Living When a Loved One Has Died, by Earl Grollman, is a gentle, poetic journey through grief. Recommended for the later stages of grief, not the first few weeks (Souvenir Press, 2014, £9.99).

About the author: quoting from the book's back cover, "Rabbi Earl A. Grollman is an internationally known lecturer, writer, and grief counselor whose work has helped hundreds of thousands of people. [Grollman has written two other books on the subject of death.] The reviewer for the Minneapolis Star said of this work, "If you're far away when someone you care about is in mourning, send this book--it's the next best thing to being there. And if you doubt whether your being there will do any good, read this book, and you will learn how to become the wise, reassuring, and understanding person a good friend is when a loved has died."

A gentle, poetic journey through grief. Recommended for the later stages of grief, not the first few weeks (Souvenir

I work at a place that deals with end of life issues, so when I recently found myself dealing with the loss of my best friend/love of my life, I started raiding the bookshelves. I'm not going to say this book made me feel any better about what had happened, cause nothing can do that, but it did at least reinforce the knowledge that all the odd little things I seem to be doing are normal. Rabbi Grollman, an internationally known grief counselor (disclaimer: I have never worked with him, but he used to write a column in our monthly newsletter), clearly knows what he is writing about and many of the passages described how am I feeling so perfectly it is as if I were talking to someone. Despite the authors position as a rabbi, there is no preaching and only one passing reference to the bible.