Here are 100 books that How Animals Grieve fans have personally recommended if you like How Animals Grieve. Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of H is for Hawk

David Alton Hedges Author Of Werewolf

From my list on books that prove animals are scary smart.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a former police officer who couldn’t find any use for his English lit degree until he lived as hard as he could for decades and found something worth writing about. My years with K9 Brag—the greatest, smartest animal I have known—became the key that unlocked my writing. Now I write screenplays, comics, historical fiction, crime stories, and even horror shorts. I am currently working on a novel trilogy about one of the most famous outlaws in history.

My stories almost always have an animal that lies at the emotional heart of the tale.

David's book list on books that prove animals are scary smart

David Alton Hedges Why David loves this book

This is a beautifully written book that immediately brought me into Helen’s world of grief and uncertainty.

Her decision to take on a stubborn goshawk named Mabel seems at first to unnecessarily complicate her struggle to cope with her father’s death.

As the author trains Mabel, the scenes become so compelling that I found myself flipping pages as if I were reading a thriller. Mabel’s stubbornness, beauty, and wild independence fly off the page.

By Helen Macdonald ,

Why should I read it?

24 authors picked H is for Hawk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year

ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, Amazon (Top 20)

The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald's story of adopting and raising one of…


If you love How Animals Grieve...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Book cover of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

Bobby Palmer Author Of Small Hours

From my list on talking animals for grown ups.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a British author who has always had a fascination with magical realism and novels that blend the serious with the strange. For that reason, though I write literary fiction for adults, I take so much of my inspiration from children’s literature. There’s something so simple about how kids’ books stitch the extraordinary into the every day without having to overexplain things. I now live not far from the forest that inspired A. A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood, and my latest novel is set in and inspired by this part of rural England–with all the mystery and magic that a trip into the woods entails.

Bobby's book list on talking animals for grown ups

Bobby Palmer Why Bobby loves this book

In this claustrophobic modern classic, a grieving father and Ted Hughes scholar finds himself haunted by an oily, unnerving, anthropomorphic crow.

I’m a fan of anything Porter writes, but his debut is deserving of the indelible mark it’s made upon the modern literary landscape. The crow is a character like no other, and Porter’s poetry brings this strange and beautiful bird to life.

By Max Porter ,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Grief Is the Thing with Feathers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 100 NOVEL OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Winner of the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Sunday Times/Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year award and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize.

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness.

In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family…


Book cover of You Will Not Have My Hate

Dorothy P. Holinger Author Of The Anatomy of Grief: How the Brain, Heart, and Body Can Heal After Loss

From my list on that made me gasp as I wrote my book on grief.

Why am I passionate about this?

Grief is something I grew up with. I was a toddler when my infant sister died and it devasted my family. They weren’t able to grieve her death properly because the family code was not to talk about our losses. Now, as a psychologist, I treat patients who are bereaved. Many books have been written about grief, but few focus on what happens to the brain, the heart, and the body of the bereaved. I wrote a book about grief because of my research on the human brain as a faculty investigator at Harvard Medical School, my understanding of grief through my clinical work, my personal life, and my review of the grief literature. 

Dorothy's book list on that made me gasp as I wrote my book on grief

Dorothy P. Holinger Why Dorothy loves this book

A searing, short memoir translated from French that captures the life-shattering changes that begin for the author as he hears that his wife may be one of the victims of a terrorist attack at a concert she was attending in Paris. Leiris writes how he wants desperately to stay in the present—hoping that his wife is not one of the victimsbut the present swiftly changes to the past as he learns that, despite his hope that it was not so, his wife is one of the victims who was killed. Leiris turns to face life with his toddler son without his beloved wife. 

By Antoine Leiris ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked You Will Not Have My Hate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - "On Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional person, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate."

On November 13, 2015, Antoine Leiris's wife, Helene Muyal-Leiris, was killed by terrorists while attending a rock concert at the Bataclan Theater in Paris, in the deadliest attack on France since World War II. Three days later, Leiris wrote an open letter addressed directly to his wife's killers, which he posted on Facebook. He refused to be cowed or to let his seventeen-month-old son's life be defined by Helene's…


If you love Barbara J. King...

Book cover of Glimmer of the Other

Glimmer of the Other by Heather G. Harris,

Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.

I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…

Book cover of Cry, Heart, But Never Break

Robin Hall Author Of The Littlest Weaver

From my list on picture books for healing from loss.

