Here are 66 books that Leaning Into Love fans have personally recommended if you like
Leaning Into Love.
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Since 2012, when I was fortunate to be a companion to my dying father, I have gained a deep appreciation for the topics of death, dying, grief and bereavement. Being with him during his final moments was a vitally transformative event in my life, and subsequent developments led me to become a writer and curator of content in this field. I am now an end-of-life educator and preparedness facilitator, whose role it is to assist others to prepare for their inevitable, eventual death. Being prepared, by making informed choices and documenting them, can be one of the greatest gifts we give to our loved ones. I coach my End-of-Life Matters clients to do just that.
This book is an anthology of over 50 perspectives on death and dying, grief, and bereavement shared by professionals who work in supporting the dying and bereaved and by those who have lived their own unique experiences of loss. It is a comprehensive cross-section of this topic and one which can be a valuable resource to anyone going through their own such experience or those who are preparing to support others in grief.
In Journey's End, many and varied collaborators write about death, dying, and the end of life. We attempt to describe real life issues and circumstances, and we discuss ways to proactively deal with them. Useful training, resource, and reference material is also included.
Death, dying, and end of life are topics many prefer to avoid. This book suggests that we benefit from having frank discussions, living life to the fullest, and planning for our own journey's end, whenever that may be. Everyone who is born eventually will die, whether or not we want to embrace that fact.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
On reaching my late 40’s, the topic of ageing and dying raised its head with a clarion call. This wake up call led me to draw upon my 25 years’ experience as a scientist to research why we age, how we die, and what (if anything) we can do about it all. I also looked beyond the physical into the social and emotional aspects. These book recommendations reflect my journey to understanding that a life well lived is about doing things you like with people you love, rather than swallowing vitamin pills.
This book completely changed the way I thought about aging and death. I listened to this book whilst walking along the Cornish Coastal Path in January. I was in the process of writing my own book about aging and had been focusing on biology but not humanity.
The warmth of the writing, the emotional journey that Gawande undergoes, the brilliant advice, and the wisdom from an expert all combine to make a wonderful life (and death) changing book.
'GAWANDE'S MOST POWERFUL, AND MOVING, BOOK' MALCOLM GLADWELL
'BEING MORTAL IS NOT ONLY WISE AND DEEPLY MOVING; IT IS AN ESSENTIAL AND INSIGHTFUL BOOK FOR OUR TIMES' OLIVER SACKS
For most of human history, death was a common, ever-present possibility. It didn't matter whether you were five or fifty - every day was a roll of the dice. But now, as medical advances push the boundaries of survival further each year, we have become increasingly detached from the reality of being mortal. So here is a book about the modern experience of mortality - about what it's…
In all my travel books, I’ve followed my intuition to a destination or into a subject, pairing emotion with intellectual curiosity, travelling to try to know a people, place, idea, or time. So the pivot to navigating the ‘border' between life and death felt like an obvious extension. It’s a frontier that we'll all have to pass, and we’ll not have to worry about forgetting your passport. I began my search for my wife Katrin as a skeptic and ended it with faith in the existence of an afterlife. In sharing this journey, I hope others may be helped to prepare for and to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
What if everything we thought we knew about death was wrong?
How should we prepare for the dying and saying goodbye? And how can understanding death improve our life? These are the questions posed—and answered—by Kathryn Mannix, palliative care pioneer and CBT therapist. ‘There are only two days with fewer than twenty-four hours in each lifetime, sitting like bookends astride our lives: one is celebrated every year, yet it is the other that makes us see living as precious.’
Death animates life and, in common with all the books selected, With the End in Mind really can change the way you see the world.
'Impossible to read with dry eyes or an unaltered mindset' Sunday Times
'Illuminating and beautiful' Cathy Rentzenbrink
What if everything you thought you knew about death was wrong?
How should we prepare for the facts of dying and saying our goodbyes?
And what if understanding death improved your life?
By turns touching and tragic, funny and wise, With the End in Mind brings together Kathryn Mannix ' s lifetime of medical experience to tell powerful stories of life and death.
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
Since 2012, when I was fortunate to be a companion to my dying father, I have gained a deep appreciation for the topics of death, dying, grief and bereavement. Being with him during his final moments was a vitally transformative event in my life, and subsequent developments led me to become a writer and curator of content in this field. I am now an end-of-life educator and preparedness facilitator, whose role it is to assist others to prepare for their inevitable, eventual death. Being prepared, by making informed choices and documenting them, can be one of the greatest gifts we give to our loved ones. I coach my End-of-Life Matters clients to do just that.
