A New York Times Bestseller · Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 · A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2025 · A Time Best Memoir of 2025 · Named a Best Book of 2025 by NPR, People , and Publishers Weekly “Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. ... Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it’s moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief.” — Los Angeles Times “A rich account of marriage and mourning.” — Washington Post A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of  Horse Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk. After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf. Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death. A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2025 A Time Best Memoir of 2025 Named a Best Book of 2025 by NPR, People , and Publishers Weekly “This intimate memoir of grief is a lifeline to others dealing with loss. ... Intensely intimate and candid ... Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. ... Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it’s moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief.” — Los Angeles Times “Brooks wield[s] precise and often beautiful language and, in the most graceful way possible, point[s] a way forward. A rich account of marriage and mourning ... Memorial Days contains much compassionate advice for those who have, or will, suffer the same ferocious blow.” — The Washington Post “Brooks and her husband, Tony Horwitz, had been reporters in war zones, but nothing prepared her for his sudden death, at just 60, after three decades together. Four years later, she journeyed to a remote island near Tasmania “to do the unfinished work of grieving.” This memoir is her report back, at once a spare accounting of tragic detail and an appreciation of the healing properties of solitude.” — The New York Times Book Review “Brooks closes her book with advice that, as a widow myself, I fully attest to: ‘In whatever way works for you, tell your story.’ It will not bring your loved one back. But as Brooks valiantly demonstrates, it will sustain you even as you endure.” — The Wall Street Journal “Beautiful. Every single page, every single word. [ Memorial Days ] is not merely an unflinching exploration of grief, it's a precise examination of the nitty-gritty, often infuriating work demanded of the souls left behind. ... Brooks never loses her sense of humor or remarkable ability to convey a landscape or bring people you'll never meet to life. Brooks is one of our literary treasures and Horwitz was one of our literary treasures. Read this book. Then read one of Tony's. Or, better still, take a month or two and read every single book this remarkable couple has gifted us.” —Chris Bohjalian “Highly recommended to those who enjoy her novels, but also to anyone who needs to remember how joy and grief can (and should) coexist.” —Maggie Stiefvater “Memorial Days is a be