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.
Rouge is at its heart an exploration of a daughter’s grief for her troubled mother and the bizarre turns that grief can take.
Rouge tells the story of a young woman obsessed with cult-like beauty culture. When her mother mysteriously dies, she is forced to return home and confront the complicated relationship she had with her also beauty-obsessed mother. Fairy tale surreal and viscerally disturbing, Rouge delves into obsession, grief, and the dangers of beauty culture taken to the extreme.
Like all of Awad’s books, this is a story that will stick with me a very long time.
From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother's unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty.
Can she escape her mother's fate and find a connection that is more than skin deep?
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 in The Guardian, i newspaper, The New York Times, Time, Globe and Mail, Bustle, The Millions, LitHub, TOR, Good Housekeeping, Our Culture Mag, and more!
'You think, "She's not going to go there...yes, she is.' Margaret Atwood
'The trancelike, rhapsodic language and deepening…
I'm a death professional who lives in a world where nobody wants to talk about my specialist subject, so I hoover up any books that discuss mortality and our relationship to it. To do my job well, I need to face death on a daily basis in a matter-of-fact way, without losing that reverence, but equally not getting lost in the reverence because there is plenty to smile at, laugh at and be brutally honest about. These things make me the rounded human that is needed to perform the task well and the kind of people who write these books typically embody those qualities and inspire me. I hope they can inspire you too.
I read this book when I was in a slump whilst working on my own and it really inspired me.
The job depicted here is fascinating but the woman carrying it out is doubly so.
Sandra - originally a married with kids man called Peter, who had suffered violence as a child - has been a drag queen, a sex worker, undergone gender reassignment, and takes all of this suffering and rich experience into her work cleaning up death scenes and hoarder houses.
The latter involving working with the damaged living who are often resistant. The human side of her job is beautiful and I saw the parallels with my own work and started writing again with vigour.
Husband, father, drag queen, sex worker, wife. You've got to hear Sandra's incredible story.
Sarah Krasnostein's The Trauma Cleaner is a love letter to an extraordinary ordinary life. In Sandra Pankhurst she discovered a woman capable of taking a lifetime of hostility and transphobic abuse and using it to care for some of society's most in-need people. Audible's editors fell in love with Sandra because of her warmth, humour and grace, and we think you will, too. Here’s what we thought of The Trauma Cleaner:
"As an acquiring editor at Audible, I read a huge number of books but this…
I’ve loved cinema since I was 9 years old growing up in New York City and my grandmother took me to see The Ten Commandments at the Paradise Theater, Loew’s magnificent flagship theater in the Bronx. The theater’s famous canopy of twinkling stars on the ceiling was the perfect magical venue, and I was thunderstruck not only by the epic sweep of the movie but also by the opulence of the theater, which mirrored the monumental pyramids that Ramses constructs in the film. Ever since, my passion for movies has been as all-consuming as DeMille’s jello sea was for the infidel Egyptians who doubted the power of special effects and cinematic illusion.
John Barth’s first novel, originally published in 1956 and later significantly revised, is a darkly comic philosophical novel whose main character, Todd Andrews, is contemplating suicide.
The novel, along with Barth’s second, The End of the Road, is written in a relatively realistic style, different from the metafictional turn that the author would later take in his subsequent fiction.Nevertheless, these two early books are in some ways consistent with later works like Giles Boat Boy and Lost in the Funhouse, particularly in the passages about metaphor in life and art.
Barth’s musings about metaphors in the real world are relevant to Wiseman’s ability to wrest metaphoric implications from real-world events and objects. Indeed, Wiseman’s films are a veritable floating opera of signifiers.
The Floating Opera and The End Of The Road are John Barth's first two novels. Their relationship to each other is evident not only in their ribald subject matter but in the eccentric characters and bitterly humorous tone of the narratives. Both concern strange, consuming love triangles and the destructive effect of an overactive intellect on the emotions. Separately they give two very different views of a universal human drama. Together they illustrate the beginnings of an illustrious career.
