What to Read When Grieving

It’s Personal

Anne Marble
5 min readFeb 1, 2024

What to read when grieving is personal. You’ll find lots of advice, both online and in bookstores. But you have to think of what is right for you.

Do you want to read a book about another person’s loss? Or read poems about death and dying? Or right now, would you feel better diving into a comforting novel?

A woman wearing lacy nightwear is lying face-down on a fuzzy blanket with open books all around her. There is a glowing lit candle at the top right and a flower in a small vase at the top left.
(Source: Photo by Gaman Alice on Unsplash.)

What you choose to read when grieving is personal. Some people will head for books on grieving. Others will opt for something soft and comforting but unrelated to grief — just as I did. Don’t feel guilty if you want to slip into something comforting.

When my mother died, I made a decision for my own self-care. I was going to read mainly cozy mysteries and “cozy fantasy.” I even posted about it on Facebook. Only a few people knew why I had posted about this at that time — but others guessed something had happened.

I Turned to Cozy Mysteries

One reason I picked cozy mysteries is because I’ve been trying to get back into them. Maybe because I knew I’d need something comforting very soon.

The cozy mysteries “Murder in Three Volumes,” “Little Bookshop of Murder,” and Elementary, She Read” spread out on a fuzzy dark blue blanket.
Three Cozy Mysteries on a Blanket. (Source: Photo by the author.)

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Anne Marble

I’m a writer and a copy editor with experience in editing science and engineering articles. Click Lists to find my most popular articles. And hidden gems.