“Sometimes the healing hurts more than the wound.”
Grief is a universal human experience, but having to navigate it can still feel overwhelming and isolating. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a dramatic life change or simply finding some solace and comfort, the right book can be the guide you need. In this post, we here at What We Reading have pulled together the most essential books on grief that provide readers with powerful insights, heartfelt stories and practical advice to help them emerge through even the toughest of times. These reads not only tackle the emotional and psychological aspects of grief but also how to find peace and resilience amidst the pain. Whether you’re looking for therapeutic approaches, spiritual reflections or more personal stories, these books on grief have something for everyone.
The Year Of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
First up on our list of books on grief is Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. From one of the most iconic writers in America, this National Book Award winner explores an intensely personal, yet wholly universal experience: a vivid depiction of a marriage and of life through the good times and bad that promises to speak to any reader who has ever loved a spouse or a child.
Didion recounts how on the eve of Christmas in 2003, she and her husband, John, saw their only daughter fall ill with what appeared to be flu, then pneumonia and then complete septic shock. Just days later, John suffered a fatal coronary. The Year of Magical Thinking follows Didion as she attempts to make sense of everything she thought she knew about love, death, illness, marriage, children, sanity and life itself.
On Grief And Grieving: Finding The Meaning Of Grief Through The Five Stages Of Loss – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross And David Kessler
One of the most defining books about grief ever written, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ On Death and Dying changed the narrative in the way we talk about the end of life. Before her own death in 2004, she and David Kessler penned On Grief and Grieving, which explores how we all experience the process of grief.
Just as how On Death and Dying taught readers about the five stages of death – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – On Grief and Grieving applies these stages to the grieving process. Kübler-Ross once again weaves practical wisdom, case studies, personal experiences and spiritual insights to help readers overcome everything from sadness, hauntings, dreams, and healing to help us live with loss.
Grief Is For People – Sloane Crosley
Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and surprisingly suspenseful portrait of connection and a book about loss brimming with verve for life. Sloane Crosley has established herself as one of the most renowned observers of contemporary behaviour, and her sharp eye is once again on full display coupled with her trademark wit in this 2024 book on grief.
Following the death of her best friend and after the pain and confusion of losing her childhood companion, Grief Is for People follows Crosley as she looks for answers in friends, philosophy and artwork, hoping for a support frame more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.
The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along The Long Arc Of Loss – Hope Edelman
Hope Edelman’s The AfterGrief is one of the best books on grief for any readers wondering how events from our past can continue to occupy so much precious mental and emotional space. Taking aim at the misconception that grief should be time-limited, The AfterGrief explains how the death of a loved one isn’t something most of us get over or move beyond. Edelman instead argues that it is something in constant motion and can become folded into our developing identities.
Drawing on her own encounters with the ripple effects of early loss as well as interviews with dozens of researchers, therapists, and ordinary people who have suffered loss, Edelman offers poignant and profound advice for understanding loss and even finding renewed growth and purpose in its wake, demonstrating how, whilst grief might be a lifelong process, it doesn’t have to be a lifelong struggle.
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience And Finding Joy – Sheryl Sandberg And Adam M. Grant
After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg was convinced that neither she nor her children would ever feel pure joy again. Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, informed her that there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences.
Option B is one of the best books on building resilience, overcoming grief and rediscovering joy. Combining Sheryl’s personal insights from her experiences of isolation and acute grief with Grant’s illuminating research, the book reveals how people overcome hardships to persevere. Through these stories, Option B shows how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves and create resilient families, communities and workplaces.
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Grief Is Love: Living With Loss – Marisa Renee Lee
In her 2022 book about grief, author Marisa Renee Lee demonstrates how healing does not mean moving on after losing a loved one, but rather it means learning how to identify your grief and create a safe space for it. Grief Is Love takes readers through the pain of grief, debunks the concept of grief stages or timelines, and shows what it looks like to honour your loss on your unique terms.
Having personally experienced her own journey through grief, there’s no better guide for questioning what grief truly is, and what healing actually looks like. Grief Is Love is also one of the best books on grief for exploring the unique impact of loss on Black people, and for revealing the key factors that proper healing fundamentally needs: permission, care, feeling, grace and more.
It’s OK That You’re Not OK – Megan Devine
In her book It’s OK That You’re Not OK, Megan Devine presents a new approach to both the experience of grief and the ways in which we help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides of the fence, Devine is a seasoned veteran of the unspoken truths of loss, love and healing. Like many of the other great books about grief on this list, she skips over trying to convince readers to return to ‘normal’, and instead presents a new mindset for discovering a healthier middle path of living alongside grief.
With Devine’s compassionate but direct guidance, It’s OK That You’re Not OK teaches readers how well-meaning advice often makes things harder for people in grief, how grief is a mystery that should be honoured rather than problem-solved, as well as how to manage stress, improve sleep and decrease anxiety.
Tuesdays With Morrie – Mitch Albom
One of the all-time classic books about grief, Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie chronicles the visits sports journalist made to his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, who was nearing the end of his life from ALS.
Divided into fourteen different days, Albom recounts the lessons his mentor taught him about the ways in which love is at the core of every person and how living without it is essentially living with nothing at all. This is a story of a second chance and of how a rekindled relationship turned into one final lesson on how to live a life full of joy.
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The Grief Recovery Handbook: A Program For Moving Beyond Death, Divorce And Other Devastating Losses – John W. James And Russell Friedman
Long-lauded as one of the most practical guidebooks on grief, The Grief Recovery Handbook explores the effects of grief and sheds new light on how to start working towards recovery and happiness. Drawing on their own histories as well as the experiences of countless others, authors John W. James and Russell Friedman showcase how it is possible to recover from grief and regain energy in the process.
Presenting a proven program, The Grief Recovery Handbook is more of a straight-shooting resource than others on this list. Nevertheless, it is still one of the most insightful and informative books about understanding the power of unidentified grief and finding help in coming to terms with kinds of losses.
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
