Tithe Green Book Club July: Pretty Painful Grief Letters

One of the cruelest aspects of grief is feeling as though we have lost the parts of our life and of ourselves that we once enjoyed.

For many people, this is reading. We might find we can't concentrate anymore, or that books we once enjoyed or were excited to read become triggering, a painful reminder of our grief.

But when we're ready, and a bit at a time, reading can become an escape again - something that can help us create a bit of breathing room, or even something we can learn from.

Tithe Green Book Club

As a team, we thought it might be nice to share a book every month that we think our community will be able to enjoy. Something beautifully written or genuinely helpful. Something we might learn from, something that might provide more insight into the neuroscience grief, even if just to validate that what we are experiencing is normal. Or, it might be something that we feel finds the words for the things that can be impossible to articulate when you are grieving.

All of the books we recommend will be vetted by our team, each of us with our own unique lived experience of grief. If there is one that piques your interest, please read along with us and share your thoughts in our private Facebook Community Group.

July book recommendation: Pretty Painful Grief Letters

Pretty Painful Grief Letters is a collection of short poetry, thoughts, and journal entries written and collated by William Hunter Howell following the death of his father.

The book is designed to be something you can pick up, open to whatever page you like, and find something that might resonate. Split into 9 parts (lost, numb, broken, anger, guilt, alone, fear, love, heal), Howell uses poetry as a way of exploring the many emotions and feelings we might experience when grieving.

The poems are unapologetic in their raw honesty. There's no dressing up grief, no using complex imagery to make it more palatable. Howell writes exactly what he feels, and nestled within that authenticity is relatability. The book holds a mirror up to our own grief - we can look at the writing and see ourselves in it, say "yes, that is me, that is my experience."

Whilst the poems are devastating, the experiences and emotions they are describing utterly heartbreaking, there is an element of comfort foundational to the book. Someone else putting into words what we are feeling - the anger, the injustice, the rejection of any degree of 'closure' or 'moving on', the regret, the unbearable relentlessness of it all - validates our experience.

Through his poems, Howell is saying: you are not alone. I feel the same way you feel. I am going through what you are going through. Sometimes, knowing we are not the only people suffering can be enough to ease the weight on our chest, allowing us to breathe a little easier.

For many people grieving, reading a book from start to finish, a book that demands consistent concentration, can feel impossible. For this reason, we believe Pretty Painful Grief Letters to be the perfect place to start if you are missing the feeling of a book in your hand, or seeing one on your bedside table, and or having the comforting weight of one in your bag. This is a book that can work around you - one you can dip into, just for a page or two, wherever and whenever you feel like it.

Pretty Painful Grief Letters is available to buy exclusively on Amazon here.

If you'd like to stay up to date with our book of the month, subscribe to our newsletter or join our Facebook Community Group where members are welcome to post freely and share their thoughts.