WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR MEMOIR 2026 LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 The best book I have read this year DAVID NICHOLLS Masterly I'm in awe SALMAN RUSHDIE Beautiful DOUGLAS STUART Extraordinary SARAH MOSS A formidable testament to a mother s love SARA COLLINS There is no good way to say this, Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book. There is no good way to state these facts, which must be acknowledged. My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home. There is no good way to say this because words fall short. In this remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance, Li turns to thinking and searching for words that might hold a place for her son, James. Li does the things that work : including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death. Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li s indomitable spirit. Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-Fiction 2026 Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Awards 2025 Finalist for the National Book Award for Non-Fiction 2025 To state that this courageous book is a testament to love is an understatement. One is left altered by it Observer Unlike any other book I've read an unforgettable monument to endurance Sunday Times A book that has not a single spare word in it I loved it so much Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake A meditation on living and radical acceptance Guardian A memoir unlike others, strange and profound and fiercely determined not to look away New York Times One of the most astounding memoirs I have ever read Pandora Sykes, author of How Do We Know We're Doing It Right? I will return to it for the rest of my life Charlotte Wood, author of Stone Yard Devotional A manifesto of living, not dying Sin ad Gleeson, The Week