22 Best Grief Books

A memoir of the year after John Gregory Dunne's sudden death, written while their daughter Quintana lay gravely ill, this book follows Didion's looping, irrational magical thoughts as she tries to understand loss and keep an ordinary life going.

Megan Devine draws on her experience as a therapist and bereaved partner to examine how people live with grief. Stories, research, and practical exercises address cultural expectations and ways to support someone after a painful loss.

Written after the death of his wife Joy Davidman, this short book collects Lewis’s raw, private reflections on loss. He questions God, traces the swings of doubt and hope, and slowly discovers how bereavement can reshape rather than erase love.

Joanne Cacciatore reflects on grief through fifty two short chapters drawing on personal loss and her work with bereaved people. Stories explore the uneven course of mourning and its connections with love, compassion, and shared humanity.

George Bonanno challenges the idea that bereavement follows a fixed sequence of stages. Research, personal accounts, and mourning rituals inform his examination of resilience, varied emotional responses, and the ways people adapt after a loved one's death.

David Kessler draws on his work with bereaved people and the death of his son to explore meaning after loss. Personal stories and reflections consider remembrance, connection, and ways to live while continuing to grieve.

Therese Rando guides readers through the varied experiences of mourning someone they love. Topics include talking to children about death, unfinished business, self care, accepting support, difficult anniversaries, and finding professional help or support groups.

Brook Noel and Pamela Blair explore the shock and ongoing effects of a loved one's sudden death. Drawing on personal experience, they discuss grief myths, physical and emotional reactions, helping children, and facing holidays and anniversaries.

Near the end of his neurosurgery training, Paul Kalanithi is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and begins asking what makes a life meaningful. His memoir is clear-eyed, intimate, and deeply humane.

After her father's sudden death, Helen Macdonald turns to training a goshawk named Mabel. Her memoir intertwines grief, falconry, and reflections on T. H. White, exploring the desire to retreat into wildness and the difficulty of returning.

Widowed at thirty four, Tre Miller Rodriguez begins traveling with her husband's ashes as she struggles with grief in New York. Her memoir connects those journeys with earlier family losses, motherhood, and the daughter she placed for adoption.

T. J. Wray draws on her brother's death and other people's accounts to explore adult sibling grief. Practical discussions address finding meaning, keeping a journal, choosing someone for support, and responding to insensitive remarks.

Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn combines memories of her brother's illness and death with interviews with more than two hundred surviving siblings. She examines the sibling bond and the often overlooked guilt, anger, isolation, and lasting changes that accompany its loss.

Mary-Frances O'Connor explains how the brain responds to the permanent absence of someone loved. Drawing on neuroscience and psychology, she explores why grieving involves learning and how attachment, memory, and expectations shape the experience of loss.

Alexander Levy explores the grief and disorientation adults experience after their parents die. He considers changes in identity and family roles, renewed feelings of childhood sorrow, and the encounter with one's own mortality.

After her fiance dies from a jellyfish sting in Thailand, marine biologist Shannon Leone Fowler sets out on solo travels. Her memoir intertwines memories of their journeys together with encounters in places marked by their own histories of loss.

Pema Chödrön draws on Buddhist wisdom to explore living with fear, anxiety, and pain. She suggests approaching difficult experience with openness, offering practices aimed at changing habitual responses to suffering and developing compassion for oneself and others.

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant combine her experience of bereavement with research on resilience. They explore coping with adversity, supporting people in crisis, and rebuilding meaning and joy after loss and other major setbacks.

Nine mothers share experiences of losing young adult children, addressing the first year of grief and the years that follow. Their accounts explore changing relationships, holidays, coping, and the experiences of fathers and surviving siblings.

Alan Wolfelt offers one hundred practical ideas for adults grieving the death of a brother or sister. Short explanations and actions explore grief and mourning, whether the death was sudden or anticipated and regardless of the sibling's age.

Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner gather candid personal essays about grief from more than forty contributors. The collection explores intimacy, technology, secrets, and the awkward conversations surrounding loss, bringing humor alongside accounts of enduring sorrow.

Gary Roe explores the inner experience of grief for bereaved readers and the people supporting them. His practical guide considers how to understand a grieving person's needs and offer care through difficult conversations and everyday situations.