From a widow and therapist, a guide to life after losing a husband, with reflections on grief and practical advice In this remarkably useful guide, widow, author, and therapist Genevieve Davis Ginsburg offers fellow widows -- as well as their family and friends -- sage advice for coping with the loss of a husband. From learning to travel and eat alone to creating new routines to surviving the holidays and anniversaries that reopen emotional wounds, Ginsburg give guidance on: Dealing with anger and guiltMaintaining family relationshipsDating after widowhoodHandling moneyResponding to others' supportAnd more Widow to Widow walks readers through the challenges of widowhood and encourages them on their path to building a new life.
"Widow" is one title women do not want to have. Yet, according to the Surgeon General’s office, 800,000 people become widows or widowers every year in the United States alone. Every aspect of a widow’s existence changes—like it or not, ready or not. These changes add to the emotional roller coaster that most women experience after losing their husband. Miriam Neff understands the ride. As she struggled to understand and accept her new role after her husband’s death, she recognized the need for women to hear from others about their experiences and what helped them transition to this new stage of life. From One Widow to Another offers practical advice for those facing the loss of a spouse. Drawing from her own loss, Neff walks with the reader through practical issues to a sense of encouragement.
Unlike anything Joyce Carol Oates has written before, A Widow’s Story is the universally acclaimed author’s poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of Raymond Smith, her husband of forty-six years, and its wrenching, surprising aftermath. A recent recipient of National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, Oates, whose novels (Blonde, The Gravedigger’s Daughter, Little Bird of Heaven, etc.) rank among the very finest in contemporary American fiction, offers an achingly personal story of love and loss. A Widow’s Story is a literary memoir on a par with The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and Calvin Trillin’s About Alice.
Single at 32, married at 33, and widowed at 34. Virginia Lloyd finally meets the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, only to discover he is dying from cancer. After John dies, Virginia must battle the chronic rising damp in the house they had shared. And so in her first year as a young widow, Virginia, like the house, must dry from the inside out. "The Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement" is a wry and touching love story that plays with the parallels between our homes and ourselves.
With her signature warmth, hilarity, and tendency to overshare, Leslie Gray Streeter gives us real talk about love, loss, grief, and healing in your own way that "will make you laugh and cry, sometimes on the same page" (James Patterson). Leslie Gray Streeter is not cut out for widowhood. She's not ready for hushed rooms and pitying looks. She is not ready to stand graveside, dabbing her eyes in a classy black hat. If she had her way she'd wear her favorite curve-hugging leopard print dress to Scott's funeral; he loved her in that dress! But, here she is, having lost her soulmate to a sudden heart attack, totally unsure of how to navigate her new widow lifestyle. ("New widow lifestyle." Sounds like something you'd find products for on daytime TV, like comfy track suits and compression socks. Wait, is a widow even allowed to make jokes?) Looking at widowhood through the prism of race, mixed marriage, and aging, Black Widow redefines the stages of grief, from coffin shopping to day-drinking, to being a grown-ass woman crying for your mommy, to breaking up and making up with God, to facing the fact that life goes on even after the death of the person you were supposed to live it with. While she stumbles toward an uncertain future as a single mother raising a baby with her own widowed mother (plot twist!), Leslie looks back on her love story with Scott, recounting their journey through racism, religious differences, and persistent confusion about what kugel is. Will she find the strength to finish the most important thing that she and Scott started? Tender, true, and endearingly hilarious, Black Widow is a story about the power of love, and how the only guide book for recovery is the one you write yourself.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A twisted psychological thriller you’ll have trouble putting down.”—People “If you liked Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, you might want to pick up The Widow by Fiona Barton. Engrossing. Suspenseful.”—Stephen King Following the twists and turns of an unimaginable crime, The Widow is an electrifying debut thriller that will take you into the dark spaces that exist between a husband and a wife. There’s a lot Jean hasn’t said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing. She was too busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with the accusing glares and the anonymous harassment. Now her husband is dead, and there’s no reason to stay quiet. There are people who want to hear her story. They want to know what it was like living with that man. She can tell them that there were secrets. There always are in a marriage. The truth—that’s all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything... An NPR Best Book of the Year One of The Wall Street Journal’s 5 “Killer Books” of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year Includes a Readers Guide and an excerpt of Fiona Barton’s The Child.
“A frank, poignant memoir about an unlikely marriage, a tragic death in Iraq, and the soul-testing work of picking up the pieces” (People) in the tradition of such powerful bestsellers as Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and Carole Radziwill’s What Remains. Artis Henderson was a free-spirited young woman with dreams of traveling the world and one day becoming a writer. Marrying a conservative Texan soldier and becoming an Army wife was never part of her plan, but when she met Miles, Artis threw caution to the wind and moved with him to a series of Army bases in dusty Southern towns, far from the exotic future of her dreams. If this was true love, she was ready to embrace it. But when Miles was training and Artis was left alone, she experienced feelings of isolation and anxiety. It did not take long for a wife’s worst fears to come true. On November 6, 2006, the Apache helicopter carrying Miles crashed in Iraq, leaving twenty-six-year-old Artis—in official military terms—an “unremarried widow.” In this memoir Artis recounts not only the unlikely love story she shared with Miles and her unfathomable recovery in the wake of his death—from the dark hours following the military notification to the first fumbling attempts at new love—but also reveals how Miles’s death mirrored her own father’s, in a plane crash that Artis survived when she was five years old and that left her own mother a young widow. Unremarried Widow is “a powerful look at mourning as a military wife….You can finish it in a day and find yourself haunted weeks later” (The New York Times Book Review).
Instead of helping in the aftermath of loss, many of the books and strategies meant to guide us through grief only add to the sadness. No one understands the need for a new approach more than Michelle Steinke-Baumgard, who lost her husband in a tragic plane accident and became a widow overnight. In the darkest moment of her life, the mother of two young children found solace and hope in the unlikeliest of places: exercise. She recorded her journey in her blog, One Fit Widow, and soon had a huge community of devoted followers. Now, Michelle offers her revolutionary solution to grief to everyone struggling with their own loss. Healthy Healing addresses the physical, mental, and emotional effects of grief in a way that no other book in the category has ever done, offering a 12-week plan that empowers you to work through loss by using the power of exercise and endorphins, and rediscovering happiness by strengthening body, mind and spirit through fitness. And the benefits don’t end there: Exercise helps with poor sleep—a common side effect of trauma—and proper nutrition boosts immunity and fuels you through a busy, stressful time.Michelle dispels common myths about grief and replaces them with relatable advice and actionable inspiration, including: • Starting with baby steps such as taking a walk or being in nature • Learning to be comfortable with alone time and rediscovering your strength • Pairing your exact circumstances with the right form of exercise, whether it’s gentle yoga to release trapped sadness or intense kickboxing to work through anger • Embracing community and surrounding yourself with support This book is an exercise plan, nutrition guide, and, most importantly, a compassionate companion during the most difficult time in your life. With Healthy Healing, you’ll learn how to channel your pain into something productive—and use tragedy as a catalyst for inspired change.
