Grief Biography

Two years after Marilyn loses her fiancé to cancer, she becomes a Christian and marries Henry, joining him in a worldwide ministry that leaves little time for family or personal reflection. When her old grief resurfaces, she’s shocked by the tsunami that rips through their lives. Intensive counselling fails to bring healing, and when Henry writes a public letter that decimates their churches and spins them out of fellowship—and lifelong employment—she faces an emotional and spiritual reckoning that challenges her to the core.

Laura Trujillo had been close to her mother for most of her adult life, raising her four children within a few miles of their beloved grandmother’s Phoenix home. But just three months after moving her young family to Cincinnati for a new job, Laura receives shocking news: Her mother had taken her own life—by jumping off a ledge into the Grand Canyon, a place Laura knew her mother had always loved.

The powerful testimonies of 11 widows of the Bible are brought to narrative life in lyrical, visceral prose that brings listeners deep inside the women's grief, strength, and faith. Full of both haunting and hope, Not Alone connects Biblical widows' voices in a chorus of commiseration that reminds us what it means to love - and what it means to live with God.

In 2018, 34 people were shot at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Jaime Guttenberg, a 14-year-old, was the second to last victim. That she and so many of her fellow students were struck down in cold blood galvanized many to action, including Jaime's father, Fred, who has become an activist dedicated to passing common-sense gun-safety legislation. This book is not about gun safety or Parkland. Instead, it tells the story of Fred Guttenberg's journey since Jaime's death and how he has been able to get through the worst of times thanks to the kindness and compassion of others.

When city girl Theresa falls madly in love with commercial fisherman Captain Bart, she trades her urban lifestyle for a grueling job as crew on his ninety-two-foot-tuna boat in the North Pacific Ocean. During their three-month journey, she battles waves the size of four-story buildings in hurricane-force winds and almost loses her mind but wins the respect of the Hyenas—an elite group of fishermen who become her extended family.

We all have hidden prisons—grief, anger, shame, trauma, self-doubt. But these prisons have doors. Drawing from his extraordinary journey from incarceration to New York Times bestselling author, resilience expert, and entrepreneur, Shaka Senghor reveals the mindset and proven practices that transformed his life—and can help anyone achieve their wildest dreams.

Winner of the Wellcome Book Prize, and finalist for every major nonfiction award in the UK, including the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Costa Award, The Iceberg is artist and writer Marion Coutts' astonishing memoir; an "adventure of being and dying" and a compelling, poetic meditation on family, love, and language.

Infertility is a battle that women have been fighting for centuries, but the seemingly taboo subject is rarely discussed openly. Here, Bailey Henry describes her journey with infertility, including four miscarriages, marriage, grief, love, and the chance she was never properly potty-trained. With raw honesty, heartbreak, and a bit of humor, Bailey discusses the trials of being pregnant but never having a baby. If you've known the devastating loss of a child, or if your life simply hasn't turned out the way you thought it would, this one is for you.

It happened out of nowhere. Diana and her high school sweetheart Chad were living an ideal life. They were raising kids, working in public service, travelling, and watching their daughter compete in gymnastics. When everything just changed. Soon, they found themselves embarking on an 18-month battle to save Chad's life after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer at only 44. Full of hope, they travelled the country searching for treatments and begging some of the best doctors in the world for help. They never gave up, but the monstrous cancer beat them anyway.

After author Jess Keefe ended things with her long-term boyfriend, she moved in with her brother in hopes that family could help her not only heal from the break-up but also evolve into a healthy adult. But that fantasy ended when Matt’s heroin addiction came roaring back after lying dormant for years, leading to a fatal overdose one October night. Thirty-Thousand Steps is a powerful and transformative memoir that interweaves the author’s obsessive training to becoming a distance runner, along with her focused research into the science of addiction in the shadow of grief.

Leanne Friesen thought she knew a lot about bereavement. She had studied it in school and preached at memorial services. But only when her own sister died from cancer did she learn, in her very bones, what grieving people don't need—and what they do. In Grieving Room, Friesen writes with vulnerability, wisdom, and somehow even wit about the stark and sacred lessons learned at deathbeds and funerals, and pushes back against a world that wants to minimize our sorrow and avoid our despair.

A stunning blend of the personal and professional, The Archaeology of Loss is Sarah Tarlow’s first memoir. An accomplished archaeologist, much of Sarah’s work is concerned with the ritual and belief behind the practice of grief. In 2012, she was awarded the Chair in Archaeology at the University of Leicester. But in the years that followed this appointment, Sarah’s husband, Mark, would begin to suffer from a progressive but undiagnosed illness, finally resulting in his inability to drive, to walk, to taste or to care for himself.

A 29-year-old son and only child passes. He nudges his mother to open up to spirit so she can build a new relationship with him. Letters to David unlocks a door to spirit and offers hope for parents who have suffered tragic grief. There is an immediacy and accessibility to Claudia and David's relationship that provides laughter, tears, and hope to those grieving what they see as the "end" of a relationship. Enclosed, you will find valuable tools for healing and growth. We don't die, and our loved ones remain with us forever.

When Hua Hsu first meets Ken in a Berkeley dorm room, he hates him. A frat boy with terrible taste in music, Ken seems exactly like everyone else. For Hua, who makes zines and haunts indie record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to – the mainstream. The only thing Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, and Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the US for generations, have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.

Within six months Barbara Schoichet lost everything: her job, her girlfriend of six years, and her mother to pancreatic cancer. Her life stripped bare, and armed with nothing but a death wish and a ton of attitude, Barbara pursues an unlikely method of coping. At the age of 50, she earns her motorcycle license, buys a Harley on eBay from two guys named Dave, and drives it alone from New York to Los Angeles on a circuitous trek loosely guided by her H.O.G. tour book and a whole lot of road whimsy.

In the aftermath of a heartbreaking tragedy, a scholar and writer uses Dante's Divine Comedy to shepherd him through the dark wood of grief and mourning - a rich and emotionally resonant memoir of suffering, hope, love, and the power of literature to inspire and heal the most devastating loss.

Author Joseph Rojas's journey from a life overshadowed by addiction, crime, depression, and thoughts of suicide to becoming a powerful example of hope as a loving husband, father, and lead singer of the Dove award-winning Christian rock band Seventh Day Slumber is nothing short of miraculous. This book is not just Rojas's testimony; it's a roadmap for all who feel weighed down by loneliness, depression, and pain. It speaks directly to the heart with raw honesty and the transformative power of faith, offering not only understanding but also practical steps to break free.

The Price of Admission takes us on a journey with Liz from loss into renewed life. Raw, unflinchingly honest, and surprisingly funny, Liz writes from a universally understood place of struggle, whether that is the deep darkness of grief or the hazy, yet joyful, dimness of demanding everyday lives spent caring for ourselves and our families.

In raw, compelling honesty, Gael Garbarino Cullen articulates the complexities of grief and single motherhood, after the sudden, heart-breaking loss of her 40-year-old husband, beautifully illustrating the power of resilience, hope, and post-traumatic growth. It is an unflinching walk through the long and inevitably difficult stages of grief–confirming and validating the curves and turns that come with healing.

The remarkable story of how a mother moved from rage to hope after learning her youngest child was dying and harnessed her grief to transform the lives of others. Harnessing Grief will hearten listeners through Maria Kefalas' journey of understanding how to find hope and purpose amongst the most tragic of circumstances.