Five of the best books about grief

Sophie Ratcliffe is professor of literature and creative criticism at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor at Lady Margaret Hall. In addition to her scholarly books, including On Sympathy, she has published commentary pieces and book reviews for the Guardian, the New Statesman, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other outlets, and has served a judge for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Wellcome Book Prize.

Ratcliffe's forthcoming book is Loss, A Love Story: Imagined Histories and Brief Encounters.

At the Guardian she tagged five books about grief that can help provide comfort and perspective, including:

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

The premise of this poetic novella – giant crow moves in with bereaved family after mother dies – sounds unlikely. But through this brilliant semi-allegory, Porter captures how loss can upend a family, seemingly stretching space and logic in surreal ways. Told through voices of two boys, their father, and a shapeshifting crow, this is a funny, frightening and loving experiment in magical thinking. As an adult who was bereaved as a child, I approached this tale with some trepidation – fearing it might cut too close. In fact, it provided a kind of fierce comfort – holding pain up to the light, and aslant.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue