Books About Death or Grieving: Nonfiction

True stories of loss and recovery, plus science and support

Updated June 7, 2023
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Bittersweet : how sorrow and longing make us whole
Cain, Susan
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * The author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet explores the power of the bittersweet personality, revealing a misunderstood side of mental health and creativity while offering a roadmap to facing heartbreak in order to...
Blue nights
Didion, Joan.
Paper Book
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts...
The elements : a widowhood
Lister, Kat
Paper Book
What does it mean to become a widow at 35?In her mid-thirties Kat Lister lost her husband to brain cancer. After five years of being a wife and one of being a carer, in love and in and out of hospitals, she became a widow.In the year following his death Kat seeks refuge in stories of grief...
In love : a memoir of love and loss
Bloom, Amy
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A powerful memoir of a love that leads two people to find a courageous way to part--and a woman's struggle to go forward in the face of loss--that "enriches the reader's life with urgency and gratitude" (The Washington Post) "A pleasure to...
Notes on grief
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
From the globally acclaimed, best-selling novelist and author of We Should All Be Feminists, a timely and deeply personal account of the loss of her father: "With raw eloquence, Notes on Grief ... captures the bewildering messiness of loss in a society that requires serenity,...
The truth about grief : the myth of its five stages and the new science of loss
Konigsberg, Ruth Davis.
Paper Book
The five stages of grief are so deeply imbedded in our culture that no American can escape them. Every time we experience loss--a personal or national one--we hear them recited: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The stages are invoked to explain everything from how we will...
When breath becomes air
Kalanithi, Paul
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question, What makes a life worth living? ...
The year of magical thinking
Didion, Joan.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to...
You can't catch death : a daughter's memoir
Brautigan, Ianthe.
Paper Book
In all of the obituaries and writing about Richard Brautigan that appeared after his suicide, none revealed to Ianthe Brautigan the father she knew. Through it took all of her courage, she delved into her memories, good and bad, to retrieve him, and began to write.You Can't Catch Deathis...

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