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by Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li's remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son James.
"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. It takes only an instant for death to become fact, "a single point in a timeline." 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 the things that work," 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, "The verb that does not die is to be. 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." Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li's indomitable spirit.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (6/11/2026)
...th. Like most short shory collections, some are good and some are great. It is a glimpse of a culture that I knew nothing about. Last week I finished Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. I recommended it with extreme caution for anyone grieving as it deals with child suicide. It is beautifully written but I cannot imagine a scenario...
-Anthony_Conty
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (6/4/2026)
Last week, I finished The Original by Nell Stevens and Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Lee. I really liked the ending of The Original even though some parts dragged on. The ending was something special. Things in Nature Merely Grow, the Pulitzer winner for Memoir/Anthology, is beautifully w...
-Anthony_Conty
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/28/2026)
...failed to hold my attention, but the ending surprised me and seemed perfectly loyal to the characters. It came together so nicely. Now, I am reading Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li and have a feeling it is going to kick my butt. The content matter is intense and triggering, dealing with two suicides. It is beautifully written an...
-Anthony_Conty
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (5/21/2026)
...are fascinating and I enjoy the mystery but it seems to take a while to make some of its points. Next in the stack, since I am a social masochist, is Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li, which is a memoir about a woman who has two kids die from suicide. It is going to be a tough read for me.
-Anthony_Conty
Pulitzer Prize in books for 2026
...Lepore (Liveright) General Nonfiction: There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Crown) Memoir or Autobiography: Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Biography: Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill Poetry: Ars Poeticas by Julia...
-Anne_Glasgow
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (4/09/2026)
I finished reading Things In Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. I have read seven of her other books and talked to her briefly after a reading she gave at the Weisman Art Museum. This book was written after the s...
-Kassapa
2025 National Book Awards Finalists Announced
Here's the list! Which ones have you read? Which are on your radar? Fiction : Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief Karen Russell, The Antidote Ethan Rutherford, North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther Bryan Wa...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (6/19/025)
I'm reading Sleep by Honor Jones and Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
-Michele_P
Pulitzer Prize, 2026
"As bleak as winter fog at dusk, suggesting that one goes on after tragedy only because there's nothing else one can do." —Kirkus Reviews
"Readers who've dealt with their own tragedies will find comfort and understanding here." —Publishers Weekly
This information about Things in Nature Merely Grow was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Yiyun Li is the author of six works of fiction—Must I Go, Where Reasons End, Kinder Than Solitude, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, The Vagrants, and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl—and the memoir Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. She is the recipient of many awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham-Campbell Prize. Her work has also appeared in the New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University.
Name Pronunciation
Yiyun Li: ee-yoon lee
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