in History of Art and Museology 2. An Autobiography by Robin George Collingwood (1939) Hoar Press Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943) was an archaeologist and professor of metaphysical philosophy. His autobiography is a short book (167 pages in its first printing), by a man who realised he had little time to live – he had already a suffered number of serious strokes. The memoir details the development of his thought. Yet, it is also a profound and accessible reflection on the nature of philosophical enquiry and a commentary on intellectual life generally, as well as the rise of fascism. The book shows that it is possible to be insightful while writing in plain English. Here, Collingwood expresses a truth about philosophy, history and politics that his contemporary George Orwell made slightly later regarding literature and writing. As an academic political theorist and historian, it brought me to recognise that all thought, even the most abstract philosophy, owes its meaning to the cultural and historical contexts in which it arose – that there is no view from nowhere. And it is just a joy to read! Colin Tyler is a professor of applied ethics and political theory 3. Moving Zen: Karate as a way to Gentleness by C.W. Nicol (1975) Karate entered my life when I was 15. Growing up on a council estate in Wales, my life choices felt limited. Karate nurtured a sense of identity and belonging. However, reading Moving Zen: Karate as a Way to Gentleness offered something deeper. Paul H. Crompton Ltd The vivid descriptions of karate training in 1960s Tokyo stirred something powerful within me – hope. Hope that led to a desire to live a life bigger than I had been born into. Moving Zen inspired me and changed my mindset. Instead of seeing limitations, I began to see possibilities. Instead of thinking that living in Japan was something “other people” did, I started to believe I could follow the path shown by my fellow country man, the book’s author C.W. Nicol. Reading Moving Zen did not just broaden my horizons; it liberated my thinking and showed me a potential future, one that I would eventually realise many years later. Lyn Jehu is a lecturer in community football development 4. On Agoraphobia by Graham Caveney (2022) Graham Caveney’s marvellous memoir records his life with agoraphobia, which he calls his “intimate stranger”. Picador Most readers will not know much about this condition. Unlike clinical anxiety or depression, it’s not a more severe version of something we’re familiar with. Caveney’s experience inspires awe, but he doesn’t pretend to dissipate agoraphobia’s intransigent mysteriousness. If, like me, you thought medical science had it tapped, Caveney’s troubles will change your mind. Medicine offers some consolation: “I will certainly take ‘illness’ over … other descriptions that have come my way: weakness of character, moral laxity, failure of willpower.” But otherwise it has brought Caveney only disappointment, or worse. With dark humour, he cites his ten false diagnoses, well-intentioned clinicians, their useless advice. Ultimately, “where psychiatry failed, drink came to the rescue”. Fortunately, Caveney has other resources: literature, history, biography, cinema and self-reflection. Like an avid bee, he flits between these disparate fields, extracting nectar at every stop, enthralling the reader and deepening his relationship with the “stranger” at the same time. Sarah Richmond is an honorary associate professor of philosophy 5. Sugar and Slate by Charlotte Williams (2002) Charlotte Williams’ memoir Sugar and Slate, first published in 2002, was republished in 2023 as part of Penguin’s Black Britain: Writing Back series. It was selected by Booker Prize-winning author and series editor Bernadine Evaristo. Penguin Books Williams describes herself as Welsh-Guyanese, “brown” and “black”. The title of her book refers to a staple product from each country – both shaped by British colonial history and both reflected in Williams’ own identity. Like the title, the book’s tone and contents incorporates seemingly disparate qualities. It tells humorous stories of growing up in 1960s Llandudno – a north Welsh seaside town – alongside frank accounts of the pressures on her family’s international, interracial relationships and Williams’ sense of belonging in multiple places and cultures. As it has been for me, the memoir is a gift to readers who have struggled to articulate mixed and multiple identities, extending beyond nationality and ethnicity. Sarah Olive is a senior lecturer in English literature 6. Waterlog by Roger Deakins (1999) Vintage The naturalist and radical free thinker Roger Deakins travelled the British Isles, swimming in rivers, lakes, canals, estuaries and moats. Waterlog kicked off the wild swimming movement in the UK and his child-like awe of the natural world is intoxicating. He is a haphazard adventurer, and his excitement and chaos hooks you. The pages swim with the sensory pleasures of dipping in the countryside – the sounds of birds, the fish that swim around his ankles, the feel of the current on his skin. I have chased his secret pools and ripped my trousers on barbed wire seeking the treasure of a Deakins swim spot. Those experiences are never quite as perfect as Deakins’ prose, but because of his book, I always carry that sense of possibility for the elemental change that wild swimming offers. Emily Zobel Marshall is a professor of postcolonial literature 7. The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (1989) In the 1990s I was a reporter, correspondent and editor, caught up in the adrenaline-fuelled endeavour of bringing a newspaper into being. Granta Books Every day we