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The Hatbox Letters
By Beth Powning. 2021
In this beautiful and deeply moving novel, a young widow struggles to come to terms with her solitary life in…
the rambling Victorian house she shared until recently with her husband and children in semi-rural New Brunswick.It is in this house, surrounded by heirloom gardens and the gentle sounds of a river, that Kate Harding, 52, faces her second winter since the untimely death of her husband. Her children, now grown, are living away, and Kate is truly on her own. In her living room are several hatboxes filled with letters and other ghostly ephemera, recently brought by her sister from the attic of their grandparents’ 18th-century Connecticut house. Their sweet mustiness tinges the air and makes Kate dream of her childhood and of her beloved grandparents. She remembers the sense of permanence and refuge that she felt in their apple-scented world, as well as, more recently, with her husband. As she begins to read the hatbox letters, she discovers that what to a child seemed a serene and blissful marriage was in fact founded on a tragic event. As Kate’s eyes clear to the truth of the past, a new tragedy unfolds, and her own house, filled with the shared detritus of marriage and motherhood, becomes the refuge where Kate can connect the strands of her unravelled life.In The Hatbox Letters — which is both sad and exhilarating, touching and illuminating — Beth Powning offers readers an unforgettable story of love, grief and renewal, both past and present, as well as her extraordinary perceptions of the natural world.Excerpt from The Hatbox LettersThe birds rise with a muted thunder, their wings serrate the light. For an instant, a peregrine falcon zigzags through the flock. Then it drops from the belly of the rising bird-cloud. In its talons is a sandpiper, crumpled like a ball of paper. It is hard to decide which drama to observe, the escape of the falcon with its prey or the flock’s display as the birds rush seaward like a single entity, a ballooning flame that rises and falls, expands and implodes, one instant silver and the next black. The flock speeds back towards the beach, passes close to the watchers, makes a dazzling turn, fast as thought. Then, with a diminishing roar, the birds waver, their legs drop, stretch. They touch down. They fluff their feathers, Kate observes, the way humans pull coats up around necks after a shock. Trying to put ourselves back as we were.Checklist for my family: a guide to my history, financial plans, and final wishes
By Sally Balch Hurme. 2015
The worm at the core: on the role of death in life
By Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski. 2015
Three psychologists look at how the fear of death affects human behavior. They suggest coping methods for dealing with the…
concept of mortality and provide a historical perspective on cultural awareness of death and current research on how fear of death affects people's actions and attitudes. 2015Do zombies dream of undead sheep?: a neuroscientific view of the zombie brain
By Timothy Verstynen, Bradley Voytek. 2014
Through the lens of the popular-culture phenomenon of zombies, psychologist Verstynen and cognitive scientist Voytek examine how the brain works.…
Discusses real-life accounts of zombies, physiology, sensory perception, cognition, and how the science behind them will help those not affected survive the coming zombie apocalypse. 2014H is for Hawk
By Helen Macdonald. 2014
Cambridge lecturer describes the year she spent training a goshawk, a decision she came to after the sudden death of…
her father in 2007. Discusses the field of falconry, which her father avidly practiced, the grieving process, and author T.H. White's book The Goshawk (DB 42687). Bestseller. 2014Where the dead pause, and the Japanese say goodbye: a journey
By Marie Mutsuki Mockett. 2015
Mockett's family owns a Buddhist temple near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. After the 2011 disaster at the plant,…
her family was unable to bury her grandfather due to radiation levels. Grieving, Mockett journeys into the radiation zone and investigates death-centered rituals in Japan. 2015The dead beat: lost souls, lucky stiffs, and the perverse pleasures of obituaries
By Marilyn Johnson. 2007
Author of Lives in Ruins (DB 80738) examines the work of newspaper obituary writers, a club of sorts to which…
she has belonged. Profiles fellow obituary writers, discusses the art of writing an obituary, and chronicles a number of the Great Obituary Writers' International Conferences. 2006Being mortal: medicine and what matters in the end
By Atul Gawande. 2014
Surgeon and author of Complications (DB 56061) and The Checklist Manifesto (DB 70422) examines the state of end-of-life care in…
the twenty-first century. Discusses medical advances which have extended life expectancy, limited training of physicians to discuss mortality with patients and family members, and ways to be honest. Bestseller. 2014Medical doctor specializing in hospice and palliative care outlines strategies for preparing and carrying out end-of-life plans for oneself and…
for loved ones. Discusses complex matters, from whether to issue "do not resuscitate" orders to what hospice care means and the state of twenty-first century medicine. 2012Falling out of time
By David Grossman. 2014
