Everything can change - In Just One DayFlora has always adored her brother Billy. Born just eighteen months apart, their childhood was spent like two peas in a pod - no one could separate them. Now, as adults, they remain the best of friends. And as Flora is immersed in family life, Billy is always there to lend a hand. But, in just one day, everything changes. In just one day, Flora's life falls apart. In just one day, Flora has to learn how to live again. From the nostalgia of seaside Britain to the breath-taking beauty of Venice, in tears and laughter, join Helen McGinn for this emotional, uplifting and joyful story about love in all its guises. But above all, this is an unforgettable story of one little girl and the brother she adored. Helen McGinn has written a novel to recommend to all your friends, perfect for fans of Elizabeth Noble, Cathy Kelly and JoJo Moyes. Praise for Helen McGinn: 'Escapist, warm, witty and wise' Daily Mail 'This is a lovely uplifting book that transported me away, firstly to the beautiful city of Rome and then to gorgeous Cornwall. It's a moving and emotional story of families in all their messy wonderfulness, of people losing one another, and then coming together again - sometimes in unexpected ways. A hugely enjoyable family tale,it was exactly what I wanted to read at this time.' Louise Douglas 'This Changes Everything is the perfect tonic. An uplifting, forget-about-everything-else read that I couldn't put down. Romantic, emotional and page-turning, Helen McGinn's debut novel can't fail to cheer you up!' Zoe Folbigg 'I loved reading this book. I needed escapism - don't we all need escapism right now - and it gave me Rome, Cornwall and a family who immediately felt like old friends. I took it to the bath, to bed and had finished it within 24 hours. It was the perfect antidote to tough times.' Victoria Moore The Daily Telegraph

A Richard and Judy Book club selection. In the summer of 1990, Cathy's brother Matty was knocked down by a car on the way home from a night out. It was two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his school. Sitting by his unconscious body in hospital, holding his hand and watching his heartbeat on the monitors, Cathy and her parents willed him to survive. They did not know then that there are many and various fates worse than death. This is the story of what happened to Cathy and her brother, and the unimaginable decision that she and her parents had to make eight years after the night that changed everything. It's a story for anyone who has ever watched someone suffer or lost someone they loved or lived through a painful time that left them forever changed. Told with boundless warmth and affection, The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink is a heartbreaking yet uplifting testament to a family's survival and the price we pay for love.

'A third presence has arrived in my marriage. Ms Alzheimer's - I think of her as a hideous, brain-eating monster - has come to live with us. Permanently.' In April 2017, Susan's husband Nicholas was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. This was followed by 28 months of relentless, rapid decline culminating in Nicholas' death in August 2019. The Alzheimer's Diaries (originally published as a blog) charts the progression of his illness, from diagnosis to the funeral. Susan dubbed the illness 'Ms Alzheimer's' and describes the hateful impact on the man she loves. According to Alzheimer's Research UK one person in 14 over the age of 65 has dementia, and in this thought-provoking account, Susan unflinchingly shares her story.

Alexandra Rowan earned a double major degree in creative writing and communications. Shortly after her graduation in 2013 she died suddenly and without warning because of her use of hormone-based birth control. This book is a testament to her life, written by her father, David. My Beautiful Memory examines her life and death, and describes the difficult journey that her parents had to undertake following their loss. It concludes with an examination of the US drug industry's influence over the regulation of these drugs that kill over one thousand women each year. Alexandra was a young woman with a love of many things, but her chief passion was writing. Latter parts of the book are written in her own words.

Where is God in the suffering of a mentally ill person? What happens to the soul when the mind is ill? How are Christians to respond to mental illness? In this brave and compassionate book, theologian and priest Kathryn Greene-McCreight confronts these difficult questions raised by her own mental illness--bipolar disorder. With brutal honesty, she tackles often avoided topics such as suicide, mental hospitals, and electroconvulsive therapy. Greene-McCreight offers the reader everything from poignant and raw glimpses into the mind of a mentally ill person to practical and forthright advice for their friends, family, and clergy. The first edition has been recognized as one of the finest books on the subject. This thoroughly revised edition incorporates updated research and adds anecdotal and pastoral commentary. It also includes a new foreword by the current Archbishop of Canterbury and a new afterword by the author.

Grief is a normal, instinctive response to loss or impending loss. Grief changes whoever it touches without discrimination. Embracing the change is key for healing and positive transformation. Introspection or reflection can be a useful, perhaps therapeutic, process when you are grieving. Indeed, silence, reflection, love and humility are the most precious offerings on the sacred altar of the soul. Soul Comfort is the first book to examine grief holistically through concise insights into the related concepts of consciousness, death and love for healing and positive transformation. Death does not extinguish consciousness. Death transforms and distils consciousness. And the grief you feel for someone is proportionate to the love you feel for them - the deeper your love, the deeper your grief. Uplifting, unique and thought-provoking insights from the author of The Audible Life Stream: Ancient Secret of Dying While Living will offer comfort to your soul and may profoundly change your perceptions of grief, death, consciousness, love and transformation. If your perceptions are changed, you will know that your own transformative journey has begun.

