Bereavement books and books about grief can be some of the most helpful resources for understanding the grief process. Counselors often encourage those in grief to start reading from other people's grief experiences. However, I also know that during bereavement the mind has a very hard time staying focused.
So my advice is read as you can, not as you can't. Find one or two grief recovery books or personal experience books that fit your style and read it in small portions.
The small portions is one reason I feel my own book Seasons of Solace is helpful bereavement reading. It contains approximately 30 narrative, slice-of-life poems, along with photos from nature that metaphorically speak to the emotion of grief.
Recently a friend told me that he loaned his copy of Seasons of Solace to a woman who had recently lost her husband. When he went back to visit a week later, he asked her if she was finished with the book. She said, "Please let me keep it a little while longer, I page through it every day." So, of course, he gave her the copy to keep.
Top Books about Grief
Click on the title to see my review:
A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Getting Back to Life When Grief Won't Heal by Phyllis Kosminsky On Life After Death by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
When People Grieve: Guidance for Grievers and the Friends Who Care by Paula D'Arcy
Life is Goodbye, Life is Hello: Grieving Well through All Kinds of Loss by Alla Renee Bozarth
Grieving: Our Path Back to Peace by James R. White
How to Survive the Loss of a Love by Melba Colgrove, Harold Bloomfield and Peter McWilliams
When a Loved One Dies by Philip Williams
Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman
Asleep In Heaven's Nursery by Tommy Mann
Back to Life: Your Personal Guidebook to Grief Recovery is an e-book written by Jennie Wright, RN, GCC. This link will open a new window to her website.
Here is a new page of bereavement books suggested by readers of this site.
Keep checking back--more review of books about grief to come later.
Do you have a book that you found especially meaningful to you during your journey through grief and loss? Please tell us about it.
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
Challenging The Landscape of Loss,Why what we've been told about grief does'nt help
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Crossing the Minefield
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What Are You Crying About? Defeating Grief for Christians (and Other Believers)
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Understanding Your Grief
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Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends
It’s been likened to a plague, but AIDS was never just a health crisis.
The second of a series on grieving the death of a friend, Friend Grief and …
Where Are You Now?
The story of one child who learns to accept the death of a loved one. A heart-warming tale of transition from heartbreak to peace. A confirmation that …
My Guiding Star!
Giving thanks to Adoptive Parents, Foster Parents, Grandparents and anyone else who has opened their home and their heart to a child in need. A huge THANK …
I Don't Want To Go!
Clae is a brave nine year old boy who wishes his parents would reunite. Every school holiday Clae goes to stay with his Dad. Before each visit he is sad, …
The Healing Game
It is a true story of loss of my husband, Kevin, to colon cancer. It was unexpected and he died three days after I took him to the hospital. It is broken …
Katie the Ladybug: Explaining Emotions of Grief to a Child
Losing both of my parents at a young age (my mother when I was 4 and my father when I was 16) has given me a passion for helping bereaved children. I currently …
Six Steps for Managing Loss, Terence Curley, Alba House, New York
This book is a brief approach to the experience of loss which allows for the fact that those who are grieving want an approach which is not too involved …
A Grace Disguised
A Grace Disguised by Gerald Sittser is quite simply profound.
The author experienced catastrophic loss when the family van was struck by …