Grief Science

When a loved one passes unexpectedly, the person left behind can lose their bearings. After the sudden loss of her mother, Chelsea Hanson, a nationally recognized grief educator and founder of With Sympathy Gifts and Keepsakes, didn't know where to turn for help, what to do next, or how to put the pieces of her life back together. Hanson's The Sudden Loss Survival Guide gathers everything that she learned during her own recovery process and provides an indispensable road map to aid those who've experienced a life-changing loss.

At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it's clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map. Let's face it: Most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We're awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit.

As a hospice chaplain, Kerry Egan didn't offer sermons or prayers unless they were requested; in fact, she found, the dying rarely want to talk about God, at least not overtly. Instead she discovered she'd been granted an invaluable chance to witness firsthand what she calls the "spiritual work of dying" - the work of finding or making meaning of one's life, the experiences it's contained, and the people who have touched it, the betrayals, wounds, unfinished business, and unrealized dreams.

"Look at the birds". Through the painful days of the pandemic stuck in her home, Courtney Ellis found herself looking down in despair. Soon after, her beloved grandfather died unexpectedly. It was around this same time that Ellis took up watching birds. "Took up" might not be exactly right—as she puts it, "the switch flipped," and she's been borderline obsessed with birds ever since. Looking Up is a meditation on birding as a practice of hope.

Austen Years is a deeply felt and sensitive examination of a writer’s relationship to reading, and to her own family, winding together memoir, criticism, and biographical and historical material about Austen herself. And like the sequence of Austen’s novels, the scope of Austen Years widens successively, with each chapter following one of Austen's novels. We begin with Cohen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she raises her small children and contemplates her father’s last letter.

Lauren Pailing is born in the '60s, and a child of the '70s. She is 13 years old the first time she dies. Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the '80s, becomes a Londoner in the '90s. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her - while Lauren enters a brand new life, too. But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him. And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found....

Too often, the public abortion debate depicts the experience of ending a pregnancy in falsely simplistic terms. Anti-abortion activists falsely contend that abortion is always emotionally damaging for the pregnant person, while pro-choice activists focus on honoring bodily autonomy and personal conscience. In particular, the pro-choice movement fails to acknowledge that some people experience abortion as a kind of loss. A Complicated Choice addresses the fact that abortion stigma is ubiquitous, even among those who identify as pro-choice.

How to Die is both an absorbing excursion through some of Western literature’s most compelling works on the subject of death as well as an anecdote-driven argument for cultivating a better understanding of death in the belief that, if we do, we’ll know more about what it means to live a meaningful life.

The pain and shock when a child dies can seem unbearable. But expert-on-grief Katherine Fair Donnelly, who has suffered many personal losses, has gained wisdom and strategies for emotional recovery. By sharing, understanding, and accepting this tragic loss, bereaved parents, siblings, and others can cope with this intense grief.

Leo LOVES Christmas. And this Christmas needs to be absolutely perfect, because it’s the first one without Mum. Only it all keeps going wrong! The fairylights are in a tangle, the tree’s wonky and the Christmas biscuits taste AWFUL. Soon Leo decides he’s had enough – he makes a heartfelt wish that it would all GO AWAY. Then Leo wakes up on Christmas morning – and it’s gone!! All of Christmas! But Leo isn’t going to let it get away that easily. With the help of his best friends, Prisha and Ivan, he sets out on a mission to undo his wish and get Christmas back.

Charles Shilling is about to begin his day with a funeral… and it will only get worse from there. What seems like a harmless little investigation turns dark fast, and Shilling is in no state to hold back the tide of cruelty coming his way. Worse, with the rate he’s falling for Florin, he’s never been so vulnerable to revenge…

Natural, legal, and innovative after-death care options are transforming the paradigm of the existing funeral industry, helping families and communities recover their instinctive capacity to care for a loved one after death. Reimagining Death offers stories and guidance for home funeral vigils, advance after-death care directives, green burials, and conscious dying. When we bring art and beauty, meaningful ritual, and joy to ease our loss and sorrow, we are greening the gateway of death and returning home to ourselves, to the wisdom of our bodies, and to the earth.

National Book Critics Circle Award finalist David R. Dow confronts the reality of his work on death row when his father-in-law is diagnosed with lethal melanoma, his beloved Doberman becomes fatally ill, and his young son begins to comprehend the implications of mortality. "Every life is different, but every death is the same. We live with others. We die alone".

After experiencing two rare heart attacks at the age of 33—and a third a decade later—Michele DeMarco knows trauma intimately. Trauma breaks your relationship with time by upending your expectations, fracturing your memories and identity, and destroying your innocence. With poignant wisdom and refreshing insight, DeMarco explodes traditional myths of resilience and shows what it takes to thrive through any of life's challenges.

These stories wrestle with the experience of loss—of loved ones, of relationships, of a sense of self, of health—and forge a path to hope as characters fight their way forward. From bestsellers and SPFBO finalists to rising voices, 13 exceptionally talented authors explore the many facets of grief and healing through the lens of fantasy and sci-fi.

Losing my mother to a degenerative brain disease was a slow and agonising journey that taught me the depths of sorrow. Later, grieving my father, Captain Sir Tom, a beacon of hope during the 2020 pandemic, brought unique challenges. Balancing the world’s gratitude for his legacy with my private grief shaped the insights shared in these pages.

When a brother or sister dies, surviving siblings often receive little support or recognition of their pain. But their grief is real, and there is a way to recover from it. Through intimate, true stories and interviews with brothers and sisters who have lost a sibling, expert on grief Katherine Fair Donnelly provides valuable insight on how to survive this traumatic experience.

Failed father, failed husband, and failed scholar, Charles Hayden hopes to put his life back together with a new project: a biography of Caedmon Hollow, the long-dead author of a legendary Victorian children’s book, In the Night Wood, and forebear of his wife, Erin. Deep in mourning from the loss of their young daughter, they pack up their American lives, Erin gives up her legal practice, and the couple settles in Hollow’s remote Yorkshire mansion.

When he became an undertaker, Rupert Callender undertook to deal with the dead for the sake of the living. This book is his brilliant, unforgettable story—the life and work of the world’s first punk undertaker—but it's also about ordinary, everyday humanity and our capacity to face death with courage and compassion, to say goodbye to the people we love in our own way.

In this deeply affecting and uplifting book, Janet Wehr shares the real-life stories of her many years as a hospice nurse. Her first-hand account gives illuminating and comforting insight into the spiritual aspect of what occurs in the transition between life and death, highlighting the importance of the mind-body-spirit connection as it manifests in the dying process. It also gives a candid impression of hospices and hospice nurses and the services they can provide. All of Janet’s 46 personal stories are true, fascinating, heart-felt, and thought-provoking.