Books about grief are often handed to us at the wrong time. There’s a small window of time that we allow ourselves to delve into loss, especially other people’s stories of loss. So let this list sit here and come to it when you most need it.
A Book that Educated Me about Death Around the World
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
This book changed my entire worldview of death and therefore sits at the top of my most recommended book list. Each chapter goes to a different country to explore their unique death practice. This isn’t a heavy read, it’s more eye opening than heart wrenching.
Growing up in the United States, death is often feared, avoided in conversation, and considered a terrible tragedy. Loss is hard to talk about here, but in other places, death has ritual and celebration attached to it.
I admire author Caitlin Doughty a lot- she advocates for death acceptance, has traveled the world to learn other culture’s death practices, worked at a crematory, owns her own funeral home, created a YouTube channel called, “Ask a Mortician,” and has written several best selling novels. Once I read one of her books, I read them all. You can go into a deep Caitlin Doughty dive and explore all her work that brings families closer to accepting death and celebrating life.
The Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is another good one, not so much about grief, more about how the fear of death controls our society.
A Book that Taught Me Grief and Love is the Same Thing.
Emily Halnon understands that grief and love are the same thing.
Loss will thrusts us into doing crazy things, if we let grief be our guide. To process the death of her mother, Halnon set her sights on not only running 460 miles through the Oregon section of the PCT, but beating the fastest known time too. A goal so completely consuming and crazy it actually make perfect sense to pursue. Grief can be a superpower, if we can find a place to let the emotions course through us.
To the Gorge: Running, Grief, and Resilience & 460 Miles on the Pacific Crest Trail by Emily Halnon
Tears fell down my cheeks on nearly every page, and not just because cancer is a ruthless bitch. What really got me was the love Halnon depicted in this book. The love for her mother is fierce. The love that surrounds her to get her to the finish line was even fiercer. The love of friends and dogs and family- it’s just so rich in these pages.
This book is a heavier read, but it balances the gut punch of grief with the brazen spirit that rises to meet the darkness of loss. This has become my favorite book about moving through grief and I’ll recommend it to anyone who listens.
Books for the Science Minded Folks
The Grieving Brain by Mary Frances O’Connor
Anyone else like to conceptualize emotions? Me too. This book is for the people who just want a concrete explanation as to what’s going on with us when we grieve.
First of all, I highly respect a woman with a PhD. Mary Frances O’Connor is a neuroscientist and psychologist who devoted decades to researching neurobiology, grief and loss. She’s an expert in the field and is able to boil her research down into something chewable, something we can all understand.
While grief can feel isolating, it’s a universal experience and there are some scientific answers as to what’s happening as our brains try to process loss and the new life in front of us.
O’Connor also wrote The Grieving Body, which I haven’t read yet but can’t wait to dive into.
A Book for People who Haven’t Yet Experienced Loss
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is an interesting book, one that will probably be shoved in your face as a griever and appears on all the lists about death, but not one I’m over the moon about recommending.
The title threw me for a loop.
I’ve experienced some magic after losing loved ones, ways of communicating that I thought might be impossible. I opened this book looking for that magical thinking: ways to still feel connected to the dead and wisdom for how to move through loss. I didn’t find that.
The term “magical thinking” according to Didion is “a form of temporary psychosis or extreme, skewed logic brought on by overwhelming grief.”
For example, Didion didn’t want to get rid of her husband’s shoes after he died because she thought he’d need them when he returned.
Didion plunges readers into the dark depths of loss, diagnoses, surgeries and sickness that never heal. The book immerses readers in the ugly, which for active grievers may not be that helpful. Personally, I was already quite familiar with the drudges, and when I open grief books, I am looking for a lesson, a way out, a universal truth that connects me to other experiences. I didn’t find that in this book.
But someone reached out to me about this book who hadn’t experienced a big loss yet, and they found the book moving and eye-opening, which is probably why this book is so highly acclaimed.
Death isn’t talked about enough in our culture. Bedside care isn’t talked about. We don’t know what it’s like until it’s our own family member sitting in the hospital bed, and that’s fucked.
So, all said and done, I would recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t experienced a major loss and is wondering what that might be like.
Poetry Books that Comforted Me Through Grief
While I was in active grief, I found poetry to be the easiest grief material to swallow. Just reading a poem or two at a time was really all I could read for a long time.
- Loss by Donna Ashworth – From her website: “I write to keep my mindset focused on the light. A survival tactic turned into a passionate purpose.” I love this!
- Harmony by Whitney Hanson – Became famous by reading her poems on social media. She’s only 23 and has several best selling poetry books!
- As a Waterfall by Sarah Rian – One of MANY of her books about grief and loss and love.
If you came to this blog post in the midst of deep grief, my heart goes out to you. I hope you know that you’re not alone and that loss is a universal human experience, which is conveyed through all of these books. Take your time with these titles, and it’s okay if you don’t get around to reading them for several years. It takes the time it takes.
This post contains affiliate links, which if you purchase a book through one of my recommended lists, I will earn a small commission. I only recommend books I have actually read and love.
If you have any book recommendations I didn’t mention, feel free to drop them in the comments and I’ll add them to my list. Thanks for reading!
Beth Henshaw 