Grief & Loss

An informative, empathetic and accessible guide to understanding childhood grief at every age, which will help caretakers to support children mourning after loss. From Dr Corinne Masur, an award-winning clinical psychologist specialising in grief and mourning, comes a necessary and impactful guide to understanding children's grief from the inside and to guiding children through loss, from the death of a...

'A comforting support group in book form. A must-read for grievers.' Ellidy Pullin 'A wise guide for anyone who has loved and lost.' -Indira Naidoo Sally Douglas and Imogen Carn met after the sudden deaths of their mothers only months apart. Struck by the lack of resources that spoke about grief in an honest yet uplifting way, they launched the...

A sexy, blackly comic mystery, where the impossibility of closure and a desire to fix the past collide. All-round chaos merchant Nell Jenkins has returned to her small hometown to fulfil family duties for the mother and brother she's barely seen since she escaped as a teen. But her homecoming isn't the triumph it should be. She has nothing to...

An intensely transformational story of how grief became gratitude in the presence of a humble herd of cows. An unexpected sanctuary from grief... a tonic for the soul — Mary Costello An intensely transformational story of how grief became gratitude in the presence of a humble herd of cows. Being With Cows details the incredibly moving story behind the tragic...

'Illuminating, inspiring and intensely practical' HUGH MACKAY, author of The Good Life 'Brimming with pathos and profound insights' KON KARAPANAGIOTIDIS, author of The Power of Hope Of all the experiences we share, two universal events bookend our lives: we are all born and we will all die. We don't have a choice in how we enter the world, but we...

My family's story of healing, hope and living life in colour - a stunningly moving and uplifting memoir of love, loss and transformation, and navigating unimaginable heartbreak through parenting, work and life by the Brisbane media star and 35-year radio veteran In the wild, flamingos transform to their vibrant pink from the environment around them - a process of startling...

Exceptionally good... A frighteningly plausible nightmare Observer, Thrillers of the month Extraordinary: a unique blend of thriller, post-Covid dystopia and paean to the healing properties of nature Guardian Peter Heller's thrillers unfurl like campfire yarns New York Times An ever so subtly dystopian wilderness noir that speculates on the horrors of a post-pandemic society USA Today Kingfisher Lodge: a boutique...

Using the same simple but effective bonding concept from The Invisible String, which has been used for healing countless readers living with grief, The Invisible Leash illustrates the spiritual connection pet owners have with their animals. After Zach's dog, Jojo, dies, his friend Emily tries to comfort him with the "best news ever": an invisible leash around our hearts connects...

Oscar the cat lives on the third floor of a nursing home in Rhode Island, USA. At first glance, Oscar doesn't seem special. He's plain to look at and aloof. Like most cats, he's partial to treats and catnip. But in the summer of 2007, Oscar made headlines around the world. So what's so unusual about Oscar? He knows when...

Our society is still learning how to dignify the relationship between a pet and their human with proper mourning rituals. We have only recently allowed the conversation of how to grieve for our non-human family members to come front and centre. In examining the special bond between pets and their people, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson validates the grief that we feel...

Discover a personalised path to recovery with Honouring Our Animals, your daily source of solace and strength throughout the year. Grieving the loss of your beloved pet can be one of the most devastating and disorienting experiences of your life. When the absence feels unbearable, Honouring Our Animals offers more than solace. It provides a daily space for remembrance, healing,...

"A magical and hugely captivating journey - filled with such beauty, wonder and surprise. A simply marvellous read, hugely recommended" - Stephen Fry A real-life journey through the fantastical world of The Odyssey It started with a boy, of course. Seeking solace from the pain of heartbreak and her father's illness, Laura Coffey embarks on what was meant to be...

We are at a threshold. As we face uncertain futures, the familiar is falling away. This book invites us to embody new ways of being and connecting so we can navigate troubled times together. From the bestselling author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow, a beautifully packaged collection of 17 essays on meeting this moment with clarity, care, and skill....

The infrastructure of death is an undeniable part of urban life, yet it is often overlooked in the study of cities. Life and Death in Latin American Cities explores the intricate dynamics between the living and the dead in six Latin American cities: Bogotá, Medellín, Lima, Buenos Aires, Quetzaltenango, and Cuenca. Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research,...

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us haunted by feelings of anxiety, despair, and even anger. In this book, pioneering therapist Pauline Boss identifies these vague feelings of distress as caused by ambiguous loss—losses that remain unclear and hard to pin down, and thus have no closure. Collectively, the world is grieving as the pandemic continues to change our...

