Some more of our cut flowers to decorate today's post...
and thank you so much everyone, ninety four heartfelt comments and well over fifty suggestions...a book a week for a year or more. As you can see from her replies, Lesley Ann has been incredibly moved by your kind thoughts, and wise words and I know that for many who read here sometimes knowing you are not alone, even in a virtual way, can help
I wonder how many of us started reading a book off the list week. I certainly did and am really enjoying The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery and the suddenly very interesting life of Valancy Stirling. I had also been meaning to read Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diana Schoemperlen for years so have had my nose in that all weekend too.
Here is the list of books that have all worked for you in times of need, and I have split off those which seem specifically grief-related as well as a list of authors and then poetry. I have also included the suggestions sent in e mails (thank you everyone for those) please let me know if I have missed any from comments (it won't have been intentional, every suggestion welcome) and if you want to add to this list just leave details in comments at the end of this post and I will add them dreckly as we say.
Our Lady of the Lost and Found ~ Diane Schoemperlen
The Blue Castle ~ L M Montgomery
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant, an autobiographical book by the American cartoonist Roz Chast.
A Month in the Country ~ J.L.Carr
The Light Years + Cazalet saga ~ Elizabeth Jane Howard.
I Capture the Castle ~ Dodie Smith
Cold Comfort Farm ~ Stella Gibbons
The Village School ~ Miss Read
Mr Collier's Letter Racks ~ Dror Wahrman
The Lost Carving ~ David Easterly
My Family and Other Animals ~ Gerald Durrell
The Snow Geese ~ William Fiennes
Sightlines ~ Kathleen Jamie
Findings ~ Kathleen Jamie
The Wheel on the School ~ Meindert de Jong
The Presence ~ Danni Abse
Are You Somebody - The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman ~ Nuala O'Faolain
Miss Hargreaves ~ Frank Baker
Under the Greenwood Tree ~ Thomas Hardy
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society ~ Mary Shaffer
The Wind in the Willows ~ Kenneth Grahame
The Railway Children ~ E.Nesbit
China Court ~ Rumer Godden
Gift From the Sea ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Mrs. Fitten's Country Life ~ Mavis Cheek
Last Night at the Lobster ~ Stewart O'Nan
Cassandra at The Wedding ~ Dorothy Baker
The Heather Blazing ~ Colm Toibin
All Passion Spent ~ Vita Sackville West
Brunetti Series ~ Donna Leon
Bruno Chief of Police Series ~ Martin Walker
The Children of Green Knowe ~ Lucy M.Boston
The Summer House ~ Santa Montefiore
Simon Fonthill series ~ John Wilcox
Coroner series ~ M.R.Hall
The Enchanted April ~ Elizabeth von Arnim
The Red Tent ~ Anita Diamant
The Distant Hours ~ Kate Morton
Tolstoy and the Purple Reading Chair ~ Nina Sankovitch
The Swan ~ Rilke
The Secret Garden ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
Flambards ~ K.S.Peyton
The Magic Apple Tree ~ Susan Hill
A Ram in the Well ~ June Knox-Mawer
Ammonites & Leaping Fish ~ Penelope Lively
The Summer Book / The Winter Book~ Tove Jansson
The Gate to Women's Country ~ Sherri Tepper
The Forsyte Saga ~ John Galsworthy
The Scent of Water ~ Elizabeth Goudge
The Frederica Quartet ~ A.S.Byatt
Kitchen Privileges ~ Mary Higgins Clarke
Grief-related books...
A Grief Observed ~ C.S.Lewis
Comfort: A Journey Through Grief ~ Ann Hood
The Music Room ~ William Fiennes
Hour of Gold/Hour of Lead ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When Things Fall Apart ~ Pema Chodron
Only Remember Me: An Anthology of Grief and Love ~ compiled by Anthony Guest
A Time to Grieve ~ Carol Staudacher
My Year of Magical Thinking ~ Joan Didion
The Widow ~ Lynn Caine
Don't Let Them Tell You How to Grieve ~ Gina Claye
Levels of Life ~ Julian Barnes
Comfort Authors
Jane Austen
Agatha Christie
Richmal Crompton
George Eliot
Mrs Gaskell
Georgette Heyer
G.M.Malliet
Ursula le Guin
Barbara Pym
Dorothy Whipple
Monica Dickens
Margaret Mahy
Victoria Thompson
Louise Penny
Mazo de la Roche
Dorothy L. Sayers
Anthony Trollope
P.G.Wodehouse
Alexander McCall Smith
E.F.Benson
Ngaio Marsh
Elizabeth Taylor
William Maxwell
Maurice le Blanc
E.Nesbit
Poetry
Being Alive
Staying Alive
Being Human
Robert Frost
George Mackay Brown
Yeats
D.H.Lawrence
Mary Oliver
Denise Levertov
Volumes of edited poetry by Roger Housden.
John O'Donahue
Robert Pack
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