The Books Briefing: How Literature Helps Us Grieve

During a period of deep grief years ago, the writer Rosie Schaap opened a copy of the collected works of William Blake. The experience of reading his poem “Auguries of Innocence,” she recalled, “lit a little votive in the small, dark chapel of loss, by whose light I started to see a way through.”

Like Schaap, many people have found the words to express their loss in literature. After losing his 2-year-old daughter, Greta, . Helen Macdonald—a writer and longtime bird-watcher— (the author of ), after the death of her father. Another woman, after losing her husband, asked a publisher friend to compile a collection of poetry. The end result, , Joe Fassler writes, includes works from 20 countries, “structured like —a traditional mourning period in some Buddhist and Judaic traditions.”