Rory MacLean's favourite books to help you survive grief
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Rory MacLean's favourite books to help you survive grief
Picked by
Rory MacLean
What did I love about each book?
List by
Rory MacLean
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Why am I passionate about this?
In all my travel books, I’ve followed my intuition to a destination or into a subject, pairing emotion with intellectual curiosity, travelling to try to know a people, place, idea, or time. So the pivot to navigating the ‘border' between life and death felt like an obvious extension. It’s a frontier that we'll all have to pass, and we’ll not have to worry about forgetting your passport. I began my search for my wife Katrin as a skeptic and ended it with faith in the existence of an afterlife. In sharing this journey, I hope others may be helped to prepare for and to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
I wrote...
Geography of Heaven
By
Rory MacLean
What is my book about?
Five years ago, travel writer Rory MacLean set out on a path that would change his life forever. When his…
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The books I picked & why
The Year of Magical Thinking
By
Joan Didion
Why I love this book
How do we make sense of death? How do we balance rational explanations with the ‘magical thinking’ of the heart?<br>In her honest and passionate memoir, Joan Didion—an iconic American journalist and author—attempted 'to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness…about marriage and children and memory…about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself’.<br>Her search for meaning leaned toward rational explanations, yet this remains a vital work in enabling us to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
What is this book about?
The Year of Magical Thinking
By
Joan Didion
Why should I read it?
19<br>authors picked
The Year of Magical Thinking<br>as one of their favorite books, and they share<br>why you should read it.
What is this book about?
From one of America's iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life - in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.
Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then pneumonia, then complete sceptic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later - the night before New Year's Eve -the Dunnes were…
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Topics
Grief
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Biographies
Memoirs
Self-help
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Anam Cara
By
John O'Donohue
Why I love this book
How to get to heaven? Apart from in the customary end-of-it-all way?<br>There are no overnight buses to the Hereafter. Among the best ways is through this classic work on spirituality and mysticism. The late Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue, explores themes of friendship, belonging, solitude, creativity and the imagination.<br>He encourages readers ‘to come home’ to the natural rhythms in ourselves, and to the sacred connections with one another and our landscapes. It’s a book that nourishes the heart and elevates the spirit. As O’Donohue writes, ‘We do not need to go out to find love, rather we need to be still and let love discover us.’
What is this book about?
Anam Cara
By
John O'Donohue
Why should I read it?
author picked
Anam Cara<br>as one of their favorite books, and they share<br>why you should read it.
What is this book about?
When St Patrick came to Ireland in the 5th century AD, he encountered the Celtic people and a flourishing spiritual tradition that had already existed for thousands of years. He also discovered that where the Christians worshipped one God, the Celts had many and found divinity all around them: in the rivers, hills, sea and sky. The ancient Celtic reverence for the spirit in all things survives today - a vibrant legacy of mystical wisdom that is unique in the Western world.
Now, in this exquisite book, Irish poet and scholar John O'Donohue shares with us the secrets of this…
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