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LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025

‘The best book I have read this year’ DAVID NICHOLLS

‘Beautiful’ DOUGLAS STUART

‘Extraordinary’ SARAH MOSS

‘A formidable testament to a mother’s love’ SARA COLLINS

‘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. In this remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance, Li turns to thinking and searching for words that might hold a place for her son, James. Li does ‘the things that work’: including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death. Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li’s indomitable spirit.

Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-Fiction 2026

Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Awards 2025

Finalist for the National Book Award for Non-Fiction 2025

‘To state that this courageous book is a testament to love is an understatement. One is left altered by it’
Observer

‘Unlike any other book I’ve read … an unforgettable monument to endurance’
Sunday Times

‘A book that has not a single spare word in it … I loved it so much’ Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake

‘A meditation on living and radical acceptance’
Guardian

‘A memoir unlike others, strange and profound and fiercely determined not to look away’
New York Times

‘One of the most astounding memoirs I have ever read’ Pandora Sykes, author of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?

‘I will return to it for the rest of my life’ Charlotte Wood, author of Stone Yard Devotional

‘A manifesto of living, not dying’ Sinead Gleeson, The Week

Publisher Review

Praise for Things in Nature Merely Grow:

‘An extraordinary, powerful, candid and intellectually confident book’ Baillie Gifford Prize Judges

‘To state that this courageous book is a testament to love is an understatement. One is left altered by it’ Observer

‘An unforgettable monument to endurance, one that offers a kind of fierce comfort’ Sunday Times

‘A meditation on living and radical acceptance that has the potential to offer deep solace; comfort from the abyss’ Guardian

‘A memoir unlike others, strange and profound and fiercely determined not to look away’ New York Times

‘A wonderful and extraordinarily wise book …The nearest comparison is Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking, which it matches. The best book I have read this year’ David Nicholls, author of You Are Here

‘A book that has not a single spare word in it, that never relies on a cliche, that never resorts to how [Li] is supposed to feel … I loved it so much’ Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake

‘A formidable testament to a mother’s love … one of the most important books to be published in years’ Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton

‘A beautiful, unsentimental book that offers some understanding of coping with devastating loss’ Douglas Stuart, author of John of John

‘One of the most astounding memoirs I have ever read … Li is a truly original thinker’ Pandora Sykes, author of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right?

‘A manifesto of living, not dying, and of how we endure the most unimaginable things’ Sinead Gleeson, The Week

‘An astonishing high-wire act of writing and thinking and mourning … An extraordinary book’ Sarah Moss, author of Ripeness

‘A book unlike any I’ve read, that brims with rare clarity and intelligence, with love and care’ Cecile Pin, author of Celestial Lights

‘I don’t think I’ve ever read a more truthful or humane book … I will return to it for the rest of my life’ Charlotte Wood, author of Stone Yard Devotional