10 Comforting Books on Loss and Grief

Grief can be overwhelming, complicated, and ongoing. It's not a one-size-fits-all experience, and feelings may differ from day to day. But whether you're processing the death of a loved one or the loss of a relationship, pet, or home, sometimes the right words can help ease the pain. Ahead, we’ve compiled memoirs, novels, and picture books that offer words of wisdom, encouragement, and solidarity amid challenging times. 

1. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Released posthumously nearly a year after the author’s death at age 37, this memoir chronicles Paul Kalanithi's life as a writer and neurosurgeon before getting diagnosed with stage IV metastatic lung cancer. As he grappled with his own mortality, Kalanithi explored complicated truths and feelings about what it means to live your life knowing your days are numbered. 

2. On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory by Jennifer Senior 
Grief doesn't always look the same. Bobby McIlvaine's death on 9/11 at the age of 26 left each of his family members reeling and attempting to recover in different ways. More than 20 years later, journalist—and family friend—Jennifer Senior took home a Pulitzer Prize for a feature story in The Atlantic, later published as a book, that chronicled how one person's death leaves lasting and vastly differing grief among those who loved them. 

3. Wisdom of the Path by Yasmine Cheyenne 
Regardless of what you're grieving, picking yourself up and beginning the healing process can feel daunting. Cheyenne, a writer and mental health advocate, offers a step-by-step guide on learning from your pain, being kind to yourself amid hardships, and forging a new path to the life you want. Self-healing is an ongoing journey, and learning to hold your own hand will take you much further, she argues. 

4. Be Not Afraid of Love by Mimi Zhu
Writer Mimi Zhu shares a series of essays prompted by their experiences with intimate partner abuse—the devastation and grief of losing part of yourself in an abusive relationship and then the search for healing, community, and joy in the aftermath. The major takeaway: Despite all the pain others may have caused you, you can't let it keep you from continuing to love people. 

5. The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss by Mary-Frances O'Connor 
Our brains are wired to form attachments with other people, but when we lose loved ones, our minds suddenly need to be rewired to adjust to a life without them. Neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, shares decades of research to help the average person understand what grief does to their brain physically and psychologically, and how to use that knowledge to ease the grieving process. 

6. The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin 
The books you seek for guidance amid grieving don't have to be nonfiction. Garvin's novel offers valuable life lessons through the lens of three very different strangers grieving in their own ways. They happen to meet on a local honeybee farm and form an unlikely friendship by finding ways to heal their grief together. 

7. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Michelle Zauner, lead singer of indie pop band Japanese Breakfast, lost her mother in 2014 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. That diagnosis forced Zauner to grapple with the ways her mother shaped her identity, from a childhood as one of only a few Asian American kids in an Oregon town to an adult who felt distant from her mother's Korean heritage. Set against the backdrop of Korean grocery store H Mart, Zauner reflects on how her mother's terminal diagnosis prompted her to reconnect with her family's culture. 

8. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi 
Award-winning writer Yaa Gyasi returns with a novel starring Ph.D. candidate Gifty, who is studying depression and addiction from a neuroscience perspective—she's desperate for a scientific reason behind all the pain her family has experienced, from her brother's heroin overdose to her mother's severe depression. The bestselling novel explores the complicated and differing ways we seek comfort in the face of loss and why there's a case for turning to both facts and faith in times of grief. 

9. Home: A Story of Resilience and Healing by Carrie Barnes
The 2017 Tubbs Fire in northern California was the inspiration behind this children's picture book, which finds itself as a timely story again amid the devastation in Los Angeles following the January 2025 fires. Barnes wrote the story to help her own child navigate big feelings after their family lost their home, offering a blueprint for other parents to do the same.  

10. Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die by Jon Katz 
Pets are family members, and losing them is often similarly devastating. Author Katz shares a combination of personal anecdotes from himself and others to help pet owners mourn, honor, and celebrate the furry friends who brought so much joy and love into their lives.