Why am I passionate about this?

All my life, books have been a safe space for me to explore emotions, recognize that what I’m experiencing is universal, and see that we can cope with difficult situations. As I pursued my MFA in Writing, I studied and wrote books that address heavy topics in hopeful ways. As Matt de la Pena says, “I can’t think of a safer place to explore complex emotions … than inside the pages of a book.” The picture books I have chosen address the heavy topic of loss in sensitive, hopeful, and empowering ways. I hope these books will touch your life as much as they’ve touched mine.

Robin's book list on picture books for healing from loss

Robin Hall Why Robin loves this book

“In the far north, in a small snug house, four children lived with their beloved grandmother,” begins this gentle tale. I’ve never made it through this book without crying. I bet you’ll cry, too.

Translated from Danish, Glenn hits the chord of loss with universal truths shared by a visit from Death himself. He’s a respectful visitor who leaves his scythe outside to not scare the children when he comes for their grandmother.

Death has a “heart as red as a beautiful sunset and beats with the great love of life.” He tells them of opposites, of dark and light, of sorrow and delight, of grief and joy. “What would life be worth if there was no death?” 

By Glenn Ringtved , Charlotte Pardi (illustrator) , Robert Moulthrop (translator)

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Cry, Heart, But Never Break as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Aware their grandmother is gravely ill, four siblings make a pact to keep death from taking her away. But Death does arrive all the same, as it must. He comes gently, naturally. And he comes with enough time to share a story with the children that helps them to realize the value of loss to life and the importance of being able to say goodbye. Glenn Ringtved is a best-selling and award-winning Danish children's author, whose books have been widely translated. Charlotte Pardi is a well-beloved Danish illustrator, who has created numerous books since her first picture book in 2000.…


Book cover of The Rites of Passage

Gillian Gillison Author Of Between Culture and Fantasy: A New Guinea Highlands Mythology

From my list on the anthropology of myth and ritual.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a family of beautiful, accomplished women at a time when most women stayed home. But the spectacular women in my mother's family also suffered spectacularly, and I was determined to understand family life at its very roots. I studied anthropology and, over a 15-year period, lived in a remote part of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea among a group of Gimi women who spent most of their time apart from men. I shared women's difficult daily lives, participated in their separate rites, learned their myths, and, through my writing, have devoted myself to giving them voices of their own.

Gillian's book list on the anthropology of myth and ritual

Gillian Gillison Why Gillian loves this book

The discovery that 'rituals of transition' in the lives of individuals—birth, puberty, marriage, childbirth, deathare structurally the same and analogous to a destabilizing "passage" through 'no man's land'is an insight of genius.

My enduring 'affection' for ivory tower thinkers comes from having actually applied their ideas among a people in the New Guinea Highlands over a period of 15 years. 

The methods of these early masters are sometimes faulty"shreds and patches" of exotic beliefs and practices are grouped together, torn from their contexts in time and geographybut by trying to extend Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution into the realm of culture, they came up with universals of human existence that should never be forgotten.  

By Arnold Van Gennep , Monika B Vizedom (translator) , Gabrielle L Caffee (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Rites of Passage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Folklorist Arnold van Gennep's masterwork, The Rites of Passage, has been a staple of anthropological education for more than a century. First published in French in 1909, and translated into English by the University of Chicago Press in 1960, this landmark book explores how the life of an individual in any society can be understood as a succession of stages: birth, puberty, marriage, parenthood, advancement to elderhood, and, finally, death. Van Gennep's command of the ethnographic record enabled him to discern crosscultural patterns in rituals of separation, transition, and incorporation. With compelling precision, he elaborated the terms that would both…


Book cover of This Thing of Darkness

Robert J. Lloyd Author Of The Bloodless Boy

From my list on science-based historical fiction novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write as Robert J. Lloyd, but my friends call me Rob. Having studied Fine Art at a BA degree level (starting as a landscape painter but becoming a sculpture/photography/installation/performance generalist), I then moved to writing. During my MA degree in The History of Ideas, I happened to read Robert Hooke’s diary, detailing the life and experiments of this extraordinary and fascinating man. My MA thesis and my Hooke & Hunt series of historical thrillers are all about him. I’m fascinated by early science, which was the initial ‘pull’ into writing these stories, but the political background of the times (The Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis, for example) is just as enticing. 

