11 must-read nonfiction books like Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin

Cover of Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin

Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

By: Gail Godwin

3.23

Format: 192 pages, Hardcover

From New York Times -bestselling, three-time National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin, a considerat…

If you liked the nonfiction plot in Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin , here is a list of 11 books like this:

Cover of The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing

1. The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise

By: Olivia Laing

4.07

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

In 2020, Olivia Laing began to restore a walled garden in Suffolk, an overgrown Eden of unusual pla… read more

Similar categories in Olivia Laing's The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
"One of the operations by which capitalism perpetuates itself is displacement, the determined and absolute separation of the product from the site of production, so that when we buy petrol or peat fro…"

-Olivia Laing, The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise

Cover of Somehow: Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott

2. Somehow: Thoughts on Love

By: Anne Lamott

3.95

Format: 204 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling author of Dusk, Night, Dawn and Help, Thanks, Wow , a joyful celebration of lo… read more

Similar categories in Anne Lamott's Somehow: Thoughts on Love book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
"I don’t know"

-Anne Lamott, Somehow: Thoughts on Love

"…nobody in isolation becomes who they were designed to be."

-Anne Lamott, Somehow: Thoughts on Love

"Sometimes it all just sucks, as Jesus says somewhere in the Gospels (although off the top of my head I can’t recall chapter and verse."

-Anne Lamott, Somehow: Thoughts on Love

"When I first got sober, a man told me that upon waking every morning, instead of reciting the standard flowery recovery prayer, he said, “Whatever,“ and at night when he turned off his lights to go t…"

-Anne Lamott, Somehow: Thoughts on Love

Cover of Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

3. Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

By: Salman Rushdie

4.10

Format: 209 pages, Hardcover

From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply pers… read more

Similar categories in Salman Rushdie's Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
"Waiting is thinking, and to think deeply is, very often, to change one’s mind."

-Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

"I don’t usually think of my books as prophecies. I’ve had some trouble with prophets in my life, and I’m not applying for the job."

-Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

"To have a room of one’s own, one must have money. (I don’t think Virginia Woolf ever went to India, but her dictum stands, even there, even for men.)"

-Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

"An intimacy of strangers. That's a phrase I've sometimes used to express the joyful thing that happens in the act of reading, that happy union of the interior lives of author and reader."

-Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Cover of Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy

4. Sipsworth

By: Simon Van Booy

4.26

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

Over the course of a single week, a woman who is ready to die discovers an unexpected reason to liv… read more

Similar categories in Simon Van Booy's Sipsworth book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

Cover of Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

5. Fire Exit

By: Morgan Talty

3.79

Format: 243 pages, Hardcover

The blood that came out of me was blood that ran through her veins. It’s strange: all blood looks t… read more

Similar categories in Morgan Talty's Fire Exit book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

"...what's more sacred than laughter at the dinner table?"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"That's my life, though--not knowing, but wishing. [Charles Lamosway]"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"We are made of stories, and if we don't know them--the ones that make us--how can we ever be fully realized? How can we ever be who we really are?"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

"...I was thinking and thinking about how, in just the past year, I had just started to know her, but then I began to unknow her, getting farther and farther away like watching a boat drift from the s…"

-Morgan Talty, Fire Exit

Cover of Sandwich by Catherine Newman

6. Sandwich

By: Catherine Newman

3.75

Format: 229 pages, Hardcover

From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family sum… read more

Similar categories in Catherine Newman's Sandwich book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

"What does loss look like, in your body? Where is it? It feels like an air bubble stuck in your psyche. It feels like peering down into a deep hole. The vertigo of that. The potential for obliteration…"

-Catherine Newman, Sandwich

"We're just ruined by sex, women---our bodies, our psyches. We're sexually assaulted every five minutes. We're infected with everything. Traumatized by conceiving, by not conceiving. But let's keep at…"

-Catherine Newman, Sandwich

Cover of Did I Ever Tell You? by Genevieve Kingston

7. Did I Ever Tell You?

By: Genevieve Kingston

4.34

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

Based on her "Modern Love" piece ("She Put Her Unspent Love in a Cardboard Box"), this extraordinar… read more

Similar categories in Genevieve Kingston's Did I Ever Tell You? book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
Cover of In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger

8. In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife

By: Sebastian Junger

3.92

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on death—and what might follow—by t… read more

