Recs if you like Things in Nature Merely Grow...

Shorter books (under 200 pages) that are part of at least one quest. Many are also in the public domain, making them easily accessible when you want to grind for that next badge.

Nature is Fluid & Interconnected: A perspective blending Queer Theory (challenging norms around gender/sexuality) with Ecology (the study of relationships in nature). Queer ecology questions assumptions that human norms (like heterosexuality or fixed binaries) are the only "natural" way. It invites us to see nature, ourselves, and our relationships with more nuance and complexity.

Books We Love from NPR began in 2013, always boasting over 200 books (almost 400 in recent years) featuring genres from memoirs, to cookbooks, to graphic novels, to children’s literature, to nonfiction, to novels. Check out NPR’s website to filter this massive list.

The list is in reverse alphabetical order directly from NPR.

Grief as one of the main topics

An on-going attempt to track Asian authors in my Interested/TBR (and hopefully Finished) categories. Books are generally fiction/lit fic/fantasy with some memoirs. Authors span West to East Asia, the Asian diaspora, and mixed-race folx.

On death and leaving you. Quiet meditations in memoir and make-believe and anything in-between.

Grief and its many forms of manifestations (across genres)

Nominees and winners of every category of the Good Reads Choice Awards for the year of 2025. Some books overlap so they were only entered once.

Ongoing. Fiction and non-fiction exploration of grief: anticipatory, grieving death of a loved one (including pets), loosing pregnancy, etc, and how to live with it.

Nonfiction books from The New York Times' "100 Notable Books of 2025" list

Note: I will be deleting my PB account within the next two weeks, and I believe this list will be erased. Feel free to screenshot it if you see anything that interests you! ☺️ 3/17/2026

A lot of these are general, but I am focused on finding books on sibling loss and suicide bereavement or compounded grief. I am compiling what have read (not much yet), but also recs that I want to look into. I would love to hear suggestions (a lot of this is the result of snooping though maybe too many forums and blogs, so anyone else with insight would be lovely)!

As you might have gathered from the title, this is the Nonfiction category

emotionally resonant and impactful reads that will make you feel all of the feels (and, if you're like me, cry).

1 Memoir from every country. Feel free to comment if you have a suggestion!

Picking up a book because of its title. Brilliant, creative, and intriguing book titles across all genres and forms.

I’ll be updating this list periodically as I encounter more.

"Anyways, just for fun, I thought I would go to my bookshelf and just pull out a sampling of books that I have read written by women that I love that I can say I love without referencing another female writer who sucks." — Caro Claire Burke

iowa city, where everyone seems to be writing a book — modern + contemporary works from university of iowa iowa writers' workshop alum & faculty

Memoirs open and share the life of extraordinary people with us all. It's a privilege to read and know someone's story. Here are a few amazing, memorable memoirs.