An award-winning exploration of the presence of the dead in the lives of the living A common remedy after suffering the loss of a loved one is to progress through the "stages of grief," with "acceptance" as the final stage in the process. But is it necessary to leave death behind, to stop dwelling on the dead, to get over...

Living Through Loss provides a foundational identification of the many ways in which people experience loss over the life course, from childhood to old age. It examines the interventions most effective at each phase of life, combining theory, sound clinical practice, and empirical research with insights emerging from powerful accounts of personal experience. The authors emphasize that loss and grief...

Why life's shortness - more than anything else - is what makes it meaningful. Death might seem to render pointless all our attempts to create a meaningful life. Doesn't meaning require transcending death through an afterlife or in some other way? On the contrary, Dean Rickles argues, life without death would be like playing tennis without a net. Only constraints...

An engaging new translation of a timeless masterpiece about coping with the death of a loved one. In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a consolation...

Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us—as universal as it is painful—is central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. In Grief, Michael Cholbi presents a groundbreaking philosophical exploration of this complex emotional event, offering valuable new insights about what grief is, whom we grieve,...

Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us — as universal as it is painful — is central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. In Grief, Michael Cholbi presents a groundbreaking philosophical exploration of this complex emotional event, offering valuable new insights about what grief...

Taking its cue from Michel de Montaigne, this book asks what COVID-19 can teach us about the 'art of living'. It examines eight themes from a philosophical perspective, including attitudes to old age, populism, and life under lockdown, arguing that the crisis presents opportunities to create a more just society and change our lives for the better. French philosopher Michel...

Social media is full of dead people. Nobody knows precisely how many Facebook profiles belong to dead users, but in 2012, the figure was estimated at 30 million. What do we do with all these digital souls? Can we simply delete them, or do they have a right to persist? Philosophers have been almost entirely silent on the topic, despite...

An examination of the contemporary medicalization of death and dying that calls us to acknowledge instead death's existential and emotional realities. Death and Dying is a natural, inevitable, and deeply human process, and yet Western medicine tends to view it as a medical failure. In their zeal to prevent death, physicians and hospitals often set patients and their families on...

Traditional Western attitudes towards death deal with it as a painful inevitability, something that has to be navigated as a trauma and a taboo. They focus essentially on the ‘management’ of death, an anthropocentric practice prioritising the human life above every other type of existence. Patricia MacCormack explores how we can develop a ‘death activism’ – a variety of tactics...

A fascinating and moving history of the British and German war dead buried on enemy soil in the two world wars. Why do societies only remember their own national war dead? Today, the enemy dead might be largely hidden from view, but this wasn't always the case. During both world wars, Germans and Britons died in their thousands in enemy...

A philosophical exploration of aesthetic experience during bereavement. In Aesthetics in Grief and Mourning, philosopher Kathleen Marie Higgins reflects on the ways that aesthetics aids people experiencing loss. Some practices related to bereavement, such as funerals, are scripted, but many others are recursive, improvisational, mundane—telling stories, listening to music, and reflecting on art or literature. Higgins shows how these grounding,...

“He had a life-long love affair with devilled eggs, his homemade canned fig preserves, and buttermilk served in martini glasses garnished with cornbread.” —Obituary from Gulfport, Mississippi So-called "funeral food" is having a moment. Comforting casseroles, jugs of sweet tea, and creamy, cheesy potatoes—all these foods provide sympathy and sustenance for the bereaved. The Southern Sympathy Cookbook includes unexpectedly humorous...

A shocking true story of heartbreak and survival by Sarah Corbett Lynch, daughter of Jason Corbett - an Irish Times Number 1 bestseller and now the subject of NETFLIX documentary A DEADLY AMERICAN MARRIAGE. 'Honest and compelling' Sunday Independent 'Powerful, heartbreaking' Irish Times 'An enthralling read' Irish Daily Mail 'A powerful and poignant memoir that transforms loss into a legacy...

A moving middle grade story by Anica Mrose Rissi that will appeal to readers who loved The Thing about Jellyfish and Hello, Universe, about the enduring bond between twins: Anders, who has recently died, and Lily, who has to balance her grief and confusion with a brother who isn’t quite gone—and how to navigate a world that is moving forward...

From Molly Potter, best-selling author of How Are You Feeling Today? and What's Worrying You?, comes a picture book for starting conversations with children about death, bereavement, and what happens next. When someone dies, we can feel a whole host of different emotions, and explaining them to a child isn't so easy. This book uses clear, easy-to-understand language to answer...

Discover the Sunday Times bestselling collection from the TikTok sensation and author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. 'One of the most important poets of his generation' ANDREW MCMILLAN, author of Physical 'Powerful' DUA LIPA 'Redefines our idea of what an elegy can do, what it is for' ILYA KAMINSKY, author of Deaf Republic In this deeply intimate second poetry...

