A compelling and agonising story.

Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning and her husband Chris woke up one Sunday morning almost two years ago to the devastating discovery of their 25-year-old son Spencer dead in his bed. Horning’s story chronicles a parent’s worst nightmare. Establishing that his death was suicide, Horning embarks on a journey of anguished self-recrimination.

Should she not have seen the signs? Could she somehow have prevented it? As she struggles with Spencer’s decision to end his life, she has to learn to understand what the depths of depression entail. We feel Horning’s pain, and learn to understand and feel Spencer’s pain, at a visceral level.

Surrounded by loving family and friends, Horning pieces together the puzzle of Spencer’s death, writing with a brutal and heart-searing intensity of grief and loss, but also of the joys of celebrating her son’s life. This book will touch anyone who has experienced a mental health journey directly or indirectly, or a searing loss. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.

This guide is written with love and care by a palliative nursing sister to help ease the journey for patients and their loved ones.

This book offers mindful advice for patients and their loved ones on navigating the cancer journey – from the time of diagnosis to remission or terminal stages – armed with appropriate information and emotional support. It covers the practical aspects of cancer treatment in a simple, comprehensive way – from medical aids, treatments and side effects to nutrition, complementary therapies and caring for a loved one. It also addresses questions and fears, what to say and do, and how to deal with a terminal diagnosis.

Amongst this, you will also find stories of how others experienced and managed their cancer journey.

Grief is universal, but it's also as unique to each of us as the person we've lost. It can be overwhelming, exhausting, lonely, unreasonable, there when we least expect it and seemingly never-ending. Wherever you are with your grief and whoever you're grieving for, I Promise It Won't Always Hurt Like This is here to support you. To tell you, until you believe it, that things will get easier.

When bestselling writer Clare Mackintosh lost her five-week-old son, she searched for help in books. All of them wanted to tell her what she should be feeling and when she should be feeling it, but the truth - as she soon found out - is that there are no neat, labelled stages for grief, or crash grief-diets to relieve us of our pain. What we need when we're grieving is time and understanding. I Promise It Won't Always Hurt Like This is the book she needed then.

With 18 short assurances that are full of compassion - drawn from Clare's experiences of losing her son and her father - it's something you can turn to when you can barely concentrate, when you're looking for solace, when you're looking for hope, when you simply need to throw something across the floor, and when you need somebody to assure you, and to keep assuring you: I Promise it Won't Always Hurt Like This.

The second, revised edition of Healing for Trauma: In The South African Context is an in-depth, comprehensive guide that is grounded in decades-long, first-hand experience in trauma counselling. The second edition has not only been updated and revised, but also contains new chapters, as well as passages on the effect of Covid-19.

Both trauma counsellors and victims will benefit from the accessible, relevant content, which contains general wisdom and spiritual guidance. Each chapter contains valuable guidelines on how to support people who have experienced specific forms of trauma within the South African context.

This updated edition will appeal to a wide variety of groups within the South African society. Although the book has been written from a Christian perspective, the trauma techniques are scientifically sound and can be used by a broader general market. Individual healing has a rippling effect on the community as a whole, and benefits everyone. Yvonne Retief's central message is one of hope: there is healing and hope for victims of trauma.

This creatively touching work follows the true-life journey of a woman dealing with the sudden loss of her husband. The powerfully emotional narrative tells the story of Beryl Botman who reveals to Russel Botman how she is experiencing his sudden death and learning to cope with it. “How should she learn to live and recognise their love for each other in these new dimensions of existence?” is the central question of the heart-breaking one-way conversation.

The events take place from the moments before she realises that Russel has died until the day of the first anniversary of his death - the lapse of one year. It is for her the year in which she appeals to her deepest strengths, facing her most murky weaknesses and relying on her whole formation to take even one step.

The narrative takes place in three parts and begins with a day-by-day version of the first two weeks of experiences and sensations. The next two parts are weekly and then monthly revelations, respectively. Her spiritual and real exposure follow a journey from Stellenbosch to Wynberg and some other places in the world. Beryl handles life-changing decisions and actions in her world with the comfort and loving support of family and friends, while dealing with the hostility of other family members and the aloofness and rejection of friends and acquaintances at the same time.

It’s a turmoil of raw emotions, grief, acceptance and coping – going on with life, when life as you knew it, has ended.

Notes on Grief is an exquisite work of meditation, remembrance, and hope, written in the wake of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s beloved father’s death in the summer of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, and kept Adichie and her family members separated from one another, her father succumbed unexpectedly to complications of kidney failure.

Expanding on her original New Yorker piece, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core. She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving this year; about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it. With signature precision of language, and glittering, devastating detail on the page—and never without touches of rich, honest humor—Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father’s death with threads of his life story, from his remarkable survival during the Biafran war, through a long career as a statistics professor, into the days of the pandemic in which he’d stay connected with his children and grandchildren over video chat from the family home in Abba, Nigeria.

