Best books to help soothe grief and loss from memoirs to manuals 2024
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Grief is not something you can prepare yourself for.
It's not a topic to read up on and study, or something you can get 'better' at. And yet, it is something we will all experience, at multiple stages of life. While it is a universal state of being, it is also an entirely individual one. We will all have unique relationships with the ones we lose, and a whole host of complex emotions can arise that take different forms, at different times of our lives.
However, while no one's grieving process will ever look exactly the same, there are similar strands that run through every experience.
Many people, in the wake of a loss, will seek out stories that reflect their own. Reading books on grief, whether they’re memoirs or self-help manuals, can be hugely comforting. Recommending books to read during this time can be tricky, as what works for one person may not work for another – sometimes reading the rawest of emotions from a stranger can feel too much when you’re dealing with those emotions yourself.
Other times, it can be a balm to know that you are not alone in the deepest of pains; that others have been there before you, and survived.
Even those not experiencing loss themselves but hoping to support friends or a family in their time of need can gain from reading books discussing the realities of grief. It can be incredibly hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and know what they need, but reading different perspectives can help us understand what others are going through, and what’s needed to offer compassion, empathy and support.
But perhaps, most of all, books on grief and death can help us grasp the inevitabilities of our lifetimes.
Our day-to-day existences are not guaranteed, and our own deaths or the deaths of the people we love, cannot be anticipated. This is a terrifying, bleak thought that most don’t want to consider and yet, accepting this reality, can hold the key to finding happiness.
Those who have endured the darkest of their days will often tell you that with the sorrow came a deeper appreciation for life. By understanding and facing the realities of death, and grief, we can feel better equipped for what lies ahead, with the knowledge that even when the very worst happens, we have so much more strength inside of us than we could ever know.
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The beauty of what remains by Steve Leder
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As the senior Rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in the world, Leder has sat beside thousands of death beds, and officiated at their funerals. For years, he offered words of comfort to those facing death, or in the throes of grief, yet he notes how unprepared he was for the death of his father. It was only in the wake of this loss, that he could truly consider the realities of death.
As the author of three other books, all offering spiritual guidance, this is Leder’s most personal as he talks about his experiences of death, and grief, from his work alongside what he learned losing his father. With advice for those in grief and those looking to support those grieving, Leder blends the spiritual with the practical, with advice on what to do with the belongings of the person left behind, and how to organise a funeral that truly celebrates the person you loved.
But alongside this are more philosophical musings, with the common thread discussing how “people do not really die when the heart stops beating” and that, instead, they can live on through the memories of their loved ones. He discusses how we can embrace our loved one’s legacy, while also facing that deep pain of losing someone.
His wisdom resonates, no matter what your faith, as he discusses how we can all become more comfortable discussing the realities of death, and grief, and carry that knowledge with us to live in more mindfully.
I Promise It Won’t Always Hurt Like This, Clare Mackintosh
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Going through grief is exhausting. Your body is facing a trauma, which disrupts sleep patterns, sometimes causing intense bouts of insomnia or feeling the need to block the world out.
It’s something ex-policewoman, and best-selling crime author Clare Mackintosh, discovered when she lost her son, Alex, at five weeks old. Eighteen years on, following that loss and having also faced the death of her father, Mackintosh wanted to capture that time, and all that she learned about grief from it.
The result is this easy-to-read book, containing 18 short, beautiful and compassionate reassurances on grief. While it’s tough to know exactly what people need to hear when faced with loss, the fact that Mackintosh is looking back on her grief, from a stronger place, makes it a comforting read for those facing fresh loss. It reassures that the hurt they’re currently experiencing will not always be so sharp and overwhelming.
Each reassurance is also bitesize, and the book can be picked up and put back down again, making it easily readable for those who struggle to have any energy to read.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
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This 1995 memoir that was eventually turned into a film starring Reese Witherspoon is a classic for a reason. Battered copies are handed through friendship groups, with the recipient being told “you must read this” as Strayed’s wisdom, and ability to pull herself up from rock bottom has been said to be life-changing for those who need her words. Particularly as grief can be faced not just from the traditional loss of a parent but also following the wake of a breakdown of a marriage, something Strayed is also facing.
Four years after losing her mother, Strayed finds herself utterly lost. She’s divorcing her husband, due to her own infidelity, and has been introduced to heroin by an ex-lover. In order to “save herself” she decides to do something radical and hike 1,100 miles alone along the Pacific Crest Trail.
As a novice hiker, the story of how she lost her mother, and the trauma of growing up with an abusive stepfather, unfolds as Strayed loses toenails but, eventually, finds her sanity once more.
Time Lived, Without Its Flow by Denise Riley
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There is no specific noun for the parent of a dead child, and much of this memoir grapples with how impossible – in the fresh, aftermath of grief – it can be to untangle your own thoughts, and put words to exactly how you’re feeling.
The first half is formed of diary-like entries, written by poet Riley, after the news of her son’s death, while the second half is written years later, as Riley tries to grasp lessons from her loss.
