{"product_id":"9780008753849","title":"Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li","description":"LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025                    `The best book I have read this year' DAVID NICHOLLS          `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\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367702868341,"sku":"9780008753849","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008753849.jpg?v=1763547787","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9780008753849","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}