1st person or 3rd person?

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Is a story of ones life more readable if written from a 1st person perspective, or third person as if it was fiction?

I always prefer to read third person narratives. It's especially distracting when it switches back and forth.

In general I think 1st person is a lot more engaging and readable.

If we are talking about an autobiography, I think 1st person is more appropriate too.

Julius Caesar wrote about himself in the 3rd person. I don't know how it played in the original Latin, but in the English translation it made him sound like a pretentious douche.

I think if you are writing about yourself then you should use first person. It would be odd to refer to yourself in third.

Thanks Guys,
At the moment, I am writing in a 1st person perspective, but I am finding it difficult to make it flow, seems to read more like a shopping list than an engaging story.
I was considering writing it so that people considered they were reading fiction, then upon finding pictures of my Children's Society notes in an appendix, being shocked to learn it wasn't a story at all.

1 - It's difficult to give a straight answer, it really depends on the case and type of story. For example, do you want to show the happenings not as facts but as interpretations, or do you want to be able to write what other characters are thinking/doing? Why don't you tell us a little bit about your story?
2 - You are writing a story, that's awesome! I love to read stories. Are you going to post it or send it to me please?
3 - I'm writing a story too, but I have a real problem: I don't know how to keep the conversations going! All my dialogues sound unnatural, I usually don't know what a character should answer to what the other said. It's usually more like conversations with a goal of getting information or showing the readers information, not a real conversation. My nt friend is helping with it.

I wish to write my life story, Ive been told so often I should, I started writing in the first person and showed it to a few at work, one girl said, "Ive learnt more about you from this than from all the years Ive known you", so Iam encouraged to continue, thing is, I can only relate what I can remember, and Iam writing facts, though I want to include the feelings, but only from my perspective as a child for instance I relate how my stepfather gave my sixpence to go to the hardware shop to buy a stick to be beaten with, and that the long walk for a five year old is a long time to be filled with such fearful anticipation.

I really cannot remember much in the way of dialogue and wouldn't want to invent such, its mainly an account of events and the effect they would come to have on me.

The book is at work so I cannot quote directly, but the first page is something like this:-

"Is that Daddy"?
These are the first words I recall uttering as I looked down from the window of our third floor flat in Scrutton Street Shoreditch, to see a lone figure walking past our fire escape, shrouded in a 1959 London fog.
"No" replied my Mother, without needing to look, my earliest and only memory of my Father, and it wasn't even him, just some anonymous stranger, unaware of impressing his image on an infant boys mind, at least a permanent reminder that I must have once held the concept of having a Father, of being part of a family.

I for one, would prefer it if you wrote it as though you were talking straight with me about yourself, like you were inviting me into your world.

As if we where having a beer together and I was telling you about myself?
Would that work in written form?

How would you write the paragraph I have submitted?

I like it, good voice, kind of mysterious because what happened to the father, why does the mother not even have to look? Good start.

speaking as a typical yank, I would use informal language and phrasing, in a conversational style as far from didactic as possible. write it as though you were talking TO me and seeking my understanding/comprehension, from one human to another.
the grammar/syntax are a bit dodgy but this is something like what I would have preferred to read-

"a long time ago, 1959 to be exact, i was chatting with my mum about my father, and i looked out the window of our third-floor scrutton street [shoreditch] flat, and saw a lone figure walking past our fire escape shrouded in the london fog. i pointed him out to my mom and asked her, "is that daddy?" - without so much as a glance out the window she told me no. the anonymous man in the fog was my earliest and only memory of my father but it was only a wishin' on my infant boy's mind, at best a durable reminder that i must've once held the concept of having a dad, of being part of an intact family."

That's because he was a pretentious douche.

Auntblabby has it right. He makes it easy and welcoming to read.

^^^

Fnord considers this to be a generally true statement.

Notwithstanding the fact that I think auntblabby is an amazing wordsmith, I like Nambo's original version better.