Grief Science

As late as the 1960s, the Wari' Indians of the western Amazonian rainforest ate the roasted flesh of their dead as an expression of compassion for the deceased and for his or her close relatives. By removing and transforming the corpse, Wari' death rites helped the bereaved kin accept their loss and go on with their lives. Drawing on the recollections of Wari' elders who participated in consuming the dead, this book presents one of the richest, most authoritative ethnographic accounts of funerary cannibalism ever recorded.

Award-winning journalist J. Malcolm Garcia's essays highlight the struggle, survival, and endurance of average people affected by the injustices of America's remorseless mammoth institutions and public indifference. They include families and small businesses still recovering from the BP oil spill; the man sentenced to life in prison for transporting drugs to save his son's life; the widows of soldiers who died, not in war, but from toxic fumes at their bases; and the Iraqi interpreter who was promised American asylum, only to arrive and be forced to live in poverty.

Mati’s mother is dead; her father has withdrawn; her sister, Chichi, is acting out; and her young brother, Tana, is desperate for any sign of love and normalcy. When Chichi pulls her worst stunt yet, Mati’s father uproots the family from their home in England for an extended camping holiday in their native Zimbabwe. Along for the trip is Meticais, a talkative, fabulously attired gender-neutral spirit—or ghost? or imaginary friend?—whom only Mati can see and speak with.

Penetrating our hearts and minds, climate grief is not an ailment we have to heal from but a call to change the trajectory of our shared future. The universality, urgency, and inescapable scope of climate change leads to a depth of grief we are not prepared to cope with, and a grief that is still largely unknown and ignored. Climate change and climate grief are inseparable, and coping with the emotional fallout of the climate crisis is our first step toward dealing with the crisis itself and to building resilience.

These three ‘Consolations', written by Seneca to his mother and two friends, have been described as ‘the crowning achievement in the canon of ‘consolation letters'. But sentimental they are not, for they emerge from the writer's deep-seated commitment to Stoicism, where individuals are exhorted to inhabit qualities of virtue, positivity, resilience, and indifference. This recording opens with Seneca's consolatory letter to Marcia, who, after three years, was still mourning the death of her son.

In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a consolation speech—not for others, as had always been done, but for himself. And it worked. Cicero's Consolation was something new in literature, equal parts philosophy and motivational speech.

All three volumes of Amanda Lovelace’s poetry in one audio collection - read by the author and guest contributors! Goodreads Choice Award-winning poet and USA Today best-selling author Amanda Lovelace’s 'women are some kind of magic' series is now available in one amazing audio collection! Includes: the princess saves herself in this one; the witch doesn't burn in this one; and the mermaid's voice returns in this one.

In life, high school classmates Caroline Davison and Kenny Zhou existed in separate universes-Caroline in one of softball practices and family dinners; Kenny in one of NASA photo books and late-night shifts at his parents' Chinese restaurant. But after their deaths, they find themselves thrown together as roommates in a mysterious white room-one that seems to exist outside of time and space, shows them their loved ones' lives on a large hi-def TV, and grants their wishes with a sardonic sense of humor.

Barton Rubenstein had a picture-perfect childhood—a loving family, idyllic summers at the beach, and a particularly close kinship with his progressive, charismatic, and devoted mom. When she died after a brutal five-year battle with cancer, Barton, just 18, found himself confronted by unbearable heartbreak. He was also saddened that his mother had not realized many of her dreams, and felt terrified that he could meet the same fate. This fear sent him headlong into a life of unexpected adventures and achievements, feeling that tomorrow could be too late.

An escaped madman is heading toward Chicago, leaving behind a trail of corpses. The victims are savagely torn apart - and partially eaten. Is the killer merely a cannibalistic psychopath - or a creature from the darkest pits of superstition?

In democracies, citizens must accept loss; we can’t always be on the winning side. But in the United States, the fundamental civic capacity of being able to lose is not distributed equally. Propped up by white supremacy, whites (as a group) are accustomed to winning. Black citizens, on the other hand, are expected to be political heroes whose civic suffering enables progress toward racial justice. In this book, Juliet Hooker, a leading thinker on democracy and race, argues that the two most important forces driving racial politics in the United States today are Black grief and white grievance.

At the age of 60, Cory Taylor is dying of melanoma-related brain cancer. Her illness is no longer treatable: She now weighs less than her neighbor's retriever. As her body weakens, she describes the experience - the vulnerability and strength, the courage and humility, the anger and acceptance - of knowing she will soon die. Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautiful memoir is a clear-eyed account of what dying teaches.

There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care - nearly 44 percent of all deaths - and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape.

Twelve-year-old Kwame Powell isn't ready to deal with losing his grandmother, even as he and his family head to Ghana for her celebration of life. He's definitely not ready when he's sucked into a magical whirlpool that leads straight to Asamando, the Ghanaian underworld. There, he comes face to face with his grandmother, who is very much alive, and somehow still...a kid? Together with his best friend, Autumn, and a talkative aboatia named Woo, Kwame must battle angry nature gods, and stop the underworld from destroying the land of the living.

Hazel’s new life in England should have been the stuff of fairy tales; after all her great aunt’s cottage looked just like a gingerbread house, with a magical garden and whispering fireflies promising quests and adventures. But as Hazel struggles to deal with the challenges of the everyday world—making friends, missing her family—she also learns that every fairy tale has a dark side. And there are terrifying creatures that lurk in the shadows....

Lauren Pailing is born in the '60s, and a child of the '70s. She is 13 years old the first time she dies. Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the '80s, becomes a Londoner in the '90s. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her - while Lauren enters a brand new life, too. But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him. And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found....

A wife struggles to make sense of her husband’s sudden disappearance. A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind. A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother’s wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed. A young man comes to grips with the joy—and vulnerability—of fatherhood. And, in the masterly opening novella, two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship, only to discover the disruptive and unsettling power of sex.

Since her sister’s tragic death, 17-year-old Callie Ryan has basically given up. Her grades have plummeted, she’s quit her swim team, and she barely recognizes the people her parents once were. When she returns to her aunt’s run-down coastal Victorian one year after Chloe’s death, Callie resigns herself to a summer of guilt and home renovations. She doesn’t expect to be charmed by the tiny coastal town or by Tucker Morgan, a local boy brimming with sunshine. But Callie’s nights are crowded with chilling dreams, unanswered questions, and eerie phenomena....

Left all alone after her mother passes away, 12-year-old Louisa LaRoche watches the sky for her father. Long ago, a powerful gust of wind swept through town, stealing him away on the wings of his untamed magic - the same magic that stirs within Louisa. As if she is made of hollow bones and too much air, her feet never quite touch the ground. But for all her sky gazing, Louisa finds her fortune on the leaf-strewn street when she spots a gleaming black-and-gold invitation - a ticket to the Carnival Beneath the Stars.

Mesmerized, at times unnerved, by his 97-year-old father's nearly superhuman vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an investigation of the human physical condition. The result is this exhilarating book - both a personal meditation on mortality and an exploration of flesh-and-blood existence from crib to oblivion. It's an exploration that paradoxically prompts a renewed and profound appreciation of life.