Funerary Practices in Serbia is the first book to offer a concise yet highly informative study of the historical development and current state of funerary practices in Serbia. Situated in a constant dynamic struggle between traditional cultural customs and modern legislation, funerary practices in Serbia represent a particularly interesting field of research. In this study, Pavicevic combines an investigation of long-term developments and recent changes to place contemporary practices in their wider historical context, emphasizing the complicated geo-political, demographic and cultural factors that have shaped funeral traditions in Serbia over time. In particular, she demonstrates how the country's frequent changing of borders and life under the rule of two great empires - the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman - fostered the emergence of colorful funerary traditions, such as open-casket burial and vigils around the body, that persist to this day in spite of government attempts to modernize funerary practice since the end of the 19th century. The book also provides illuminating insights into the legal framework surrounding current funerary practices in Serbia, the relationship between the state and private sectors, the ownership of cemeteries and gravesites, the role of churches and religious communities, religious and ethnic variations in funerary culture and traditions, and the development of modern cremation practices in Serbia. This book provides a useful and original resource for policymakers and practitioners interested in the historic, legal, technical and professional aspects of the Serbian funerary industry, and to researchers in cultural anthropology, history, sociology and cultural management.

"What would you do if you were told you had only 72 hours to live?" Let's face it. It's not an easy question to answer. Or is it? What really matters in your life? Who do you need to forgive? Who should you apologise to? What wrongs do you have to put right? Is there a long lost friend you need to find? Will your family be taken care of? And are you at peace with how you lead your life? This book is the compilation of the best submissions to the essay contest, Last 72, jointly organised by Everest Productions and "The Fountain" magazine in 2010. As you read along, you will witness an inmate regretting his past life and taking shelter into hopes for God's mercy, a mother ready to move the entire planet to mobilise for her autistic child when she would not be around for him anymore, an immigrant's thankfulness for a naval officer who saved his mother from the sea, and many other touchy stories and answers for a shaky question.

After a sudden and terrible loss, how does a loving family find their way back to the goodness and peace they once shared? Reviewers and readers have called this literary historical novel "hauntingly beautiful," "a masterpiece of compassion," "a page-turner and an artistic triumph." Written by a masterful storyteller, this is a book that illuminates the journey we make through grief to healing. In the midst of a nearly perfect life, Doris Senter is thankful but wary. "We can't ever know what will come," she says. When an unimaginable tragedy turns the family of five into a family of four, everything the Senters held faith in is shattered. The family is consumed by sorrow and guilt. Slowly, the surviving family members find their way to forgiveness-of themselves and of each other. Few writers know the human heart and the burden of grief as New York Times bestselling author Meredith Hall (Without a Map). This is a radiant novel of goodness and love-both its gifts and its obligations-that will stay with readers long after the last page. With a rare tenderness and compassion, Beneficence shows broken hearts becoming whole as this family reclaims their love and peace. "People stay together, fall apart, come back together, altered. It is a book about work, about grief, about thick ongoing love. Hall's prose is hewn, sinewy, with moments of electrifying beauty and grace."-Boston Globe "One of the best books I've ever read."-Simon Van Booy "As organically as it traveled to heartbreak, Beneficence progresses to the place of wisdom that lies beyond it, where we learn that a home is part of the 'vast world of innocence and harm,' not an island beyond it."-Wall Street Journal "A modern American masterpiece."-Dani Shapiro "If the word 'luminous' didn't already exist, you'd have to invent it to describe Meredith Hall's radiant new novel Beneficence."-Richard Russo "These voices from the past speak so clearly to our time, at a moment when many of us wonder whether we'll lose the things that we consider blessings....Beneficence is a quiet but steady book, one that echoes ancient and important rhythms."-Washington Post "A quiet gem...hard to put down."-Library Journal "Hauntingly beautiful, emotionally devastating, and infused with great compassion."-Kim Barnes "With wisdom and compassion, Meredith Hall writes about the capacity for atonement. Goodness. Generosity to see deeply, to live through fear and pain on your journey toward the awareness of splendor."-Ursula Hegi

*WINNER OF THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 2018* My younger brother's name is Nicholas Beard. He was nine years old, and I was with him in the water when he drowned. Life changes in an instant. On a family holiday in Cornwall in 1978, Richard and Nicholas are in the sea, jumping the waves. Suddenly and inexplicably Nicholas is out of his depth and then, shockingly, so is Richard. Only one of the brothers returns to the shore. Richard does not attend Nicholas's funeral and afterwards the family return to Cornwall to continue the holiday. Soon they stop speaking of that day at the beach altogether. Years later, haunted by grief, Richard sets out to piece together the story. Who was Nicholas? What really happened that day? And why did the family never speak of it again? SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE 2018 'This captivating book, both heart-rending and jaw-dropping, unfolds like a detective story' Daily Mail 'A memoir of real truth and heartbreaking emotional heft' Sunday Times