Similar categories in Sebastian Junger's In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • health
"Everyone has a relationship with death whether they want one or not; refusing to think about death is its own kind of relationship. When we hear about another person's death, we are hearing a version…"

-Sebastian Junger, In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife

Cover of The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson

9. The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

By: Helen Simonson

3.96

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

A timeless comedy of manners—refreshing as a summer breeze and bracing as the British seaside—about… read more

Similar categories in Helen Simonson's The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

Cover of Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5) by Elizabeth Strout

10. Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)

By: Elizabeth Strout

4.46

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a hopeful, healing novel about new friend… read more

Similar categories in Elizabeth Strout's Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5) book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

"...Bob caught a glimpse of himself in the store window that was right there. He was startled. Who was that tall older man? Was that him? A sense of bewilderment came to him. He turned away, then turn…"

-Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)

Cover of Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End by Alua Arthur

11. Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End

By: Alua Arthur

4.26

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A deeply transformative memoir that reframes how we think about death and how it can help us lead b… read more

Similar categories in Alua Arthur's Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • health
Cover of Practice by Rosalind Brown

12. Practice

By: Rosalind Brown

3.71

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

An astonishing first novel about a day in the life of a young student who experiences her thoughts,… read more

Similar categories in Rosalind Brown's Practice book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

Cover of Consent: A Memoir by Jill Ciment

13. Consent: A Memoir

By: Jill Ciment

3.96

Format: 145 pages, Hardcover

In this unflinching account of the ardent love affair between the author and her painting teacher, … read more

Similar categories in Jill Ciment's Consent: A Memoir book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
Cover of When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow

14. When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion

By: Julie Satow

4.06

Format: 295 pages, Hardcover

A glittering, glamorous portrait of the golden age of American department stores and of three visio… read more

Similar categories in Julie Satow's When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
Cover of Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie, #6) by Kate Atkinson

15. Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie, #6)

By: Kate Atkinson

4.09

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

The stage is set. Marooned overnight by a snowstorm in a grand country house are a cast of characte… read more

Similar categories in Kate Atkinson's Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie, #6) book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

Cover of The Devil's Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared by Randall Sullivan

16. The Devil's Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared

By: Randall Sullivan

3.18

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Part true crime story, part historical account, part religious and literary analysis, an investigat… read more

Similar categories in Randall Sullivan's The Devil's Best Trick: How the Face of Evil Disappeared book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
Cover of State of Paradise by Laura van den Berg

17. State of Paradise

By: Laura van den Berg

3.51

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A heart-racing fun house of uncanniness hidden in Florida’s underbelly, from a reality-warping stor… read more

Similar categories in Laura van den Berg's State of Paradise book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

Cover of Peggy by Rebecca Godfrey

18. Peggy

By: Rebecca Godfrey

3.67

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

A dazzling novel about Peggy Guggenheim—a story of art, family, love, and becoming oneself—by the a… read more

Similar categories in Rebecca Godfrey's Peggy book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

Cover of Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin

19. Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

By: Gail Godwin

3.23

Format: 192 pages, Hardcover

From New York Times -bestselling, three-time National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin, a considerat… read more

Similar categories in Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • health
Cover of The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss

20. The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore

By: Evan Friss

4.18

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cu… read more

Similar categories in Evan Friss's The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

  • nonfiction
Cover of The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

21. The Mighty Red

By: Louise Erdrich

4.01

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich tells … read more

Similar categories in Louise Erdrich's The Mighty Red book and Gail Godwin's Getting to Know Death: A Meditation

8 must-read memoir books like Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin

Transform Your Habits

The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise

Olivia Laing

4.07

Transform Your Habits

Somehow: Thoughts on Love

Anne Lamott

3.95

Transform Your Habits

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Salman Rushdie

4.10

Transform Your Habits

Did I Ever Tell You?

Genevieve Kingston

4.34

View all the books

21 best-selling fiction books like Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie, #6) by Kate Atkinson

Transform Your Habits

The Last Word

Elly Griffiths

3.92

Transform Your Habits

Here One Moment

Liane Moriarty

4.15

Transform Your Habits

Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)

Elizabeth Strout

4.46

Transform Your Habits

The Cracked Mirror

Chris Brookmyre

4.07

View all the books

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