Robert's book list on science-based historical fiction novels

Robert J. Lloyd Why Robert loves this book

Historical fiction at its very best; it’s so sad that Thompson died shortly after the book's publication. This book follows Charles Darwin circumnavigating the world aboard The Beagle but is told largely from the viewpoint of the Beagle’s captain, Robert FitzRoy.

The science, then, is mainly Darwin’s theories of evolution by natural selection. But it’s also an account of FitzRoy’s meteorology: he was the person entrusted to set up Britain’s Met Office.

This may all seem a bit dry, but I thought it was as exciting as the best thrillers. It’s a big book, 700 pages or more, but I raced through it.

By Harry Thompson ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked This Thing of Darkness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is an epic novel of sea-faring adventure set in the 19th century charting the life of Robert Fitzroy, the captain of 'The Beagle' and his passenger Charles Darwin. It combines adventrure, emotion, ideas, humour and tragedy as well as illuminating the history of the 19th century. Fitzroy, the Christian Tory aristocrat believed in the sanctity of the individual, but his beliefs destroyed his career and he committed suicide. Darwin, the liberal minor cleric doubts the truth of the Bible and develops his theory of evolution which is brutal and unforgiving in human terms. The two friends became bitter enemies…


If you love How Animals Grieve...

Book cover of Tsunami

Tsunami by LeeAnn Pickrell,

On the morning of December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The resulting tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people across fourteen countries, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Maldives to India and all the way to East Africa.…

Book cover of Charles Darwin: Voyaging

Carl G. Schowengerdt Author Of Human Ethics

From my list on the evolution of human values.

Why am I passionate about this?

I could not reconcile teachings about right and wrong given to me by my parents and their religion with the evidence-based science I learned in medical school. As an adult, I studied morals, ethics, and religions and saw humanity on a self-destructive path, marked by world wars, genocides, destruction of civilizations, pollution of outer space, and poisons filling our land and oceans full of trash. There had to be a better way.

Carl's book list on the evolution of human values

Carl G. Schowengerdt Why Carl loves this book

Janet Browne's biography of Charles Darwin caused one of the greatest leaps in understanding in my entire life. Browne depicts this amazing phase in young Charles Darwin's life when a young man's inquisitive brain lit up as he found his purpose.

It's worth noting that Darwin was a misfit in everything he’d tried up to that point. In desperation, his father sent him on a voyage around the world as a companion to the captain, and Darwin's innate curiosity led to a life-changing investigation into why there were so many different species in so many different places. I relate to that wonderment and his question of how all this remarkable flora and fauna got here.  

By Janet Browne ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Charles Darwin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Few lives of great men offer so much interest--and so many mysteries--as the life of Charles Darwin, the greatest figure of nineteenth-century science, whose ideas are still inspiring discoveries and controversies more than a hundred years after his death. Yet only now, with the publication of Voyaging, the first of two volumes that will constitute the definitive biography, do we have a truly vivid and comprehensive picture of Darwin as man and as scientist. Drawing upon much new material, supported by an unmatched acquaintance with both the intellectual setting and the voluminous sources, Janet Browne has at last been able…


Book cover of The Descent Of Man

Michael Ruse Author Of Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict

From my list on why such nice people as we are so nasty.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was raised a Quaker in England in the years after the Second World War. Quakers don’t have creeds, but they have strong beliefs about such things as the immorality of war. In the 1950s there was also huge prejudice, particularly against homosexuality which was then illegal. Issues like these gnawed at me throughout my 55-year career as a philosophy professor. Now 82 and finally retired, I'm turning against the problems of war and prejudice, applying much that I've learnt in my career as a philosopher interested in evolutionary theory, most particularly Charles Darwin. For this reason, intentionally, Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict is aimed at the general reader.  

Michael's book list on why such nice people as we are so nasty

Michael Ruse Why Michael loves this book

Understanding human nature – nice and nasty – demands that we dig into the past, and this brings us at once to evolution. What are we and why are we? The powerful conceptual tool that we use for explanations is Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection. The Descent of Man is about human evolution. At times it reads very much like something out of the nineteenth century – Charles Darwin’s discussion of women makes your hair stand on end (and, if it doesn’t, it should). But the central doctrine of evolution through natural selection brought on by the struggle for existence is right there and once you grasp that, you have grasped the key to unlocking the main issues.