Unlike many books on grief, it is not a memoir, with few details of Riley’s life, or her son’s death, but instead covers the onslaught of emotions following loss and the violence of grief. At times, it’s so raw and confronting, depending on where a person is in their grief journey, it may be too tough to read. But those who can will gain remarkable insight that may help hold a mirror up to their own loss.
Currently available on Kindle.
Chase The Rainbow, by Poorna Bell
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Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45, and – despite more open and honest conversations surrounding mental health – the stigma surrounding mental health means so many still suffer silently. Bell faced the heart-shattering reality of this when, in 2015, her husband Rob died by suicide.
A punk rocker with a full and happy life, Rob struggled under the surface with mental health, something he hid under a bravado of machoism and self-medicated with heroin. In an attempt to better understand his death, and why so much stigma still remains surrounding suicide, Bell went on a journey spanning New Zealand, India and England to learn more about him.
The result is a beautifully written account of the pressure of masculinity, that aims to inspire more people to start a conversation about the reality of mental illness.
Grief is for people, Sloane Crosley
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A month after her house is robbed, Crosley loses her best friend and mentor to suicide. This account of that time, and the influx of emotions Crosley faced also at the time of the pandemic, when lives were being lost all around her, is surprisingly funny to read. The prose is messy and jumps all over the place, much like grief itself, and is a refreshing reminder that life can be both sad and funny at once.
Crosley mocks self-help books, and the (now debunked) ‘seven stages of grief’ and instead tries to look for the answers to her muddled emotions in art, and writing, while also celebrating the joy her friend Russell brought into her life. It examines what constitutes family and shows just how deep friendships can be.
You are not alone: a new way to grieve by Cariad Lloyd
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Britain’s stiff upper lip when it comes to grief, and death, means that, for the past couple of centuries, we have remained polite and ‘quiet’ about the realities of grief. Whereas in Victorian times families tied black bows to their door, and people wore armbands and veils, as an outward show of internal pain. Many of these customs were lost after the First World War.
However, lately, the conversation around grief has been opening up once more, with Lloyd’s work on her award-winning podcast Griefcast, playing a huge role in that. Each week, on the podcast, comedian Lloyd, interviews a different guest (usually other comics) about their experiences of grief detailing the weird and funny moments that often accompany it.
She has taken that experience, and put it in her first book, while also writing about her own loss, and how much she bottled up her grief when she lost her dad at 15. Her ability to process losing her dad began when she recognised she was part of a “club.” “I could see my grief as part of the process… I could see it as living” she writes. By sharing her own story, and others, she tries to get us all to talk about death and see grief not as something to “get over” but instead embrace, and live with it, while it morphs.
Losing Young: How to Grieve when your life is just beginning, by Rachel Wilson
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As founder of The Grief Network, a support group for those who have lost people in their late teens, and twenties, Wilson’s book takes her own perspective, of losing her mum, in her twenties, as well as detailing stories from those she has met through her group.
It examines what happens when your younger years are uprooted with loss. Our teens and early twenties are supposed to be for letting loose and learning who you are. Often, young grievers, have this taken away from them, and are faced with not just the grief of the initial loss but also a whole lifetime with that person has been snatched away from them.
Examining grief through this particular lens, as well as discussing how to navigate the complexities of partying, and dating, when you’re in grief, Wilson’s book will make young grievers feel seen.
Black Widow by Leslie Gray Streeter
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When Gray Streeter’s husband, Scott dies from a fatal heart attack, aged 44, the pair are in the process of adopting a child. The columnist then embarks on adopting the child on her own, and details the funny, sad and tragic moments that follow.
The book discusses a range of issues from widowhood to biracial marriage, and, as many books on widowhood are told from an older perspective, it’s particularly refreshing to hear from someone younger. Gray Streeter also offers interesting insights on biracial marriage (Street is Christian and African-American while Scott was white and Jewish) and how she navigated bridging the religious differences, particularly in the wake of Scott’s death.
The Grieving Brain: The surprising science of how we learn from love and loss by Mary-Frances O Connor
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An associate professor at the University of Arizona, O’Connor leads the grief, loss and social stress lab, where she investigates the effects of grief on the brain and the body, and in this book, she combines her learnings with personal experience for an investigation on grief that’s entirely different from anything else on the market.
Grief is one of the most complicated, and mysterious state of beings out there, and it’s impossible to rationalise. Yet, so many people want to understand why they feel the way they do, and if there are any practical steps they can take to ease their suffering.
As a neuroscientist, O’Connor examines what exactly happens to our brains and bodies in the wake of a loss and, tries, with concise research to offer explanations to those grieving. The result is a hugely understanding and helpful piece of writing that helps unpack the shame some can feel when it comes to their own suffering, particularly those still deeply impacted years after the loss.
While other grief research has tried to paint grief as stages to ‘work’ through, O’Connor instead shows it to be something entirely different, and reveals how grief does not have a beginning, middle and end but instead is something our bodies, and brains, will learn to cope and live with over time.