As recommended by readers of Electric Speed. Compiled in mid-October 2023.

• I suggest the book The Myth of Closure––Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change by Pauline Boss, Ph.D. I like her assertion that instead of seeking closure, we instead search for meaning. Closure sounds like we're supposed to close off those who we have loved and lost––how cruel and cold. The loss of a loved one never completely goes away, nor should we want to toss our memories of them in the trash bin of life. Instead of closure (a made-up media word, perhaps), we can learn to move forward in our life and remember them tenderly. We can build resilience despite a loss that can't be clarified, allowing us to better handle ambiguity when it occurs in our life. Life will go on, but it will be different––it already is. —Peter Billard
• This might not be specifically for grief but one of my favorite podcasters recommends Better Help for online therapy. I've never done online therapy but it seems like an excellent choice these days. Hope this helps and peace to you. —NaomiB
• I don't know if this counts as a grief resource, but it's an idea I have that I hope someone with technical or app-making skills will create. I had the idea when my father-in-law, who was VERY organized about everything, died. Even with his files, there was still a LOT of work to do in calling people and closing accounts and dealing. I think someone should create an app (called Good Grief) in which people can fill out fields while they're alive and give the codes to their loved ones. The app would safely store information that would help the bereft people have less to do. (links to automatically close accounts, notify places/people, provide documents, etc). I hope someone reading this will create such an app and provide it with the necessary safety features. I think you could make a lot of money AND do a great service for making what's already a hard time a lot easier logistically. —Carita
• Cloud Sangha, a Buddhist online place to meet up with other folks, is wonderful for study, deep conversations, support for life's challenges including grief. —Bobbie O’Connor
• Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice by Jenny Lisk. She shares what it was like going through her husbands brain cancer in the moment and in reflecting on it later. Both in their 40s with their lives turned upside down, it’s compelling, insightful, and helps a grieving person know they aren’t alone. This is a must-read for anyone facing the loss of a spouse and picking up the pieces. —Ellen Taaffe
• Anderson Cooper’s podcast All There Is has been so incredibly helpful for me. In particular, the episode with Stephen Colbert. Each episode has been fantastic but it’s so beautiful listening to the vulnerability of these two MEN as they share their experiences of grief, scattering pearls of grace along the way. —Tammy Herzig
• My publisher, End Game Press, has released three books on grief including one for children. Fly High (there’s also a faith based version), co-written with a grief counselor, teaches children how to understand and process their grief. After the Flowers Die: for adults about what comes next for the living (estate issues, how to deal with the stuff left behind, etc). Uncrushed, a new release that helps adults process their loved one’s death and work toward the other side of the grief. —Felicia Ferguson
• My number one grief resource is It’s OK that You’re Not OK by Megan Devine. She also has a podcast and website with a course called Writing your Grief. When everyone else was offering their best sentiments that left me hollow, Megan addressed the reality I was experiencing. —Jenn Nahrstadt
• Regarding resources on grief: Shortly after my mother passed away, this past spring, I interviewed Anderson Cooper for the neurology magazine Brain & Life—the angle of my story is not just Cooper’s well-publicized podcast on grief but also perspectives from neurologists and other professionals who specialize in the social-emotional and physiological components of grief, how to prepare for the death of a loved one, and how to embrace resilience in the face of despair. Speaking with Cooper and other experts on grief helped me process my own feelings, and I hope my story can do the same for others. —Robert Firpo-Cappiello
• A grief resource for children and their big people: A Campfire for Cowboy Billy by Wendy Ulmer. —Wendy Ulmer
• For some of us, all the books out there on grieving—and all the therapy that’s on offer—just don’t work. Please tell your reader asking for resources that if they find that nothing really helps, not to feel like something’s wrong with them. It’s kind of like joining a club that no one ever wanted to be part of — the “group” of people mourning for loved ones. Each of us grieves in our own particular way. It’s a matter of finding one’s own path. Maybe that involves grief counseling or books. Maybe they just don’t help. Maybe it’s more a matter of going out into the world to experience all the beauty that’s out there, of doing creative work that can sink them in other worlds, or allowing friends to envelop them in love. I know this well, now three years on that journey. —Janet Stilson
• Grief resources: Griefshare.org —Cheryl B. Lemine
• I'm not sure if your reader is a Christian, but if so, this blog series. Rick Warren is the pastor who wrote The Purpose-Driven Life, which took the church world by storm, but later his son died by suicide while still undergoing treatment for severe depression. —Abigail Welborn
• After losing my husband, gut-wrenching grief was driving me into madness. What I needed was someone to share their personal grief experience, and how they survived, mind intact. What I found were tomes filled with prescriptive advice. So, I wrote a memoir about my journey through the grief gauntlet. It is sad, funny, and honest; exactly what I wanted and needed at my time of loss. —Mary E Scott
• Shortly after my daughter died of suicide three years ago, a friend sent the most helpful book on grief: It’s OK That You’re NOT OK by Megan Devine, LPC. The author holds Master’s in counseling, but after her husband died in a catastrophic boating accident, she realized that her previous approaches to counseling clients through grief needed to change. She advocates for change in how we face and live with grief. She also has a very helpful grief journal: How To Carry What Can’t be Fixed. Her books apply to anyone who is grieving a loss, and I highly recommend! Down to earth advice, nicely written. I’ve also found it helpful as well as fascinating to read extensively on NDEs (near death experience). Many psychiatrists and other physicians have written books on this subject, but Raymond Moody, MD is one of the first. His titles include: Life After Life and The Light Beyond. I’m currently reading After by Bruce Grayson, MD: a doctor explores what near-death experiences reveal about the life and beyond. Very interesting, and for me, provides solace. I have a small library of books on grief now, but these are the most helpful. One very good website: whatsyourgrief.com Based on the East coast, but free to join, and they have very interesting newsletters. It’s never easy to console someone who has experienced loss, and our society expects us to “get over” grief or at least to keep it to ourselves. But as Megan Devine’s books assures us, grief doesn’t go away but it can be carried. —Lenore Mitchell
• A very helpful grief resource is Dying: A Book of Comfort by Pat McNees. I learned about it after my father died when I took a class from Pat, and have returned to it many times in the years since. —Deborah Rubin
• Bearing the Unbearable by Joanne Cacciatore: As a retired hospice social worker and personally bereaved individual with multiple family and friend deaths, I highly recommend this book. —Judith Gropp
• Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief by Pauline Boss, Ph.D. This book has been the most helpful for me because of her extensive research on grief and ways to cope with losses that are most often overlooked by society. This is the first book that acknowledged and gave my personal loss a name. Case studies and some of her personal history. A+ writing. —Mary Gattuso
• Books: Don't Take My Grief Away From Me: How to Walk Through Grief and Learn to Live Again and When Bad Things Happen to Good People. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families. Grief is messy, with no orderly progression. —Ted Garvin