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Things in Nature Merely Grow - Yiyun Li

By Yiyun Li

Release Date: 2025-05-20

Genre: Essays

4.5 (32 ratings)
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Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
Long-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography

One of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year

Yiyun Liā€™s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James.

ā€œThere is no good way to say this,ā€ Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book.

ā€œThere 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.ā€

There is no good way to say thisā€”because words fall short. It takes only an instant for death to become fact, ā€œa single point in a time line.ā€ Living now on this single point, Li turns to thinking and reasoning and searching for words that might hold a place for James. Li does what she can: doing ā€œthings that work,ā€ including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death.

This is a book for James, but it is not a book about grieving or mourning. As Li writes, ā€œThe verb that does not die is ā€˜to be.ā€™ Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later; only now and now and now and now.ā€ Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Liā€™s indomitable spirit.

Things in Nature Merely Grow - Yiyun Li

By Yiyun Li

Release Date: 2025-05-20

Genre: Essays

4.5 (32 ratings)
Read Download
Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
Long-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography

One of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year

Yiyun Liā€™s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James.

ā€œThere is no good way to say this,ā€ Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book.

ā€œThere 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.ā€

There is no good way to say thisā€”because words fall short. It takes only an instant for death to become fact, ā€œa single point in a time line.ā€ Living now on this single point, Li turns to thinking and reasoning and searching for words that might hold a place for James. Li does what she can: doing ā€œthings that work,ā€ including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death.

This is a book for James, but it is not a book about grieving or mourning. As Li writes, ā€œThe verb that does not die is ā€˜to be.ā€™ Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later; only now and now and now and now.ā€ Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Liā€™s indomitable spirit.

More by Yiyun Li

The Book of Goose

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Where Reasons End

Things in Nature Merely Grow

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Wednesday's Child

Must I Go

Tolstoy Together

What Do I Know?

The Hotel

Even the Dogs

Czy muszę odchodzić?

A la natura les coses simplement creixen

Ragazzo d'oro, ragazza di smeraldo

La douceur de nos champs de bataille

Partir quand mĆŖme

Tudo na natureza apenas continua

Mon amie de plume : RentrƩe littƩraire 2025. Un roman saisissant qui rappelle L'Amie prodigieuse d'Elena Ferrante

Un beau jour de printemps

Waar geen reden is

Czy muszę odchodzić?

PiĆ¹ gentile della solitudine

En la naturaleza las cosas crecen

Se vado via

Una jaula saliĆ³ en busca de un pĆ”jaro

Cher ami, de ma vie je vous Ć©cris dans votre vie

Un millier d'annĆ©es de bonnes priĆØres

Music Against the Night

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

The Vagrants

Reverse Engineering II

Plus doux que la solitude

Dove le ragioni finiscono

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Cartea gastei

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