A selection of memoir and autobiography book covers published by Penguin.

New memoirs and biographies 2025

Reading lists

New autobiography books and memoirs to read this year

Mark Ronson

There’s a reason Mark is recognized as a true master of his craft. With countless hours dedicated to perfecting his artistry, this book stands as a testament to his passion, perseverance, and unwavering love for music. In classic Mark fashion, his storytelling is vivid, humorous, and refreshingly honest. He doesn’t simply recount history, he transports you into it, leaving you wishing you could step back in time and experience those legendary nights during one of the most defining eras of hip-hop, in New York and across the world. Mark wasn’t merely a witness to this movement . . . he was at the very heart of it.

'Compelling, wry, self-aware, genuinely endearing'

'Mark Ronson slams us into his early years—no-name kid, hustling with vinyls, big noise—then drags us through the sweat, smoke, and pulsing floors of the cultures that raised him. It’s all velocity and volume, rattling the bones until you crawl out the other side wrecked, wired, and itching to do it all over again.'

'A remarkable achievement in the deft ways it captures and intertwines Ronson’s own emergence, in all its conflicting fragility and cockiness, neurosis and steely ambition, with the times that surrounded him.'

‘What happens when your music obsession catapults you beyond your wildest dreams? The answer is Night People – the most life-affirming coming-of-age story I’ve read in an age, with a soundtrack to die for. You know how your favourite record sounds? That’s how Mark Ronson writes.’

Relatively few got to truly experience the chaotic chemistry of 90’s New York nightlife. In Night People, Mark captures its short lived beauty in loving and vivid detail. He is our DJ, our guide through the city’s sonic subway system, playing his way from a broken home into the basements, bars and bunkers that changed music forever. This is a book about spending those finite late nights with your chosen family, the cast of castaways marooned on an island where music is the food source and the darkened streets of night time New York is the hunting ground. This is a ride you have to take.

'In Night People, Mark Ronson tells his own sweet, intimate, and sometimes extremely funny story of what it’s like to be inside an era of pure musical magic before anyone but you and your friends even know it’s happening. His is a perfect New York tale — the kind that makes you jealous you weren’t there, grateful for your own version, and racing to make a playlist so you can visit this world anytime you want. It’s also about the power of obsession with the thing you love, and how it can drive you to find your people, the ones who will eventually introduce you to yourself.'

Lizzie Goodman, author of the New York Times bestseller Meet Me in the Bathroom

'Night People is not just Mark Ronson’s origin story. It’s a snapshot of 1990s New York City from a figure at the epicenter of its culture. It’s a book about the life of a DJ, by a DJ, in the same groundbreaking way that Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential illuminated the life of a chef. And it’s also a lovely, sweet story about a small family and a tight community, even though you may know these people’s names well. This quadruple blend is not surprising: It comes from pop music’s master synthesist.'

Dan Charnas, author of the PEN Award-winning, NY Times Bestseller Dilla Time, and The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop.

'Mark Ronson’s transporting memoir is a New York bildungsroman about an uptown kid with a downtown heart that beats to hip hop while longing for a sound that’s all his own. Night People reads like a playlist of life's hard knocks and small triumphs that somehow flows effortlessly on the page, not unlike his talent as a DJ to mix songs that kept the crowd shaking on the dance floor.'

Griffin Dunne, author of the New York Times bestseller The Friday Afternoon Club

'In Night People, Mark Ronson goes time-traveling through his life and returns with a wry, sharp, moving, evocatively detailed story of discovery, and self-discovery, and of how it feels to fall head-over-heels in love with pop music.'

'Mark Ronson is the Zelig of the after hours world - taking everything in, then redefining a genre. Fascinating stuff'

'Super-producer Ronson drops the needle on his salad days, or nights, DJing in 1990s New York. His memoir is a coming-of-age tale of a music nerd discovering the allure of making people dance, and also a tribute to a vanished era of clubland in the city that never sleeps.'

FT Best Books of 2025 - Classical and Pop Music

How to Be a DJ in ‘90s New York City

Lady Gaga, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Dua Lipa, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, the Barbie soundtrack. Behind some of the biggest musical moments in the past two decades is one man: Mark Ronson. Now, his memoir Night People captures the music, characters, escapades and energy of his formative DJ days in '90s New York. 
 
Mark Ronson was born a night person. With hedonistic creatives for parents, parties became his playground. Yet, having moved to New York City from London at a young age, he always felt like a bit of an outsider, until discovering himself in the pulsing, unifying joy of the city’s parties and hip-hop scene. Each night brought a heady mix of music, ambition, danger, delight, and possibilities. Having well and truly caught the DJing bug, he worked to find his place and make his name in the city that never sleeps. 
 
Night People conjures the undeniable magic of '90s New York, when clubs were diverse, glamorous, a little lawless. It evokes the rush of a time and place where fashionistas and rappers on the rise danced alongside club kids and 9-to-5'ers – and invites us into the tribe of creatives and partiers who came alive when the sun went down. 
 
A heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Night People is the definitive account of a cultural moment and the making of a musical mastermind.

Mark Ronson

Praise for Night People

There’s a reason Mark is recognized as a true master of his craft. With countless hours dedicated to perfecting his artistry, this book stands as a testament to his passion, perseverance, and unwavering love for mus ...

'Compelling, wry, self-aware, genuinely endearing'

'A very good autobiography'

There’s a reason Mark is recognized as a true master of his craft. With countless hours dedicated to perfecting his artistry, this book stands as a testament to his passion, perseverance, and unwavering love for mus ...

'Compelling, wry, self-aware, genuinely endearing'

'A very good autobiography'

There’s a reason Mark is recognized as a true master of his craft. With countless hours dedicated to perfecting his artistry, this book stands as a testament to his passion, perseverance, and unwavering love for mus ...

'Compelling, wry, self-aware, genuinely endearing'

'A very good autobiography'

Articles featuring Mark Ronson

New autobiography books and memoirs to read this year

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