A Manual for Heartache

by Cathy Rentzenbrink

Overview

'I devoured A Manual for Heartache in one sitting . . . a kind, honest and wise book about how to make a friend of sadness.' - Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

When Cathy Rentzenbrink was still a teenager, her happy family was torn apart by an unthinkable tragedy. In A Manual for Heartache she describes how she learnt to live with grief and loss and find joy in the world again. She explores how to cope with life at its most difficult and overwhelming and how we can emerge from suffering forever changed, but filled with hope.

This is a moving, warm and uplifting book that offers solidarity and comfort to anyone going through a painful time, whatever it might be. It's a book that will help to soothe an aching heart and assure its readers that they're not alone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509824441
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	06/29/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Cathy Rentzenbrink was born in Cornwall, grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in London, where she works as a writer and journalist. She is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling memoir The Last Act of Love, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize.
Cathy Rentzenbrink is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Last Act of Love, How to Feel Better (A Manual for Heartache), Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books, Write It All Down and Everyone Is Still Alive. It took her twenty years to wrestle her own life story on the page and she loves to use what she has learnt about the profound nature of writing the self in the service of others. Cathy has taught for Arvon, Curtis Brown Creative, at Falmouth University and at festivals and in prisons, and welcomes anyone, no matter what their experience, education, background or story. She believes that everyone’s life would be improved by picking up a pen and is at her happiest when encouraging her students to have the courage to delve into themselves and see the magic that will start to happen on the page.

Table of Contents

Introduction - i: Introduction Chapter - 1: What's Your Story? Chapter - 2: Grenades and Guillotines Chapter - 3: An Etiquette Guide for Bad News Chapter - 4: What to Do When the Worst Happens Chapter - 5: I Am One in Four Chapter - 6: How to Feel Better Chapter - 7: Instructions to My Future Self Chapter - 8: Emotional Time Travel Chapter - 9: On Being a Hopeful Agnostic Chapter - 10: The Last Piece of the Puzzle Chapter - 11: Fear of Dying Chapter - 12: A Deathbed Perspective Acknowledgements - ii: Acknowledgements Section - iii: Reading to Feel Better Section - iv: Daily Writing

Editorial Reviews

I read A Manual for Heartache in a single sitting. Cathy’s not a therapist or a doctor and this book is all the better for it. It’s human and kind and rooted in the everyday, in the language that we all recognise and the horrors that we all experience when we feel out of control or so lost we can hardly speak. I loved it. I’ve learned from it. Every house needs one: like a torch and a spare fuse it can help you find your way home.

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