started again without reflecting on what we did, how and why we did it. It was often thrilling but we knew grubby things went on, even if we preferred not to acknowledge them. I can’t remember exactly when I read The Journalist And The Murderer by Janet Malcolm. It’s about an American journalist investigating a man accused of murdering his wife, pretending to help exonerate him, while secretly convinced of his guilt. “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible,” Malcolm asserted. In the self-serious world of American journalism, the book sparked fierce ethical debate but in British newsrooms it landed without a ripple. Reading it helped me understand how unmoored from ethics some journalists had become and confirmed me in my decision to leave newspapers. A few years later, came the phone-hacking revelations and the Leveson enquiry. Simon Hinde is programme director for journalism and publishing 8. Equal Justice Under Law by Constance Baker Motley (1998) Reading about the life of Constance Baker Motley didn’t change my mind – it opened it, along with a floodgate of tears of admiration, gratitude and recognition. Baker Motley was a was a black lawyer who forged many paths. Her work at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in the United States was pivotal to the outcomes in the Brown v Board of Education cases, which challenged the operation of the separate but equal rule and established that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Dismantling discrimination in education was central to the civil rights movement. Baker Motley went on to argue cases leading to the desegregation of universities in Mississippi, Georgia and Florida, among others. An interview with Baker Motley. She also represented Martin Luther King when he and others were arrested in Birmingham. It was there that he wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. Most impressive was her advocacy for children arrested for protesting in Birmingham. They were freed. Baker Motley faced setbacks and incivility but maintained her dignity and focus throughout her stellar career. Her life story speaks to every woman whose contributions have been unappreciated or whose worth has been overlooked and who has been paid less. She is inspirational. Fareda Banda is a professor of law 9. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005) As a writer, I’m certain that no memoir list is complete without at least one work by Joan Didion. Fourth Estate Didion’s work offers a certain magic; at once, she remains profound and candid, painting painful emotions with unrelenting honesty. The Year of Magical Thinking is no exception. The work follows Didion in the year 2003: when her husband and fellow writer, John Gregory Dunne died from a sudden cardiac event and during which their daughter, Quintana, remained unconscious in hospital. Didion dubs the work her “attempt to make sense of the period that followed”, navigating grief through a mixture of diary excerpts and recounted memories. The Year of Magical Thinking made me understand memoir as survival. Through a striking balance of brevity and lucidity, Didion’s seminal work extended a hand in times of darkness, offering a vade mecum for mourning. It changed my mind about love’s ability to persist, the writer’s role as companion and the profound impact of loss on one’s sense of time. Jade King is a teaching fellow in creative writing 10. Vietnamerica by GB Tran (2010) My first encounter with Vietnamerica, a graphic memoir about how a second-generation Vietnamese American comes to term with his family’s fractured past, was accidental. Random House Being a Chinese international student desperate for a PhD offer, I found Asian-American identity research deeply relatable. Vietnamerica popped up during my research, frequently mentioned and praised by leading scholars. My first reading of it during 2022 left me confused and a bit lost due to its interwoven family histories. It was only through repeated re-readings during my PhD that I began to realise how the memoir shows the multiple sides of history. As I encountered my own questions about identity and racialised experiences, Vietnemarica prompted me to rethink the gains and losses of migration. It also made me consider how private memories have the power to resist the homogenising pressure of history-telling from a dominant perspective. Personal stories allow humanity to shimmer through when official records and academic terms seek to flatten and even erase it. Yi Wang is a PhD candidate in education 11. Invisible Differences by Julie Dachez and Mademoiselle Caroline (2016) Oni Press,US A memoir that changed my mind was Julie Dachez and Mademoiselle Caroline’s 2016 La Différence Invisible (Invisible Differences). Before this, I thought I knew what autism was: it was male and maths and childhood, it was not me. However, Dachez’s graphic memoir, expertly drawn by Mademoiselle Caroline, portrays a different perspective. An adult woman who loves literature, learning and curling up with her cats – a woman who wants friends but is often unsure how to make them. In short, a woman rather like myself. In sharing her experience as a late-diagnosed autistic woman, Dachez’s memoir showed me that my original perspective was limited, helping to change my mind about autism in general and raising the possibility that I could be autistic. Engaging with this first-person narrative spurred me to research autism and women further and was the first step in my journey to receiving an official diagnosis. Cassia Hayward-Fitch is a visiting researcher in comics cultures Has a memoir ever changed your mind? 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