Rogers has an unexpected message to share. It’s possible to be grateful amidst a loved one’s death. In her case, it was the loss of her husband, and the story is told through blog posts he composed during his final year of life along with her own journal entries. By seeing her way through her own depths of grief, Rogers points the way for readers to seek and find their own gifts embedded in the grief of loss.
Is it really possible to be grateful for your husband’s death? This is the message that ultimately comes over in Jane Duncan Rogers’ book Gifted By Grief: A True Story of Cancer, Loss and Rebirth. Told through the medium of blog posts by her husband in his last year, her own journal entries, and a heartfelt, poignant and riveting narrative, Jane invites the reader into her grief-stricken world. Where this might be harrowing, it is found to be ironic; where there might be pointlessness and despair, gifts are found, inspiring the reader find the gifts in their own life situation.
The stars aligned to ignite my passion for magic-realism romance after a few things had happened. 1) I got heavily into the idea of the multiverse and alternate realities in high school, having been inspired by my physics teacher. 2) I read and fell in love with The Time Traveler’s Wife (see list!). 3) I binge-watched the incredible sci-fi show Fringe, which deals with parallel universes and time jumps. 4) I decided to write my first multiverse romance, inspired by all the above factors and more besides. Since then, I’ve focused most of my reading on romantic novels, with those that share a magic realism twist being auto-reads—of course!
This book is everything a magic-realism romance should be—captivating, romantic, ethereal, and satisfying. As a total sucker for parallel worlds, I love the alternate-reality element of this novel. Each night, our protagonist Lydia has lifelike dreams of an alternate path in which her boyfriend Freddie didn’t just die in a tragic accident. The potent pills her doctor prescribed to help her sleep after his death are taking her into this magical dream world in which she would much rather live than reality.
I love how this seemingly ideal dream world is juxtaposed with the reality Lydia is forced to live while awake and her gradual awakening from grief into a new world of love. It’s moving, tender, sweet, and totally dreamy—literally!
Two lives. Two loves. One impossible choice. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick One Day in December . . .
“I read The Two Lives of Lydia Bird in a single sitting. What a beautiful, emotional gift Josie Silver has given us.”—Jodi Picoult
Written with Josie Silver’s trademark warmth and wit, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a powerful and thrilling love story about the what-ifs that arise at life’s crossroads, and what happens when one woman is given a miraculous chance to answer them.
Like the widows in The Widows’ Wine Club, I’m getting on. Unlike them, I’ve been a writer for forty years, often hunched over a keyboard, ignoring people. Amazingly, though, I managed to have a happy marriage and make some great friends. Phew! Because I’ve needed friends, especially since my husband died. Looking back, I’m interested to see that I didn’t instantly take to some of my closest buddies. Circumstances threw us together, and we got to know and like and love each other. I explore this in my book.
I took a while to warm to Mabel Beaumont. She’s grumpy and wasn’t a loving partner to her late husband, Arthur, a caring attentive man.
When he dies, she’s bereft and feels bound to carry out his last wish, written cryptically in his last list, "Find D." Mabel thinks she knows what it means. She must track down her former best friend Dot, who she hasn’t seen since she suddenly left more than sixty years ago. But how?
Fortunately, savvy helpers turn up, thoughtfully arranged by Arthur before he died, and they all become unlikely friends. Did Arthur know her better than she knew herself? Did he love her more than she loved herself or him? Well-drawn characters make this an intriguing, uplifting story. It’s never too late!
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLERThe list he left had just one item on it. Or, at least, it did at first...
Mabel Beaumont's husband Arthur loved lists. He'd leave them for her everywhere. 'Remember: eggs, butter, sugar'. 'I love you: today, tomorrow, always'.
But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he's still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: 'Find D'.
Mabel feels sure she knows what it means. She must track down her best friend Dot, who she hasn't seen since the fateful day she left more…
Big Ideas... For Small Businesses
by
John Lamerton,
Big Ideas… for Small Businesses is a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to growing a small business without sacrificing your lifestyle. Written by a former civil servant turned entrepreneur, the book challenges hustle culture and instead champions the idea of an "ambitious lifestyle business" - one that provides freedom and financial stability,…
I have long been fascinated by how personal and singular the experience of grief is. There is something soothing and relatable about reading others’ experiences—the more strange, nonsensical, or even supernatural the better. My own novel, The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, is a retelling of The Secret Garden, but with an adult protagonist moving through grief over the death of her complicated mother, striving to see a bright ray of hope on the other side. Each of the books on my list about unusual manifestations of grief tackles this same concept in new and surprising ways, and I hope they touch you as they have touched me.
While the “manifestation of grief” may be less literal in Afterword, I would argue that the manifestation is no less profound.
