The best books to cope with death and grief

Picked by Taha Kehar

Book cover of Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

Book cover of The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

What did I love about each book?

List by Taha Kehar

Why am I passionate about this?

Grief is now an unwanted travel companion and a friend to me. At times, I find myself incapable of understanding it. Even so, it has helped me view myself through a different lens. When I wrote my book, my mother was still alive. Grief had yet to announce itself as my lifelong companion, but I was aware of its menacing presence. That amazing prescience spilled into my book. After my mother died, I discovered that there was a lot more to discover about death and grief. For months, I reviewed books on these topics for various publications. I'm still on this enlightening journey.

The books I picked & why

Notes on Grief

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

Why did I love this book?

I admire the author's ability to write about the conflicting mesh of emotions she had to cope with after her father's unexpected demise. After losing my mother in 2021, I realized that grief isn't a linear process. Instead, it often felt like I was navigating unfamiliar terrain without a roadmap.

Adichie's memoir helped me understand that grief is a “cruel kind of education,” and we need to equip ourselves for it by having more meaningful conversations about death. Notes on Grief also encouraged me to view grief as an opportunity for self-reflection and spiritual growth.

Notes on Grief

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Notes on Grief as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A personal and powerful essay on loss from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.

'Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language'

On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria.

In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy's girl, remembers her beloved father.…

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The Lowland

By Jhumpa Lahiri,

Why did I love this book?

I read Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland in 2015—a time when my life wasn't tainted by grief. Even then, I found myself mesmerized by the novel's depiction of the grieving process as a long-lasting curse that spreads its tentacles into all aspects of our lives.

Gauri, the protagonist of Lahiri's novel, loses her Naxalite husband to political violence. Although Gauri gains a second chance at happiness, her pain consumes her, and she constantly reinvents herself to escape its clutches, albeit at her family’s emotional expense.

In retrospect, I was impressed by the author's accurate portrayal of grief as a sort of spiritual and emotional gridlock. In addition, I believe The Lowland provides a moving meditation on the intergenerational effect of unresolved trauma.

The Lowland

By Jhumpa Lahiri,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Lowland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2013. From Subhash's earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there. In the suburban streets of Calcutta where they wandered before dusk and in the hyacinth-strewn ponds where they played for hours on end, Udayan was always in his older brother's sight. So close in age, they were inseparable in childhood and yet, as the years pass - as U.S tanks roll into Vietnam and riots sweep across India - their brotherly bond can do nothing to forestall the tragedy that will upend their lives. Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself…

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Literary fiction

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

By Mitch Albom,

Why did I love this book?

Over the last fifteen years, I've returned to this book on numerous occasions. I read it a few months before my mother's death while I and my siblings attended to her needs as full-time caregivers.

Mitch Albom's book enabled me to understand how to channel my anticipatory grief by discovering the value of life through a deeper exploration of death.

Unlike the author, I never got the opportunity to have candid discussions with my mother about life and death, but this book helped me realize that it wasn't impossible to have such therapeutic conversations.

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

By Mitch Albom,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Tuesdays with Morrie as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON THAT HAS TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF OVER 9 MILLION READERS

'Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary' Cecelia Ahern
__________

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague? Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it? For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.

Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to…

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Kitchen

By Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (translator),

Why did I love this book?

Bereavement isn't always a burden we need to carry; at times, we just have to accommodate it within our routine and let it carve out a space in our hearts and minds.

Banana Yoshimoto's book led me towards this epiphany through a cast of characters who wage a daily battle on their overpowering grief. I enjoyed the two novellas in this book because they reminded me that the comfort we find in others is often the antidote to the earth-shattering pain and loneliness accompanying loss.

Kitchen

By Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Kitchen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kitchen juxtaposes two tales about mothers, transsexuality, bereavement, kitchens, love and tragedy in contemporary Japan. It is a startlingly original first work by Japan's brightest young literary star and is now a cult film.

When Kitchen was first published in Japan in 1987 it won two of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, climbed its way to the top of the bestseller lists, then remained there for over a year and sold millions of copies. Banana Yoshimoto was hailed as a young writer of great talent and great passion whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of modern…

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The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

By Balli Kaur Jaswal,

Why did I love this book?

I enjoyed Balli Kaur Jaswal's light-hearted take on how a woman's death affected her three daughters in unpredictable ways.

I admired how the author didn't allow the narrative to become a lamentation of death but instead showed how it can liberate us from the shackles of pain and alter our perceptions of people, situations, and places.

Apart from that, I found the book to be heartbreaking yet hilarious—a reminder that not all books about death have to be depressing.

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

By Balli Kaur Jaswal,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Grab your passport and let the Shergill sisters take you on a journey...

Meet the Shergill Sisters.

The know-it-all, Rajni.
The drama queen, Jezmeen.
The golden child, Shirina.

They have never been close. But their mother's dying wish was for them to take a pilgrimage across India together, to carry out her final rites. And so, the sisters are thrown together for one last (and very strange) family holiday.

The three women seem to have nothing in common, apart from the fact that each of them has a secret she would prefer to keep hidden. But as one unlikely adventure…

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