In the compact format of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, Adichie delivers a gem of a book—a book that fundamentally connects us to one another as it probes one of the most universal human experiences. Notes on Grief is a book for this moment—a work readers will treasure and share now more than ever—and yet will prove durable and timeless, an indispensable addition to Adichie’s canon.

Get Your Will Right is a practical guide on what you should consider when drawing up your Will to reduce the cost of managing your estate. The book will guide you on how to structure your assets to minimise estate duty and will help your family with the process of finalising your estate, while highlighting the problems that could occur should your Will be lost or incorrectly completed.

It also warns against the common practice of a terminally ill individual moving all the assets into the spouse’s name before death, as in the long run, this can cost the family R700 000 in estate duty.

Get Your Will Right is an easy-to-understand guide that could save your family hundreds of thousands of rands upon your death and is based on the authors’ experience of managing over 300 deceased estates.

Louisa Zondo’s work has helped to shape the new South Africa, but she has also faced intense grief and trauma, which came from the underside of the emerging nation’s complex social fabric.

As mother of much-loved music star Riky Rick, who tragically took his own life in 2022, Louisa Zondo’s loss was shared by millions, but it was also a uniquely deep, lonely and lifeshattering grief. The loss of her beloved MaRiky also brought to the surface cataclysmic trauma from her past.

As Louisa Zondo takes her first small steps to facing her grief, she finds herself speaking to her son in a series of letters, gradually finding the words to express her love for him, and the pain of losing him. In expressing that love, she tells the story of her own life and the experiences that shaped her.

This brave journey brings Louisa to a deeper understanding of her life’s path, and closer to healing.

It’s midsummer in Wyoming and Alexandra Fuller is barely hanging on. Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe, reeling from a midlife breakup, freshly sober and piecing her way uncertainly through a volatile new relationship with a younger woman, Alexandra vows to get herself back on even keel.

And then – suddenly and incomprehensibly – her son Fi, at twenty-one years old, dies in his sleep.

No stranger to loss – young siblings, a parent, a home country – Alexandra is nonetheless levelled. At the same time, she is painfully aware that she cannot succumb and abandon her two surviving daughters as her mother before her had done. From a sheep wagon deep in the mountains of Wyoming to a grief sanctuary in New Mexico to a silent meditation retreat in Alberta, Canada, Alexandra journeys up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find how to grieve herself whole. There is no answer, and there are countless answers – in poetry, in rituals and routines, in nature and in the indigenous wisdom she absorbed as a child in Zimbabwe. By turns disarming, devastating and unexpectedly, blessedly funny, Alexandra recounts the wild medicine of painstakingly grieving a child in a culture that has no instructions for it.

’n Versameling van 100 gedigte oor verlies en vertroosting deur van Afrikaans se bekendste digters.

Dis oor verse die dood, rou, afskeid, verganklikheid en menswees.

Die lewe is ‘n asem lank is die ideale geskenk aan iemand wat ’n geliefde vir altyd moes groet ̶ veral wanneer ’n mens nie die woorde kan vind om te troos nie.

Immediately in the aftermath of his wife Andrea’s death, Gerry Pelser began documenting his thoughts and feelings about his brand-new life as a ‘reluctant’ widower on social media as no one wants to be an ‘enthusiastic’ widower. Semi-daily snippets of candid and raw expressions of grief, fear, and confusion – punctuated with unexpected humour – went up on Facebook for the world to see.

Several posts went viral, and messages of support poured in from strangers as far away from India and New Zealand. Numerous of these encouraged Gerry to publish his posts as a book, simply because his posts helped people with their own healing and who wanted to share their recovery with other people.

In a surprisingly funny and heartfelt manner, Gerry breaks the fourth wall and tells his tale directly to the reader in a way that puts them with their feet up on his living-room couch: a memoir of an unlikely courtship, of love, dogs, a literal fairy-tale wedding, cricket, marriage, and the importance of stuffed animals. Of illness, personal wars and the eventual – unavoidable defeat – of dealing with the insistent question of ‘what now’ that follows in its wake. And ultimately, the possibility of healing.

This memoir is an honest tale of Love, Death and Life; heart-warming in its humour, heart breaking in its content and hopeful in its message. Chronicles of a Reluctant is a raw tale paying homage to Gerry’s late wife Andrea.

This book promises to be a landmark of exploration on a subject that eventually touches us all: dealing with grief. And the life that follows.

Funeral service and insurance provider AVBOB, through its sponsorship of the AVBOB Poetry Project, gave South Africa the gentlest, most inclusive act of bereavement support in the form of an online poetry competition in all 11 official languages.

Poets submitted words of loss and consolation in all 11 mother tongues. Editors in all languages were carefully selected to curate the collection of poems entered, and they too were transformed by the process.

This is a poetry portal for all South Africans – a cathartic space where amateur and accomplished poets can use their craft to comfort others.