Afterword tells the story of a woman who channels her grief by recreating her dead lover as an AI program. Schuyler’s gorgeous writing provides deep insights into love and loss and regret while touching on important contemporary ideas of online privacy and the gray morality of AI technology.
A pioneer of artificial intelligence rebuilds the love of her life, but when she discovers he's been feeding incriminating civilian information to the Chinese government, she'll have to decide whether to keep or kill him.
When approached by a Chinese tech company, Virginia Samson is moved to give them her beloved's algorithm so they can create an AI companion for the aging population. Soon her digital lost love starts spying on Chinese citizens, funneling the information to the Chinese government. When Virginia frantically tries to rebuild him, she uncovers his terrible secret, forcing her to relive their beautiful and tragic…
Rachel is a heart-minded professional specializing in current and relevant approaches in support of individuals and workplaces following a loss or trauma. She is a best-selling author, seasoned keynote speaker, and business consultant. She began her career serving in management of Fortune 500 companies, overcoming her own adversity following the sudden death of her husband while raising a 2-year-old. She was immediately confronted with the see-saw created when personal and professional trajectories collide, giving her the opportunity to provide invaluable insights about loss. Her books include best-selling Living with Loss One Day at a Time, Finding Peace, and Grief in the Workplace: A Comprehensive Guide for Being Prepared.
Widowed. Rants, Raves and Randoms is a great read for widows and widowers, but really anyone that had a loss or knows of someone that has. It's excellently written, easy to read, and thoroughly engaging but mostly will make your heart smile. A beautifully told, heartbreaking love story, but mostly it will leave you with optimism and lingering warmth. It gives one hope that brighter days are ahead and love survives, even in death.
Join Hope & Empowerment Coach, author and speaker, John Polo, as he takes you on a journey into the mind of a young widower in this unique and eclectic book. You will laugh. You will cry. You will question why. “This is the best grief book I have read. Ever.” – Phyllis “You sir have found your calling. OMG! You have no idea what your book has just done for me.” – Jennifer “This book made me cry so hard, and then laugh even harder. Have Kleenex ready and go pee before you start. Because you won’t want to put…
I will die on this hill: a knowledge of human history is essential. If we refuse to examine our past, we are truly doomed to repeat it. What we call “history,” however, is told from only one viewpoint: that of the victor, or whatever party lived to record the tale. Since childhood, I’ve been intrigued by the lives of our forebears even as I longed for proof of the uncanny in the waking world. But I’ve only ever encountered the fantastical—not to mention the historical—in texts like those on this list, where the two can commingle, enriching and refining one another for the enlightenment, and the pleasure, of their readers.
The frame-tale—also known as a “story within a story”—is one of my favorite fictional devices, and Margaret Atwood’s deft handling of three separate storylines makes this book a truly astonishing read.
Though her characters are fictional, their story is set against a backdrop of major Canadian historical events of the 1930s and 1940s. The exterior tale carries Iris Chase, an unhappily married upper-class woman, from childhood to death, while the real author of the interior story—a novel about a pair of illicit lovers that contains an embedded science fiction tale (the eponymous Blind Assassin)—is one of the story’s biggest mysteries.
This novel is ambitious, engaging, and wholly surprising.
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace
Laura Chase's older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by their once-prosperous family before the First War. While coping with her unreliable body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, in particular the events surrounding her sister's tragic death. Chief among these was the publication of The Blind Assassin, a novel which earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety but also a devoted cult following. …
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
I am a reasonably emotional person, and I love strong emotional books. I don’t specifically choose a book because I want to cry. If the book is emotional enough, the body reacts in the form of tears trickling from the eyes. I am a solo book reader and audiobook listener, and I rarely DNF. Some stories stay with you for a long, long time, and sometimes you need to relive that story again. My writing inspiration came from reading more than a hundred books and from the idea that even my ideas can become a novel.
It was my re-read, and one of those books where I absolutely hated the movie adaptation but loved the book to the core.
The book is the perfect example of depicting a real-life situation where life is perfect for a decade until it isn’t. The book felt emotional even on my second read, and I had to give myself a breather every now and then before I continued further.
The tough part is that grief can come in a way that can make us or break us. This was beautifully portrayed in the book by Cecelia Ahern.
From a New York Times bestselling author, a recent widow falls in love with life again, thanks to the help of her guardian angel–her late husband. Now a feature film starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler.
Holly and Gerry were childhood sweethearts–soulmates. And then the unthinkable happens. Gerry's death devastates Holly. But as her 30th birthday looms, Gerry comes back to her, leaving her a bundle of notes signed ‘PS, I Love You’. One for each month of the year. The man who knows her better than anyone is set out to teach her that life goes on.
