Handpicked recommendations to other books that have a similar writing style or theme to The Year of Magical Thinking

A young widow grapples with the arrival of a once-in-a-lifetime comet and its tumultuous consequences, in a debut novel that blends mystery, astronomy, and romance, perfect for fans of Emma Cline's The Girls and Ottessa Moshfegh's Death in Her Hands.

A poignant graphic memoir about the power of art to transform and heal after the death of a loved one.

Someday, Maybe is a stunning, witty debut novel about a young woman's emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband.

Winner of the 2022 BookBrowse Nonfiction Award

This powerful memoir by New York Times bestselling author Amy Bloom is an illuminating story of two people whose love and shared life experiences led them to find a courageous way to part - and of a woman's struggle to go forward in the face of loss.

A powerful exploration of grief following the death of the author's son that combines memoir, reportage, and lessons in how to heal.

A deeply moving memoir about a young couple whose lives were changed in the blink of an eye, and the love that helped them rewrite their future.

A transformative, euphoric memoir about finding solace in the unexpected for readers of H is for Hawk and When Breath Becomes Air.

A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog.

A triumphant story about love, loss and finding hope - against all odds.

Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer's The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it.

Combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of Pi, Lily and the Octopus is an epic adventure of the heart.

Winner of the 2015 Pitt Drue Heinz Literature Prize.

In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her uncommon encounter with a Neohelix albolabris —a common woodland snail.

A spellbinding memoir of place, young love, and a life-altering crime.

A raucous, stunningly candid, deliriously smart diary of two years in the life of the incomparable Heidi Julavits

Winner of the 2016 BookBrowse Nonfiction Award

For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?

Julian Barnes's new book is about ballooning, photography, love and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart.

Knocking on Heaven's Door is a visionary map through the labyrinth of a broken and morally adrift medical system. It will inspire the necessary and difficult conversations we all need to have with loved ones as it illuminates a path to a better way of death.

Facing his sixty-third winter, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster sits down to write a history of his body and its sensations - both pleasurable and painful.

Slender, potent, and utterly engaging, I Married You For Happiness combines marriage, mathematics, and the probability of an afterlife to create Tuck's most affecting and riveting book yet.

Celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman married a beautiful young writer named Aura Estrada in the summer of 2005. Two years later she died of a tragic accident. Say Her Name is a love story, a bold inquiry into destiny and accountability, and a tribute to Aura, who she was and who she would have been.

Half a Life is a nakedly honest, ultimately hopeful examination of guilt, responsibility, and living with the past.

When his daughter, Amy, died suddenly of a heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife moved in with their son-in-law and their three young grandchildren. His story tells how a family makes the possible out of the impossible.

An original and brilliant work. Margaret Drabble weaves her own story into a history of games, in particular jigsaws, which have offered her and many others relief from melancholy and depression.

A powerful, witty, and taut novel about a complex friendship between two women—one dying, the other called to care for her—from an internationally acclaimed and award-winning author.

Based on real family events, Danny Scheinmann’s novel paints a dramatic portrait of two apparently unconnected epic love stories.

Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.

From the best-selling author of The Dew Breaker, a major work of nonfiction: a powerfully moving family story that centers around the men closest to Danticat's heart - her father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph.

In spare, elegant prose, Dillard traces the lives of Toby and Lou Maytree. She presents willed bonds of loyalty, friendship, and abiding love. Warm and hopeful, The Maytrees is the surprising capstone of Annie Dillard's original body of work.

When Mark Doty decides to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner, he brings home Beau, a golden retriever. A moving and intimate memoir interwoven with profound reflections on our feelings for animals and the lessons they teach us about life, love, and loss.

With wry candor and tender humor, Ayelet Waldman has crafted a strikingly beautiful novel for our time, tackling the absurdities of modern life and reminding us why we love some people no matter what.

A family founders after a mother's death in this beautifully observed debut.  Cheryl Strayed has a deep appreciation for the shifting rhythms between siblings and parents and for the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living. The wonderful characters in Torch come alive and ...

Masterfully layering time and space, thought and sensation, Mary Gaitskill dazzles the reader with psychological insight and a mystical sense of the soul's hurtling passage through the world.

Filled with laugh-out-loud humor, struggles, triumphs, and plenty of midnight trips to the fridge, Good Grief is a funny, wise, and heartbreakingly poignant novel from one of fiction's freshest and most exciting new voices.

If you or someone you love has cancer, this book is for you. It is a thought provoking, inspirational, and powerful paradigm on how to live with the many challenges confronted by cancer patients and their families.