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021 The New York Times bestseller from the Grammy-nominated indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity in the wake of her loss. 'As good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't' - Marie-Claire In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band - and meeting the man who would become her husband - her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread. 'Possibly the best book I've read all year . . . I will be buying copies for friends and family this Christmas.' - Rukmini Iyer in the Guardian 'Best Food Books of 2021' 'Wonderful . . . The writing about Korean food is gorgeous . . . but as a brilliant kimchi-related metaphor shows, Zauner's deepest concern is the ferment, and delicacy, of complicated lives.' - Victoria Segal, Sunday Times, 'My favourite read of the year'

Die tweede, hersiene uitgawe van Genesing vir Trauma is ’n diepgaande, omvattende handleiding wat steun op dekade lange eerstehandse ervaring in berading. Die tweede uitgawe is nie net volledig opgedateer en bygewerk nie, maar bevat ook nuwe hoofstukke, soos die hoofstuk oor die impak van Covid-19.

Beide beraders en slagoffers sal kan baat vind by die verstaanbare, relevante inhoud propvol algemene wysheid en geestelike begeleiding. Elke hoofstuk bevat waardevolle riglyne oor hoe om mense wat 'n spesifieke vorm van trauma beleef het by te staan, en wel binne die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks.

Hierdie opgedateerde uitgawe spreek tot alle groepe binne die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing. Hoewel die boek vanuit 'n Christelike perspektief geskryf is, is die beradingstegnieke wetenskaplik-gefundeerd en kan dit deur 'n wyer mark gebruik word. Individuele genesing het ’n genesende uitkringeffek op die gemeenskap wat vir almal van belang is. Yvonne Retief se sentrale boodskap is dat daar genesing en hoop vir slagoffers van trauma is.

Die dood van ’n geliefde bring intense hartseer mee. Dr. Henk Gous deel in Wanneer ’n geliefde sterf uit sy jare lange ervaring as berader asook sy persoonlike ervaring met die verlies van sy dogter. Hy is daarom ideaal toegerus om jou met wysheid en empatie op hierdie moeilike pad van rousmart te begelei. Elkeen van die 40 dagstukkies het plek om jou eie emosies, vrae aan God, ondraaglike pyn, selfs woede, en enige ander gedagtes neer te skryf. So sal hierdie boekie ’n joernaal wees van jou uniek persoonlike reis na aanvaarding, vertroosting, vrede en vreugde.

Ervaar God se troos en liefde sodat jy uiteindelik weer met vreugde kan leef totdat jy jou geliefdes eendag weer sien.

A charming, practical, and unsentimental approach to putting a home in order while reflecting on the tiny joys that make up a long life.

In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning “death” and städning meaning “cleaning.” This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner than later, before others have to do it for you. In The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, artist Margareta Magnusson, with Scandinavian humor and wisdom, instructs readers to embrace minimalism. Her radical and joyous method for putting things in order helps families broach sensitive conversations, and makes the process uplifting rather than overwhelming.

Margareta suggests which possessions you can easily get rid of (unworn clothes, unwanted presents, more plates than you’d ever use) and which you might want to keep (photographs, love letters, a few of your children’s art projects). Digging into her late husband’s tool shed, and her own secret drawer of vices, Margareta introduces an element of fun to a potentially daunting task. Along the way readers get a glimpse into her life in Sweden, and also become more comfortable with the idea of letting go.

Griefseed is a gift, an offering from the pen of Malika Ndlovu that seeks to transform the ways we think about and process grief.

Multidisciplinary in scope, the text includes poems, personal essays, images, and reflections on grief that punctuate the life story of the poet, offered here as medicine. These creative pieces function as both window onto an individual woman’s life as she has journeyed with, through and beyond grief; as well as a mirror, inviting the reader to see their own lives and losses reflected within Ndlovu’s.

This invitation to sit with grief, hold it, look it in the eye, and tend to it, is also an invocation to consider multigenerational relationships – how grief cements our relationships to the past, to ancestors, to descendants. To note where grief echoes along kinship lines, spreading itself throughout the branches of family trees. How centuries of grief from our grandmothers and grandfathers lodge themselves in our own bodies, crying out for release, relief and processing. If we dare to take up this visceral knowing, grief can transform us, becoming a generative site for renewal, rethinking, recasting.

Hoe gaan jy aan as jy beroof is van die lewe wat vir jou kosbaar was? Die insig wat Johannes de Villiers verwerf het toe sy eie lewe uitmekaar geval het, is die inspirasie vir hierdie boek.

Johannes gaan steek kers op by deskundiges en terapeute, maar ook veral by gewone mense wat deur die lewe platgevee is. Groei, vind hy, is nie om veerkragtig terug te bons na wie jy was voor dinge verkeerd geloop het nie.

Maar jy kán dit oorleef - en selfs sterker wees.