A beautifully guided journal that celebrates you and your life experiences, inspiring connection, nostalgia and love. Foreword by Petrea King, CEO of the Quest for Life Foundation. Celebrate your life experiences with this thoughtfully crafted guided journal. Via useful prompts, it will help you share with your loved ones the milestones, challenges, and everyday joys of your unique life journey....

The Girl on the Bathroom Floor is a raw and unflinching look at the moments most never share, the ones behind closed doors, on the bathroom floor, in your car, or hidden in the closet—where pain, fear, and grief seem to hit hardest. It's also a promise that, even there, you are still tenderly held by a God who grieves...

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die. These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but what about our afterlives? Thanks to the digital trails that we leave behind, our identities can now be reconstructed after our death. In fact, AI technology is already enabling us to "interact" with the departed. Sooner...

You Only Die Once is a spirited and funny yet profound and highly practical manual for anyone who yearns to show up more fully and wholeheartedly for their all-too-finite time on the planet. Oliver Burkeman, New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals How many Mondays do you have left? Does that question send you...

Konrad Michel, a leading psychiatrist and acclaimed expert, draws on decades of experience to offer necessary new ways of understanding—and preventing—suicide. After one of his first patients died by suicide, Michel devoted himself to researching self-harm. Writing vividly and personally, he recounts more than forty years of working with and learning from suicidal patients. Michel shows that suicide is not...

Thousands, perhaps millions, of people have had near-death experiences (NDEs). Why do so many report uncannily similar experiences? What are they—a simple trick of the mind and body, or something more? What are we to make of them, and do they tell us anything about the possibility of an afterlife? An illuminating and thought-provoking journey into the enigmatic territory where...

Dr Julie Beischel is a courageous, innovative pioneer who has brought immense respectability to a controversial area. — Larry Dossey, MD, bestselling author Dr Julie Beischel has spent most of her career investigating grief and after-death communication. Her research, along with that of many others, demonstrates that one of the most effective ways of addressing grief is recognising that our...

'A truly helpful, honest, and important trail map for the journey we all eventually must take through grief' - Steve Leder, New York Times bestselling author of The Beauty of What Remains 'An immense amount of knowledge and science around grief and the grieving process' - Colin Campbell, author of Finding the Words When social worker Lisa Keefauver became a...

A compassionate and practical way to approach end-of-life planning for you and your loved ones “End of life” can be a daunting, intimidating, and even scary phrase. But it doesn't have to overwhelm you. You have the power to make decisions about your future that help secure the well-being of your loved ones and bring a sense of comfort. And...

At Peace is the authoritative, informative, and practical follow-up to Being Mortal, focusing on end-of-life care for patients over the age of 65. Most people express a desire to die quietly at home. However, overly aggressive medical advice, coupled with an unrealistic sense of invincibility, often results in elderly patients dying in institutions while undergoing painful procedures, instead of experiencing...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Everything All at Once comes a beautiful poetry collection exploring motherhood, grief, the unending road to healing, and the redeeming power of love. The word radicle is defined as the root of a plant embryo, the first organ to appear when a seed germinates. It grows downward into the soil, anchoring the...

An award-winning classicist turns to Greek tragedies for the wisdom to understand the damage caused by suicide and help those who are contemplating suicide themselves. "Remarkable, brave and compassionate." — Rowan Williams, New Statesman In Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus the Tyrant, a messenger arrives to report that Jocasta, queen of Thebes, has killed herself. To prepare listeners for this terrible news,...

As his mother was dying, Philip Kennicott began to listen to the music of Bach obsessively. It was the only music that didn't seem trivial or irrelevant, and it enabled him to both experience her death and remove himself from it. For him, Bach's music held the elements of both joy and despair, life and its inevitable end. He spent...

Can we give Grandma a Viking funeral? Why don't animals dig up all the graves? Will my hair keep growing in my coffin after I'm buried? Every day, funeral director Caitlin Doughty receives dozens of questions about death. Here she offers her factual, hilarious and candid answers to thirty-five of the most interesting, sharing the lore and science of what...

When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralysed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from...

Long before the beginnings of civilisation, humans have been sacrificed and their flesh used to produce sacred foods and oils for use in religious rites. Originating with the sacred harvest of hallucinogenic mushrooms from the corpses of shamans and other holy men, these acts of ritual cannibalism and visionary intoxication are part of the history of all cultures, including Judeo-Christian...