I am a Canadian author/editor who both fears and loves being a stranger in a strange land. I fear the challenges, the feelings of dislocation and vulnerability. But I love the connections, the overcoming of the strangeness and the ultimate feeling of kinship. As a mom, I travelled with my kids to far away places, favouring adventure tours and staying well away from high priced hotels that separate tourists from locals. My novel, The World on Either Side, was inspired by a trek I took with my then fourteen-year-old daughter in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I bought this book for the title, and happily there are Madonnas galore in this story, including in the apartment of “two motherless dudes,” dying teen Jessie T. Serrano and his dad. This quest novel—before he dies, Jessie sets up a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, best friend and girlfriend—follows five grieving young adults on a doomed pilgrimage in a strange continent. If you have ever been a teen (as I assume you have) you will connect with the six (!!) point of view characters, each flawed but achingly human. "Not all stories are about love," says one of them, but this story most definitely is.
Five teens backpack through Europe to fulfill the mysterious dying wish of their friend in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy.
Jesse lives with his history professor dad in a house covered with postcards of images of the Madonna from all over the world. They’re gotten used to this life: two motherless dudes living among thousands of Madonnas. But Jesse has a heart condition that will ultimately cut his life tragically short. Before he dies, he arranges a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, his best friend, and his girlfriend to…
I'm a horror writer based in Colorado, and I spent my childhood in a variety of wild, untamed places. Horror that uses location as its antagonist is one of my favorite things because I understand how quickly–and easily–a beautiful place can become sinister. It’s not enough to go to a scary place; these books are about what happens when the scary place starts to grow roots inside you, how it changes you. I have written two books that deal with this to some extent, the first about an abandoned coal mine, and the second about Antarctica, and if you like any of these, I hope you’ll consider trying one of mine!
The Hollow Places follows Kara, who has returned to her childhood home in North Carolina, as she takes over running her uncle’s museum of eccentricities after he’s injured. If you love nature-based horror as much as I do, this is a must-read–when a portal opens up in the museum, Kara goes through it into a willow-filled, marshy world of rivers and doors and terrifying, hungry creatures. She has to find a way to protect her home from this new world, which seems desperate to spill into hers and consume it, leaving it hollow.
Recently divorced and staring down the barrel of moving back in with her parents, Carrot really needs a break. And a place to live. So when her Uncle Earl, owner of the eclectic Wonder Museum, asks her to stay with him in exchange for cataloguing the exhibits, of course she says yes.
The Wonder Museum is packed with taxidermy, shrunken heads, and an assortment of Mystery Junk. For Carrot, it's not creepy at all: she grew up with it. What's creepy is the hole that's been knocked in one of the museum walls, and the corridor behind it. There's just…
Saving the planet one death at a time is truly what the world needs now: to reduce our carbon footprint and go out in eco-friendly style. As the one-woman funeral service in the rural town of Boring, Oregon, I support the philosophy of old-school burial practices that are kinder to both humans, the earth, and our wallets. I have humbly been baptized the Green Reaper for my passionate advocacy of green burial, and as an undertaker and the owner and undertaker of Cornerstone Funeral, the first green funeral home in the Portland area. I love to devour all literature possible on green burial and environmentally friendly death care.
I first learned of the Death Dialogue Projects through Instagram. The author has a standing open call for Tiny Death Stories of 100 words or less, and a few of mine were showcased along with many lovely true tales of personal loss and grief. What a welcome resource as well as her emotionally raw nature of her podcast translates well into her pages. The book is an obvious project of passion embracing death literacy. I love how healing and understanding are weaved through the shared stories.
The impending or actual death of someone close to you can be devastating. It doesn't matter if you knew it was coming, or if it was a total shock-you'll never be the same. There is no right way to grieve, and no appropriate time frame. It's different for everyone.
Author and therapist gone rogue, Becky Aud-Jennison, the creator of The Death Dialogues Project and podcast, has sewn together threads from people's shared personal stories and her own experiences, using them to offer insight and comfort to those who are experiencing the…
I have a passion for this type of writing because I am talented at it and I feel that illustrious and sensuous writing with an erotic flair is something very under-sung and often stigmatized. It has been more accepted since the Fifty Shades of Grey trend, but I feel there are so many authors who have yet to achieve the recognition they deserve for their efforts in this artistic and intriguing genre!