Walking Man announces to his wife that he is setting out in search of their son, who has died. As…
Walking Man travels, other townspeople join him in search of their own loved ones. They all question whether death is truly the end of a person. Translated from Hebrew. 2014Unremarried widow: a memoir
By Artis Henderson. 2014
Artis became an unremarried widow in military terms after her young husband, Miles, died in a helicopter crash in Iraq…
in 2006. She tells the story of her brief stint as an army wife and the aftermath of his death. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2013Confessions of a mediocre widow: or, How I lost my husband and my sanity
By Catherine Tidd. 2014
Tidd recounts becoming a thirty-one-year-old widow with three children under six when complications from a motorcycle accident resulted in her…
husband's death. Describes her change from stay-at-home mom to blogger and motivational speaker, her forays into the dating world, and the challenges of being a single parent. Some strong language. 2014The priority list: a teacher's final quest to discover life's greatest lessons
By David Menasche. 2014
High school English teacher Menasche relates his battle with brain cancer that began at age thirty-four with a prognosis of…
death within a few months. Explains his decision years later--despite vision and mobility loss--to travel alone throughout the country to visit hundreds of his former students. Strong language. 2013Levels of life
By Julian Barnes. 2013
Man Booker Prize winner for The Sense of an Ending (DB 73935) pens an essay on love and grief after…
the unexpected 2008 passing of his wife of thirty years, literary agent Pat Kavanagh. Bestseller. 2013Kayak morning: reflections on love, grief, and small boats
By Roger Rosenblatt. 2012
Author of Making Toast (DB 72799) relates taking up kayaking as a way to ponder grief and search for peace…
more than two years after the 2007 death of his adult daughter. Meditates on the passages of grief, the solace of solitude, and the redemptive power of love. 2012I'll see you again: A Memoir
By Janice Kaplan, Jackie Hance. 2013
Memoir of a grieving mother whose three young daughters were killed after their aunt drove the wrong way on New…
York State's Taconic Parkway in July 2009. Explores her emotional and physical struggles, family estrangement, and decision to have another child. 2013Wave
By Sonali Deraniyagala. 2013
British economist describes the events of December 26, 2004, when she lost her parents, husband, and two young sons to…
a tsunami while visiting her native country of Sri Lanka. Discusses her years of continual recovery and grief from the tragedy. Some strong language. Bestseller. 2013When someone dies: the practical guide to the logistics of death
By Scott Taylor Smith, Michael Castleman. 2013
Smith, an investment banker and lawyer, uses personal experience and advice from estate attorneys to provide a step-by-step guide to…
the practical decisions that must be made following the death of a loved one. Discusses funeral and related expenses, and covers paying outstanding bills and settling the estate. 2013Locations of Grief: An Emotional Geography
By Catherine Owen, Jenna Butler, Catherine Graham. 2020
Exploring the landscapes of death and grief, this collection takes the reader through a series of essays, drawn together from…
twenty-four Canadian writers that reach across different ages, ethnicities and gender identities as they share their thoughts, struggles and journeys relating to death. Be it the meditation on the loss of a beloved dog who once solaced a departed parent, the tragic suicide of a stranger or the deep pain of losing a brother, Locations of Grief is defined by its range of essays exploring all the facets of mourning, and how the places in our lives can be irreversibly changed by the lingering presence of death.On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times
By Michael Ignatieff. 2021
Timely and profound philosophical meditations on how great figures in history, literature, music, and art searched for solace while facing…
tragedies and crises, from the internationally renowned historian of ideas and Booker Prize-finalist Michael Ignatieff.When someone we love dies, when we suffer loss or defeat, when catastrophe strikes--war, famine, pandemic--we go in search of consolation. Once the province of priests and philosophers, the language of consolation has largely vanished from our modern vocabulary, and the places where it was offered, houses of religion, are often empty. Rejecting the solace of ancient religious texts, humanity since the sixteenth century has increasingly placed its faith in science, ideology, and the therapeutic.How do we console each other and ourselves in an age of unbelief? In a series of lapidary meditations on writers, artists, musicians, and their works--from the books of Job and Psalms to Albert Camus, Anna Akhmatova, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and Primo Levi--esteemed writer and historian Michael Ignatieff shows how men and women in extremity have looked to each other across time to recover hope and resilience. Recreating the moments when great figures found the courage to confront their fate and the determination to continue unafraid, On Consolation takes those stories into the present, movingly contending that we can revive these traditions of consolation to meet the anguish and uncertainties of our precarious twenty-first century.