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Death is undeniable and unavoidable. We must accept it; there is no other choice. But coming to terms with our mortality can profoundly influence how we live—and how we die. Having been a hospice nurse for decades, Penny Hawkins Smith is an expert on death and dying. As a recovering alcoholic and former drug addict, she knows what it means to change course and become a meaningful contributor to society. Through her work with death, Penny found her purpose in life. In Influencing Death, Penny brings transparency and levity to the grim topic of death.

Scrambled or Sunny-Side Up? Living Your Best Life After Losing Your Greatest Love shares Loren Ridinger’s life story—one that began with her husband JR Ridinger’s bold vision to change the world through the power of the Internet. Alongside JR, she helped pioneer Market America, empowering thousands of entrepreneurs to succeed on their own terms using the power of online shopping. However, Loren’s journey took a heartbreaking turn with JR’s sudden passing after thirty-six years of partnership and marriage.

On 2 August 2015, Irishman Jason Corbett was killed in his North Carolina home by his American wife Molly Martens and her father Tom. Sarah, Jason's eight-year-old daughter, and her brother Jack were also in the house that fateful night, asleep upstairs. Now eighteen years old, Sarah Corbett Lynch tells her story for the first time. She shares her earliest memories of her beloved dad and her life with him, Jack and Molly Martens in their home in North Carolina, and gives her account of the events leading up to the night that changed everything.

Darkness comes to Sidmouth, when, unable to cope after a devastating tragedy, late-night radio talk show host Edward Temmis is let go from his beloved job. Cast adrift, his outlook is bleak – until he meets Stevie, whose grandmother, a devoted listener, died in a suspicious fire last year. Well, nobody hurts his listeners and helping Stevie might just give him the purpose he needs. When their investigation stalls, they enlist local estate agent Kim, with whom Edward had a doomed fling last year. Working together, they discover Stevie’s grandmother wasn’t the only one of his listeners targeted.

Shetland is a place bound together by community, history and culture. But when a huge windfarm is greenlit to export energy to mainland Scotland, it creates rifts between neighbours, friends and even families. One side supports the benefit to a planet spiralling into climate disaster; the other challenges the impact on an environment with an already struggling wildlife population. As an environmental journalist, Marianne is drawn to investigate this story of sustainable energy that is irrevocably tied to her grief. But nothing is ever straightforward.

Karen by Kelsey Grammer delves into the deeply personal and tragic story of the author's sister, Karen, who was brutally murdered at the age of 18. Kelsey was just 20 years old and studying theater at Juilliard in New York when his younger sister, a recent high school graduate, moved to Colorado Springs, where she was kidnapped by several men who had intended to rob the Red Lobster where she worked. They instead kidnapped Karen, raped her repeatedly, and ultimately stabbed her to death.

Alice Litman died by suicide in May 2022, aged just twenty years old, having already waited almost three years for her first appointment at a gender identity clinic. In stunningly beautiful prose, Caroline Litman captures the realities of an often-messy journey navigating both her daughter’s transition and the days, weeks and months after Alice’s death.

While we can speak to the psychological and emotional ramifications of loss and sorrow, we often overlook its impact on our physical bodies. Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor specializes in the study of grief, and in The Grieving Body she shares vital scientific research, revealing imperative new insights on its profound physiological impact. As she did in The Grieving Brain, O’Connor combines illuminating studies and personal stories to explore the toll loss takes on our cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems and the larger implications for our long-term well-being.

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz - just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy - collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.

How to Lose Your Mother is Molly’s delicious and despairing memoir about an intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and how that can really mess you up. But with her mother’s heartbreaking descent into dementia, and Molly’s realization that she is going to lose this remarkable woman, it is also a story of love, of loss, of confusion and of deep grief.

Becky Galli was born into a family that valued the power of having a plan. With a pastor father and a stay-at-home mother, her 1960s southern upbringing was bucolic—even enviable. But when her brother, only seventeen, died in a waterskiing accident, the slow unraveling of her perfect family began.

Felicity Warner’s Soul Midwives movement has revolutionized the face of modern palliative care all over the world. Soul Midwives are trained to honor the unique needs of each individual at every stage of the dying process, offering spiritual, emotional, and holistic support and companionship in various settings–whether at home, in hospices, or care homes. This essential handbook blends ancient wisdom and forgotten traditions with contemporary holistic practices to redefine end-of-life care and ease the passage of the dying.

A tiny ad in a local newspaper catches Cédric Sapin-Defour’s eye: a litter of Bernese Mountain Dog puppies need homes. A lonely, single, gym teacher and mountain climber in the French Alps, Cédric visits the dogs and immediately falls for a puppy with a blue collar who steps over his siblings to get to him. Named Ubac, French for the north side of the mountain – the rainy, cloudy slope – the puppy quickly upends Cédric’s life. They go on hikes together, taking to the hills and exploring, forging a bond that brings joy and a sense of fulfillment and adventure.

In the Absence of the Ordinary frames our current era as a rough initiation—an upending experience of profound trauma and transformation that demands we reorient our ways of thinking, being, and relating. Through essays like “Some People Wake Up…,” “The Gift of Restraint,” and “Gratitude for All That Is,” Weller offers clarity and wisdom on how to face the sobering stakes of our time—while offering the nourishment and support we need to embody the new roles this initiation requires.

The Magic in the Tragic powerfully explores how the hardest things in life intersect purpose and meaning, splendor and connectedness. When you embrace the magic in your tragic seasons, you can step into the future with hope, knowing that even when grief comes, it comes with an invitation to new life.

Karen Salmansohn, bestselling author of How to Be Happy, Dammit and a leading behavioral change expert went on her own “I’m-going-to-die” journey. And it made her life better. Way better. So she began sharing these tools with her clients, and their lives also began to bloom in amazing ways. Science backs up the perks of mortality awareness. Studies show that when you embrace the fact that your time is limited, you stop wasting energy on nonsense—and start making choices that align with your deepest values.

Death is one thing we cannot control. We will all face the death of a loved one. And many, if not most, people in our culture will be hesitant and unprepared to say goodbye. The Good Goodbye is meant to help those who must say goodbye to a loved one who is dying. In it, listeners will discover how culture affects final conversations, and that often the last interactions may not consist of words but gestures and expressions.

In 1999, Abby Reyes lost her partner, Terence Unity Freitas, as he and two others were murdered after departing Kajka Ika—the heart of the world—of Indigenous U’wa territory in Colombia. Imperiled by multinational oil interests, U’wa lifeways were under attack. Terence, Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa (Menominee), and Lahe’ena’e Gay (Hawaiian) arrived to listen to community needs and accompany the U’wa. But then they disappeared. Days later, their bodies were found, bound and bullet-riddled in a cow field across the border in Venezuela.