Zoe Blake’s an amazing and sophisticated author with one dark and scandalous imagination! But that is why I loved this book. The horror of the thought of being trapped in a body you have no control over but puts you at the usage of other horrific mistreatments; it’s the stuff that makes up terrible dark nightmares and combined with some romance – it’s jaw-dropping!
My last memory is of the accident. The rancid smell of gasoline and the silence...the deafening silence. Then there was only darkness...and him.I am his captive.His broken doll.There is no escape.No hope.No one is coming to save me.This dark horror novella was previously published as "My Name is Jane" in the "When the Dark Wins" anthology.
My true passion is ultimately the supernatural version of The Hero’s Journey so well described by Joseph P. Campbell in his book of the same name. I’m inspired by the world’s legends about men and women who are forced by fate and destiny to a greater purpose against powerful demons and gods. The price is their normal life. Their first enemies are their own fears. The first sacrifice is the death of the old self, as they discover who they truly are meant to be. I feel this is ultimately the challenge we all face. The world is waiting. Live your dream… just without the 20ft. demon-forged ribbon sword and rescue hellhound.
I love this graphic novel about Morpheus the God of Dreams and the other gods that inhabit humanity’s unconscious aka the Endless. He escapes from imprisonment and struggles to rebuild our dreamworld called The Dreaming. I love that Morpheus’ problems are basically the same as ours. He’s trying to find his place in a world with surprising traps and a constantly evolving understanding of what it means.
New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman's transcendent series THE SANDMAN is often hailed as the definitive Vertigo title and one of the finest achievements in graphic storytelling. Gaiman created an unforgettable tale of the forces that exist beyond life and death by weaving ancient mythology, folklore and fairy tales with his own distinct narrative vision. In PRELUDES and NOCTURNES, an occultist attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. After his 70 year imprisonment and eventual escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power.…
My love for magical and mysterious books was inspired by Harriet the Spy, Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and Harry Potter. Since I was 8 years old, I longed to write my own mystery series—SO I DID! My latest mystery series, The Curious Cat Spy Club, is based on my own childhood club. My friends and I played cryptic games, spied on suspicious neighbors, and helped abandoned kittens. I love writing about mysteries + animals. And I’m excited to share my favorite mysterious and magical books with you!!
I love a thrilling mystery with secrets, humor, and surprises. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to find out if anyone would realize Rosie and Baker were hiding their Great-Grandma in a freezer. It was all Great-Grandma's idea! The kids race against time to piece together clues to find a missing will and save the family home from destruction. Reminiscent of an Alfred Hitchcock story with unexpected twists and heart-pounding danger. Fun mystery!
A dead body. A missing will. An evil relative. The good news is, Great Grammy has a plan. The bad news is, she's the dead body.
Rosie and Baker are hiding something. Something big. Their great grandmother made them promise to pretend she's alive until they find her missing will and get it in the right hands. The will protects the family house from their grandmother, Grim Hesper, who would sell it and ship Rosie and Baker off to separate boarding schools. They've already lost their parents and Great Grammy--they can't lose each other, too.
I have been teaching English for 25 years, both at the high school and middle school levels. And one thing I have seen in the lives of thousands of teenagers is that our days are filled with the most beautiful, amazing things, as well as the most devastating, tragic things. My own childhood was equal parts unconditional love and chaotic dysfunction. In fact, if life were a book, it would be on this list!
I love everything A.S. King. She is my absolute favorite YA author. Her books are weird and thoughtful, and they stick in my head forever. Her award-winning Please Ignore Very Dietz is no different. Vera’s (former!) best friend Charlie has died. While she’s struggling with family stuff, and drinking stuff, and working at pizza place stuff, she’s being haunted by Charlie’s ghost who insists she tells the police what she knows. The story itself is quirky, and Vera’s narration is clever. And, then, of course, there’s a twist at the end!
Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything.
So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?
Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.
