Grief Is Love: Living With Loss
by Marisa Renee Lee
As painful as it is to experience loss and grief, many people subscribe to the idea that healing means the process of moving past grief. Marisa Renee Lee proposes the idea that grief is actually a process of loving those who have been lost with the same or greater intensity, and to provide grace for oneself during the transformative process of experiencing grief. Lee’s elegant prose guides the reader through a compassionate exploration of what it looks like to embrace authentic grief and create space for life’s painful emotions.
Mothercare: On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence
by Lynne Tillman
Famous for her beloved novels and sharp cultural criticism, Lynne Tillman’s life was forever changed when her mother developed a relatively unknown but severe medical condition. Tillman’s headstrong mother quickly became someone entirely dependent on family for care. Many tumultuous years of misdiagnoses, surgeries and consultations unfolded for the family. In Mothercare, Tillman offers both a cautionary tale and a story of empathy for all who are suddenly entrusted with the care of a loved one.
Yonder: A Novel
by Jabari Asim
In an unspecified area of the mid-19th century American South, Cato and William are held captive to the cruel whims of a tyrannical plantation owner. Aside from the endless labor and physical abuse, it’s the sudden and gut-wrenching sale of their loved ones in addition to the slaver’s belief that Black people aren’t capable of loving that causes the most pain. When a visiting minister arrives and starts filling the two enslaved people’s heads with foreign ideas of freedom and autonomy, they begin to tackle questions large and small about how to live their lives and who to love. Rich, melancholic and imaginative, Yonder grapples with the human longing for freedom when all one has ever known is bondage, deceit and cruelty.
Blood Feast: The Complete Short Stories of Malika Moustadraf
by Malika Moustadraf
Celebrated Moroccan author Malika Moustadraf is heralded for her visceral examination of gender and sexuality in North Africa. A complete collection of Moustadraf’s short fiction, Blood Feast is composed of stories that challenge gender norms and study the biological female body and its longstanding abuse. A sharp and pointed rebuttal to patriarchal hegemony, this collection takes an unwavering look at desire, power and the destructive harassment that has long harmed women around the world.