As a practising mortician, Caitlin Doughty has long been fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies. In From Here to Eternity, she sets out in search of cultures unburdened by such fears. With curiosity and morbid humour, Doughty introduces us to inspiring death-care innovators and participates in powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in the West. She explores new...

Death is an inevitable fact of life. Throughout the centuries, humanity has sought to understand this sobering thought through art and ritual. The theme of memento mori informs medieval Danse Macabre, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Renaissance paintings of dissected corpses and "anatomical Eves," Gothic literature, funeral effigies, Halloween, and paintings of the Last Judgment. Deceased ancestors are celebrated...

When Richard Gosling's young daughter faced emergency surgery, a colleague carelessly asked what would happen if she died. In that moment, Richard was forced to picture his own daughter's funeral, and the people who are there to help families after the worst has happened. Aged 40, Richard left his job in the public service and started preparing coffins, driving hearses,...

In Sympathy

'I have no words.' This is so often our response to grief and loss, whether we are dealing with it ourselves or consoling others. Elizabeth's father took his own life in 2012. Unable to find words of her own to write about what had happened, Elizabeth took them instead from the 2006 Penguin Classics edition of Twelve Angry Men, a...

An unflinching and profoundly moving account of caring until death, from Booker-Prize-longlisted Sarah Perry. Please read this book. It may very well change how you live – Rachel Clarke I was spellbound – Kathryn Mannix Death of an Ordinary Man is an unforgettable account of this universal aspect of life. It is not a book about grief; it is a...

Death in war matters. It matters to the individual, threatened with their own death, or the death of loved ones. It matters to groups and communities who have to find ways to manage death, to support the bereaved and to dispose of bodies amidst the confusion of conflict. It matters to the state, which has to find ways of coping...

The visual history of how we deal with death—grief, mourning, funerals, symbols, and ceremonies—is fascinatingly rich. Focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and travelling from Victorian England to the US, Beyond the Veil is a visual tour through this curious world, charting the often peculiar and at times macabre ways in which the living memorialise the dead. Humans...

History is dominated by the A-list deaths—Queens beheaded, Archdukes assassinated. But what about everyone else? How did ordinary people through history prepare for the end, depart this life, grieve their loved ones and imagine what came next? From the professional death-watchers of the Middle Ages to the fabulous Victorian funeral garments that kick-started fast fashion, historian and bereavement counsellor Molly...

Engaging, funny, and unflinching essays about coming of age as a transplant patient and living each day as a gift Adina Talve-Goodman was born with a congenital heart condition and survived multiple operations over the course of her childhood, including a heart transplant at age nineteen. In these seven essays, she tells the story of her chronic illness and her...

An illuminating, witty and highly moving story of making and listening to music and its role and impact on grief. When her father dies, music historian and trombonist Dr Emily MacGregor finds that music has become too much. Listening, let alone playing, music is suddenly too difficult. This is problematic given that she's a broadcaster, writer and academic working with...

'These essays about love, loss, and memories of night voyages with her dad glow from within, like phosphorescence on the sea. Just what we need in times like these.' - Diana Wichtel 'Evocative, lyrical, surprising, Times Like These is built from a heart that bursts out of every page.' - Toby Manhire Childhood, family, and death; anxiety and release; grief...

In these essays, Toynton remembers her emigre relatives, some of whom left Germany as soon as Hitler came to power, others only escaped later. Evelyn Toynton's relatives, German-Jewish refugees all, had grown up thinking of themselves as Germans first and Jews second. Her portraits of them, subtly comic when depicting the Germanic traits they retained throughout their lives, take on...

The three protagonists in this memoir are dead: a mother, a father, and a sister. A bookish and artistic family living in a beautiful old house in a pleasant part of Toronto. Two girls growing up in the 60s and 70s. All seems well until one of them begins to manifest signs of distress, leading, eventually, to a diagnosis of...

WINNER OF THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION The Globe and Mail: Books to Read in Fall 2023 The Globe and Mail Best 100 Books of 2023 CBC Books Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2023 Martha Baillie's richly layered response to her mother's passing, her father's life, and her sister's suicide is an exploration of how the body, the...

The Mahogany Pod is a moving portrayal of a joyful love affair that was cut short by a terminal illness after just one exhilarating year and an inspirational account of vulnerability, reconciliation, and learning to live fully after loss. "Gorgeous ... her narrative packs a world of feeling within it, rendering a poignant look at how love can unfold even...

In 2004, bad boy Billy Fingers Cohen, a homeless small-time drug dealer and addict in a state of drug-induced euphoria, ran into a busy intersection and was killed instantly by a speeding automobile. He left behind a grieving sister. For weeks she struggled with grief and tried to make sense of Billy's seemingly wasted life and tragic death. A few...

