Letters of Note: Grief

by Shaun Usher (Contributor)

"In Letters of Grief, Shaun Usher gathers together some of the most powerful messages about grief, from the heart-wrenching pain of losing a loved one to reliving fond memories of those who have passed on. Includes letters Audre Lorde, Robert Frost, Nick Cave, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Kahlil Gibran, Edith Wharton, Mary Wortley Montagu, Seungsahn Haengwon & many more"--

Genres: Essays

142 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 8, 2022

About the author

Shaun Usher is a writer, editor, and compulsive collector of remarkable words. He is the author of Letters of Note, an international bestseller that began life as a blog and grew into a celebrated series of books and inspired the live stage show Letters Live, which he has co-produced since 2013. He has published 16 books so far, covering everything from love and grief to music, dogs, and outer space, and in October 2025 will release his 17th, Diaries of Note: 366 Lives, One Day at a Time, a curated journey through a year’s worth of diary entries from history. He lives in Manchester with his wife, Karina, and their three children.

Reviews

[Jahnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Letters of consolation, encouragement, sympathy, and appreciation. The collection is diverse, with correspondences from the griever, the friend, the acquaintance, or the victim's family, and from different age groups. There is an eloquence in its sincerity that I find endearing.
If you like this collection, you might also like The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation. Rilke is a favorite and this collection of his letters on grief are heartwarming.

[michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very few people ever really are alive and those that are never die; no matter if they are gone. No one you love is ever dead.

Ernest Hemingway.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5. The content is naturally varied since it's a collection of letters, but there were quite a few religious ones (for obvious reasons). As an atheist, those didn't speak to me. Much of my grief is actually about death being the absolute end of someone. So it was a salt/wound situation for me. Not the book's fault. Some of the letters, however, were very moving and even a little comforting (looking at you here, Virginia Woolf).

[Lama Abdulmajeed · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Disappointments ought to be less sensibly felt at my age than yours; yet I own I am so far affected by this, that I have need of all my philosophy to support it. However, let me beg of you not to indulge in useless grief, to the prejudice of your health, which is so necessary to your family.”