As beautifully written as it is devastating, this young neurosurgeon’s memoir of dying of cancer reflects on the nature of a meaningful life—and will have you reexamining your own relationships and attention to gratitude. When I taught junior high, most every book dealt with a death to either a person, a pet, or a marriage.

Her father both beats and sexually abuses her before being married off to a man who continues the abuse. Stories of their great achievements spread throughout the region, and the combination of Old Dan’s brawn, Little Ann’s brains, and Billy’s sheer will seems unbeatable.

In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. IM: Melissa Febos’s stirring essay collection, or “memoirs” as the book’s subtitle indicates, is a truly marvelous tapestry.

The lovable lab carves a place in their home and hearts…but we know that life isn’t forever; the family is faced with immense grief when Marley crosses that rainbow bridge. Told in sections from each sibling’s perspective, it raises the question: Does knowing when you’ll die encourage you to live life to the fullest, or does it cause more harm than good? Of course, sad books tend to include famous fictional dogs, and Marley and Me is equal parts funny and sad. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife—the days have more light and color.

And it is also Cassie’s story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect. Navigating between the Indian traditions they’ve inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude wears red-red lipstick, cliff-dives, and does all the talking for both of them. But with Jack’s curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer. If you learn a lot from Night, check out even more books about Poland and Polish history and culture.

I love him and no matter how many lies are told, no matter how many people conspire to keep us apart, despite the fame and the distance, it will only ever be him. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. Within moments, as I remember it now, the chatter around the table, the warming laughter and chinking glasses, disappeared. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another.As Charlie’s intelligence increases, he becomes aware of his coworkers’ mistreatment of him and of the ethics of the experiment.

It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. With exquisite nuance, Rosen captures the contradictory feelings undergirding mourning — affection and anger, self-conscious introspection and longing for communion — and the way loss lodges itself in the psyche so that the vestiges of a particular loss always awaken the sadness of the all loss, that perennial heartbreak of beholding the absurdity of our longing for permanence in a universe of constant change. He doesn’t have time for distractions and Livvy’s sudden reappearance in town is a major distraction. She is Ewu—a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. And every afternoon, just before three o’clock, Hachi is at the train station to greet his beloved master.Below, uncover books that make you cry both tears of utter sadness as well as tears of joy, especially as our characters and protagonists grow, form friendships, and overcome hardship. Publishers Weekly praised it for its candour and said that it "will resonate with – and help – anyone mourning a loss or dealing with an indefinable sadness". Told with Gilbert’s trademark humor and intelligence, this fascinating meditation on compatibility and fidelity chronicles Gilbert’s complex and sometimes frightening journey into second marriage, and will enthrall the millions of readers who made Eat, Pray, Love a number one bestseller. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined…and what happens when one is left behind.