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to The Azaylia Foundation. Strong is the moving and heartbreaking memoir from celebrity campaigner, endurance athlete, and father of an angel, Ashley Cain. Charting his daughter's birth and the fight for her life when she was diagnosed with leukaemia at 7 weeks old, Ashley reflects on...

Fifteen Australians tell their stories of surviving suicide and finding the way back to a better life. Every day, nine Australians take their own lives. Nineteen years ago, John Brogden came very close to adding his name to these statistics. But John survived and, since his recovery, he has become a passionate voice for mental health and suicide prevention. Now...

A Mail on Sunday Best Memoir 2024 ‘Truly compelling.’ Cathy Rentzenbrink ‘Breathtaking … I loved it.’ Fern Britton ‘Courageous. Inspiring. Hopeful.’ Alastair Campbell 'Gripping' Observer ‘Brave and raw’ Daily Mail 'An amazing story, powerfully told' Mail on Sunday An unforgettable memoir and manifesto for living, from the woman who redefined magazines for the 21st century Having suffered the unimaginable loss...

"Our marriage was, from any conventional point of view, wildly implausible; and you, my dear son, are the miraculous product of this beautiful, rather crazy, and all too brief love affair." When Dylan Riley received the devastating news that his wife, Emanuela, had cancer, he began writing blog posts describing the anguish and disarray brought by her worsening symptoms. Perdita...

When Stacey Heale's husband, Greg, was diagnosed with incurable cancer on their daughter's first birthday, it felt like her life as she knew it was drawn to a halt. Confronted with the end of her relationship and her family as she knew it, Stacey started contemplating the realities of life and death—and the fundamental differences between our expectation and reality....

A profoundly moving memoir on grief and resilience In January 2024, during a period of personal crisis, Gideon Haigh abruptly started writing the story of the night his seventeen-year-old brother Jasper was killed, finally facing how it had shaped the rest of his life. Seventy-two hours later he stopped. Dark, raw, and revealing, My Brother Jaz explores how it feels...

After I swim, I watch an osprey hanging in mid-air. If those who came before really do dissolve and dissipate, and if their cells really are all around us, then that bird is held there by Mum and Peter and billions of others of the long-dead. The osprey is kept aloft by absences. Perhaps I am too. When her husband...

Want to make sure you’re not just alive . . . but truly living? Start by contemplating your own death. Wondering what a life well-lived looks like? Eager to live a life that’s richer, bolder, and more unapologetically YOU? Then it’s time to stop running from the truth that your life is finite—and start facing your mortality head-on. Because nothing...

From USA Today bestselling author Kelly Cervantes, this deeply personal memoir explores the growth and perspective gained while navigating life’s unexpected asteroids and the craters they leave behind. After moving from a conservative Midwestern suburb to New York City to pursue an acting career, Kelly never could have imagined what life had in store for her—or how much she would...

Seeking Your Loved One on the Other Side by Matthew McKay offers guidance on how to connect with those who have passed and how to learn to love in the face of pain. This book shares a proven process that has worked for the author, as well as thousands of others, to communicate with deceased loved ones. It explores the...

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST SUMMER READ OF 2024 'Enthralling and packed with insights.' - BILL BRYSON 'A must-read.' - STEPHEN FRY 'Spectacular. Changed my perspective on the whole living world.' - CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN A groundbreaking exploration of the science of longevity from Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan __________________ How can science help us live better and longer? We...

In March 2020, Ben Masters' father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was never happier than when outdoors and spent his free time chasing butterflies. Despite his attempts to share this passion with his son, Ben was resistant. But as his father spent his final months confined to the house, unable for the first summer of his life to follow...

Grief is universal, but it's also as unique to each of us as the person we've lost. It can be overwhelming, exhausting, lonely, unreasonable, there when we least expect it and seemingly never-ending. Wherever you are with your grief and whoever you're grieving for, I Promise It Won't Always Hurt Like This is here to support you. To tell you,...

A magical and hugely captivating journey - filled with such beauty, wonder and surprise. A simply marvellous read, hugely recommended - Stephen Fry A real-life journey through the fantastical world of The Odyssey It started with a boy, of course. Seeking solace from the pain of heartbreak and her father's illness, Laura Coffey embarks on what was meant to be...

Conscious Grieving is a book for anyone seeking guidance and support after loss. Renowned grief therapist Claire Bidwell Smith combines her deeply personal experience of loss with her long career spent working with thousands of people to introduce a new approach to grief, one that promotes hope and even transformation. What does it mean to grieve consciously? Most of the...