Books like

Books like A Grief Observed

12 books with a reading profile close to A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and open-ended; a moderate read.

1

WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

by Paul Kalanithi

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, memoir

Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgical resident nearing the end of his decade-long training when he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.
2

The Essential Rumi

by Coleman Barks

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, inspirational

Coleman Barks translates the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic’s Persian verses into contemporary English free verse.
3

Mortality

by Christopher Hitchens

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, memoir

Christopher Hitchens chronicles his final eighteen months following a stage four esophageal cancer diagnosis.
4

Manuscript Found in Accra

by Paulo Coelho

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, inspirational

In the year 1099, the people of Jerusalem gather in the city's square on the eve of an invasion by crusaders, and a wise Greek called the Copt invites them to share their thoughts.
5

Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, inspirational

Siddhartha, a young Brahman in ancient India, abandons his high-caste life and ritualistic obligations to seek an end to personal suffering.
6

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death

by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, inspirational

In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of French Elle, suffered a massive stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome.
7

The crack-up, with other uncollected pieces, note-books and unpublished letters, together with letters to Fitzgerald from Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Wolfe and John Dos Passos, and essays and poems by Paul Rosenfeld [and others] Edited by Edmund Wilson

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, memoir

This collection centers on the psychological collapse of F.
8

The Prophet

by Kahlil Gibran

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, inspirational

The narrative centers on Almustafa, a prophet who has lived in the foreign city of Orphalese for twelve years.
9

Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám

by Omar Khayyam, Tomoyé Press Bkp Cu-Banc

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, inspirational

The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyám presents a series of four-line stanzas, or quatrains, attributed to the eleventh-century Persian polymath Omar Khayyám and translated into English by Edward FitzGerald.
10

De profundis

by Oscar Wilde

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, memoir

Written during his incarceration at Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde’s long letter to Lord Alfred Douglas details the emotional and financial ruin resulting from their relationship.
11

Gandhi: An Autobiography

by Mahatma Gandhi

Also inward-looking and contemplative · philosophy, memoir

In this memoir, Mohandas K.
12

Bluets

by Maggie Nelson

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, memoir

Maggie Nelson constructs this book as a series of 240 numbered prose poems centered on her obsession with the color blue.

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