MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from The Widower's Guide to a New Life   by Joanna Romer - INTRODUCTION Learning to Be Alone When we lose a loved one—a friend or relative—our first reaction after the pain is usually atavistic: how will this affect me ? When we lose a spouse, however, no such reaction is possible. The grieving widower or widow soon becomes aware that this loss is catastrophic in a different way: it’s more like losing a part of oneself, one’s arms or legs. We keep waiting for that dear one to reappear, we want to claim her or him—until we realize this isn’t going to happen. We’re alone. Not only are we in pain but also we’re alone. For the widower, in particular, this can be quite a shock. Accustomed to having a “right hand” or equal partner always around, the newly bereaved man can be thrown into confusion. He has not realized his level of co-dependency. Suddenly, he’s facing life without his spouse in a thousand different ways, and he is devastated. What can you do when yo...

  excerpt from A Widower's Guide to a New Life (Romer) -  Self-Esteem What gives you self-esteem? Is it wearing a clean shirt and well-polished shoes when you’re heading out to dinner with a friend, whether male or female? Is it the knowledge that you can still be useful as you fix your neighbor’s lawn mower, or maybe even her computer?  Is it the fact that the woman in the grocery store smiled at you when you let her go ahead of you in line, or the realization that you can still beat your old pal Phil on the tennis court after 31 years? All of these things (and more) can contribute to self-esteem, a very useful commodity for a widower to have. Chances are, if you’ve lost your wife recently, your self-esteem has taken a beating. When our typical routine is drastically altered and we find ourselves struggling with everyday events, one of the first things to plummet is our opinion of ourselves. That good opinion, that high self-regard, is very important in the process of h...

  Recently released: Audiobook edition of  The Widower's Guide to a New Life .  by Joanna Romer. Book Description The Widower's Guide to a New Life shares the experiences of ten bereaved men as they cope with the trauma of losing a spouse. The book will help new widowers meet such challenges as: how to find consolation through friends, work and prayer; how to start over in terms of new activities, dating and a social life; and how to know when and if a new love relationship is right for you. Guidelines are provided from each widower's personal experiences, making this book a compendium of useful suggestions for getting through this difficult period with knowledge and grace. From the publisher This book was a commissioned book. Joanna had already written Widow, which turned out to be one of our better sellers. Clearly, there was a need for some guidance at the time of bereavement. Visting the hospice where my sister-in-law lay dying, it became clear that the majority of bo...

Extracted from photo by M. Katherine Shear, M.D. See original photo with words and blog article at aspire.com .   Whether they die in war, from illness, by suicide, or as a result end-of-life issues, their loss affects relatives, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and colleagues in  devastating ways. The following books are gentle but helpful treatments of the issues of bereavement and grief. Damascus amid the War by Muna Imady Written by popular author, Muna Imady, whose book, Syrian Folktales, has delighted an uncountable number of readers outside of Syria, Damascus amid the War tells the very human story of the devolution of a society. The book containts 29 pre-war poins, vibrant with imagery of daily life in a robust Damascus. The 100 war poems that follow show the devastating affect on the people who navigate a daily existence after war came. This is a posthumous publication, containing Muna’s very last works and an introduction by her mother, Elaine Imady, author o...

What better gift for a widowed father on Father's Day than a book leading to a new way of being, a way of moving past the trauma of losing a spouse? The Widower's Guide to a New Life by Joanna Romer, which relates the experience of ten bereaved men, has been praised by Library Journal , US Review of Books , MidWest Book Review , and Foreword Reviews . Selected as a finalist for the Book of the Year Award. Available from online bookstores, retail stores, kindle, and the MSI Press webstore. Read more about The Widower's Guide to a New Life HERE and blogposts/excerpts about widowers from this book and other MSI Press publications  HERE . Read posts about Joanna and her other books HERE .

  What better gift for a widowed father on Father's Day than a book leading to a new way of being, a way of moving past the trauma of losing a spouse? The Widower's Guide to a New Life  by Joanna Romer, which relates the experience of ten bereaved men, has been praised by  Library Journal ,  US Review of Books ,  MidWest Book Review , and  Foreword Reviews . Selected as a finalist for the  Book of the Year Award. Available from online bookstores, retail stores, kindle, and the MSI Press webstore. Read more about  The Widower's Guide to a New Life  HERE  and blogposts/excerpts about widowers from this book and other MSI Press publications  HERE . Read posts about Joanna and her other books  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC monthly newsletter (recent releases, sales/discounts, awards, reviews, Amazon top 100 list, author advice, and more -- stay up to date) Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Insta...