Akron Public Library

Ginny Carter was once a rising star in TV news, married to a top anchorman, with a three-year-old son and a full and happy life in Beverly Hills-until her whole world dissolved in a single instant on the freeway two days before Christmas. In the aftermath, she pieces her life back together and tries to find meaning in her existence as a human rights worker in the worst areas around the globe. Then, on the anniversary of the fateful accident-and wrestling...

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer - Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood - she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and...

After his eleven-year-old son dies, guitarist Quinn Porter does yard work for an aged Lithuanian immigrant, Ona Vitkus, whom his son had often visited and comes to a resolution about his son's death as Ona discusses his son's capacity to listen and learn.

Hannah Russell's carefully crafted plans for her life have been upended without warning. When her best friend died suddenly, Hannah became guardian to a five-year-old named Noah. With no experience at motherhood, she's terrified she's not up to the challenge. She and Noah need time to get to know each other, so she decides to rent a country house with stunning views on a lake in rural Colorado. When they arrive at the house, they are greeted by the...

"A powerful, inspiring, and practical book about building resilience and moving forward after life's inevitable setbacks. After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. "I was in 'the void,'" she writes, "a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe." Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there...

"The sun beamed down on Melissa Henderson's shining dark hair, pinned up on her head in a loose knot, as sweat ran down her face, and the muscles in her long, lithe arms were taut with effort as she worked. She was lost in concentration, sanding a door of the house in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts that had been her salvation. She had bought it four years before. It had been weather-beaten, shabby and in serious need of repair when she found...

Words of comfort and hope after the loss to death of a loved one

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season; the country had a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and took many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder. Thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, Frank is suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years. Forty years later, he tells the...

"Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves--lines...

This book changed the way we talk about the end of life. Before her own death in 2004, she and David Kessler completed this book, which looks at the way we experience the process of grief.