'Insightful and refreshing.' - Professor Dennis Klass, Webster University Religion Department, St. Louis, USA
'A tour de force.' - Dr Colin Murray Parkes, OBE, MD, FRCPsych, President of CRUSE
Some societies and some individuals find a place for their dead, others leave them behind. In recent years, researchers, professionals and bereaved people themselves have struggled with this. Should the bond with the dead be continued or broken? What is clear is that the grieving individual is not left in a social vacuum but has to struggle with expectations from self, family, friends, professionals and academic theorists.
This ground-breaking book looks at the social position of the bereaved. They find themselves caught between the living and the dead, sometimes searching for guidelines in a de-ritualized society that has few to offer, sometimes finding their grief inappropriately pathologised and policed. At its best, bereavement care offers reassurance, validation, and freedom to talk where the client has previously encountered judgmentalism.
In this unique book, Tony Walter applies sociological insights to one of the most personal of human situations. On Bereavement is aimed at students on medical, nursing, counselling and social work courses that include bereavement as a topic. It will also appeal to sociology students with an interest in death, dying and mortality.

The outlines for this book have been chosen from some of the most respected preachers in history. Each book in the Bryant Sermon Outlines Series contains thirty or more outlines focusing on one theme. These outlines for funerals and other special services are designed to spark an idea, provide an initial structure, and/or furnish a fitting illustration.

You've lost someone you loved, and now the pain seems unendurable. June Cerza Kolf understands. She, too, has suffered the wound of grief, and as a veteran of hospice work, has counseled many mourning people. In this gentle, empathic book, Kolf leads you through the stages of grief, helping you understand what to expect as time goes on and making you mindful of potential pitfalls such as feeling anger or guilt, dealing with holidays, and experiencing physical distress. No matter what the loss has been, it takes time and heart-wrenching work for the wound to heal. Kolf takes you by the hand and helps you do this painful--yet vital--work. She offers practical and therapeutic ways of dealing with depression and easing pain and gives creative ideas for expressing your love and remembrance. The grief exercises provided in this book are an outlet for working through your pain on your own or in a small-group setting. Most of all, as When Will I Stop Hurting? guides you through the rough terrain of grieving, it will also point you to God, the one true source of healing.

Soul Midwives, a movement begun by Felicity Warner, has changed the face of modern holistic and spiritual palliative care in the UK and abroad. Soul Midwives are holistic and spiritual companions to the dying. They draw on traditional skills, now largely forgotten, applying them to our modern world to ease the passage of those who are dying. Their services are used within people's own homes, in hospices and in care homes. Anyone with an open and compassionate heart and a desire to help others can train to become a Soul Midwife. This book will guide you through the core principles and techniques of this practice.

A Times Best Fiction Book of the Year A Guardian Best Fiction Book of the Year A BBC Culture Book of the Year 'IT'LL EASILY BE ONE OF MY BOOKS OF THE YEAR' Hannah Beckerman 'It's a warm book and a touching one. And did I mention it's funny? Just read it. You'll see' The Times 'Funny, tender and sad' Sunday Express 'If you liked Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss, you'll love this novel' Good Housekeeping 'One of the richest explorations of family dysfunction I've read' the i newspaper 'Shades of Fleabag in this smart, funny drama' Mail on Sunday 'An enjoyably bittersweet novel about a dysfunctional modern family' Independent 'Razor-sharp ' Observer 'One of the funniest novels you'll read this year' Guardian THE BOOK THAT YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO PUT DOWN For Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, growing up is a trial. There is their mother, who takes a divide-and-conquer approach to child-rearing, and their father, who takes an absent one. There is also their older brother Michael, whose disapproval is a force to be reckoned with. There is the catastrophe that is never spoken of, but which has shaped everything . . . As adults, Alice and Hanna must deal with disappointments in work and in love as well as increasingly complicated family tensions, and lives that look dismayingly dissimilar to what they'd intended. They must look for a way to repair their own fractured relationship, and they must finally choose their own approach to their dominant mother: submit or burn the house down. And they must decide at last whether life is really anything more than (as Hanna would have it) a tragedy with a few hilarious moments. From the author of the Waterstones Book of the Month Our Fathers comes a compelling domestic comedy about complex family dynamics, mental health and the intricacies of sibling relationships. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING 5* 'I adored this book' 5* 'A brilliant novel about a dysfunctional family' 5* 'This book blew me away' 5* 'Loved, loved, loved this! Laugh-out-loud funny and beautifully poignant' 5* 'The best book i've read this year'