By Charles Darwin ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Descent Of Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Descent of Man, Darwin's second landmark work on evolutionary theory (following The Origin of the Species), marked a turning point in the history of science with its modern vision of human nature as the product of evolution. Darwin argued that the noblest features of humans, such as language and morality, were the result of the same natural processes that produced iris petals and scorpion tails.


Book cover of Charles Darwin: The Power of Place

Carl G. Schowengerdt Author Of Human Ethics

From my list on the evolution of human values.

Why am I passionate about this?

I could not reconcile teachings about right and wrong given to me by my parents and their religion with the evidence-based science I learned in medical school. As an adult, I studied morals, ethics, and religions and saw humanity on a self-destructive path, marked by world wars, genocides, destruction of civilizations, pollution of outer space, and poisons filling our land and oceans full of trash. There had to be a better way.

Carl's book list on the evolution of human values

Carl G. Schowengerdt Why Carl loves this book

The second volume of Janet Browne's great two-part biography is set in England, where Charles Darwin set to work in earnest. His epic book was still a manuscript when the true story began. Obsessed with finding answers, he focused on barnacles. He had them sent to him from all over the world and studied them in detail, itemizing their changes and differences until a new species emerged—along with his remarkable epiphany.

Reading the book, I could feel the same sense of astonishment and discovery: that species occurred by natural selection, not some Divine hand. But Darwin chose not to fight the battles that this would cause with Christian believers, leaving that to his friend, Thomas Henry Huxley. It's a powerful reminder that every scientist and innovator needs an ally, even the most famous of them all. 

By Janet Browne ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Charles Darwin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1858, Charles Darwin was forty-nine years old, a gentleman scientist living quietly at Down House in the Kent countryside. He was not yet a focus of debate; his "big book on species" still lay on his desk as a manuscript. For more than twenty years he had been accumulating material for it, puzzling over the questions that it raised, trying to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion, and wanting to be certain that his startling theory of evolution was correct. It is at this point that the concluding volume of Janet Browne's magisterial biography opens. Beginning with the extraordinary…


If you love Barbara J. King...

Book cover of In Bad Faith

In Bad Faith by Geoffrey Carter,

Nelson West, a former Chicago homicide detective, is hired by wealthy heir Lionel Bing to discreetly help “fix” scandals and legal problems for his father’s wealthy friends.

Bing, a brilliant but troubled investigator, suffers from PTSD symptoms as a result of being kidnapped and witnessing the murder of his mother…

Book cover of Charles Darwin's on the Origin of Species

Pamela S. Turner Author Of How to Build a Human: In Seven Evolutionary Steps

From my list on children’s books about evolution.

Why am I passionate about this?

Life really is stranger than fiction, and some of the stuff served up by evolution is outrageously bizarre. There are one-celled creatures that make rats want to cozy up to cats, a parasitic worm that turns snails into “disco zombies” and an ape that communicates across continents by pushing keys to create rows and columns of pixels. I’m fascinated by all of these creatures and love writing books for children about evolutionary biology, especially the evolution of intelligence. Besides authoring How to Build a Human, I’ve written about the evolution of intelligence in dolphins (The Dolphins of Shark Bay) and crows (Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the World’s Brightest Bird).

Pamela's book list on children’s books about evolution

Pamela S. Turner Why Pamela loves this book

If you want to understand evolution, it certainly helps to know how and where the theory of evolution originated. This picture book rendition of Darwin’s classic work – the foundational text of all modern biology – explains Darwin’s explorations, the process of natural selection, and the common descent of all living things. The direct quotes from Darwin’s own writings are a nice touch, as are the charming illustrations. It doesn’t hurt that the writer/illustrator is a molecular biologist. 

By Sabina Radeva ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Charles Darwin's on the Origin of Species as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

A picture book adaptation of Charles Darwin's groundbreaking On the Origin of Species, lushly illustrated and told in accessible and engaging easy-to-understand text for young readers.

On the Origin of Species revolutionized our understanding of the natural world. Now young readers can discover Charles Darwin's groundbreaking theory of evolution for themselves in this stunning picture-book adaptation that uses stylish illustrations and simple text to introduce how species form, develop, and change over time.


Book cover of H is for Hawk
Book cover of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
Book cover of You Will Not Have My Hate

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,395

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Charles Darwin, anthropomorphism, and anthropology?

Charles Darwin 59 books
Anthropomorphism 39 books
Anthropology 113 books