Let’s face it: most of us can’t han­dle talk­ing about death. We’re awk­ward and uncer­tain; we blurt out plat­i­tudes or say noth­ing at all; we send sym­pa­thy bou­quets whit­tled out of fruit to the shi­va house. Mod­ern Loss can help us do bet­ter. Inspired by the web­site that the New York Times hailed as ​“redefin­ing mourn­ing,” this book – praised by Stephen Col­bert and Mindy Kaling, among oth­ers – offers a roadmap for nav­i­gat­ing grief and resilience in the mod­ern age. After all, we’re liv­ing in an era when we mourn pub­lic fig­ures and nation­al tragedies with hash­tags, when inti­mate posts about loss go viral, when we receive auto­mat­ed birth­day reminders for dead friends, and when we’re con­stant­ly reimag­in­ing and rein­ter­pret­ing age-old Jew­ish mourn­ing rit­u­als. With their Mod­ern Loss web­site, and with this book, the authors offer the insights of their com­mu­ni­ty to help us cry, laugh, grieve, iden­ti­fy, and, above all, empathize.