Name: The Bright Hour
ISBN: 9781501169359

Nina Riggs

"Built on her wildly popular Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a breathtaking memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38 year old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years, after her terminal cancer diagnosis"--

A Memoir of Living and Dying

The Bright Hour

* INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Stunning…heartrending…this year’s When Breath Becomes Air.” —Nora Krug, The Washington Post “Beautiful and haunting.” —Matt McCarthy, MD, USA TODAY “Deeply affecting…simultaneously heartbreaking and funny.” —People (Book of the Week) “Vivid, immediate.” —Laura Collins-Hughes, The Boston Globe Starred reviews from * Kirkus Reviews * Publishers Weekly * Library Journal * Best Books of 2017 Selection by * The Washington Post * Most Anticipated Summer Reading Selection by * The Washington Post * Entertainment Weekly * Glamour * The Seattle Times * Vulture * InStyle * Bookpage * Bookriot * Real Simple * The Atlanta Journal-Constitution * The New York Times bestseller by poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, is “a stunning…heart-rending meditation on life…It is this year’s When Breath Becomes Air” (The Washington Post). We are breathless but we love the days. They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other. Poet and essayist Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer—one small spot. Within a year, she received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal. How does a dying person learn to live each day “unattached to outcome”? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty? How does a young mother and wife prepare her two young children and adored husband for a loss that will shape the rest of their lives? How do we want to be remembered? Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship, and memory, Nina asks: What makes a meaningful life when one has limited time? “Profound and poignant” (O, The Oprah Magazine), The Bright Hour is about how to make the most of all the days, even the painful ones. It’s about the way literature, especially Nina’s direct ancestor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and her other muse, Montaigne, can be a balm and a form of prayer. Brilliantly written and exceptionally moving, it’s a “deeply affecting memoir, a simultaneously heartbreaking and funny account of living with loss and the specter of death. As Riggs lyrically, unflinchingly details her reality, she finds beauty and truth that comfort even amid the crushing sadness” (People, Book of the Week). Tender and heartwarming, The Bright Hour “is a gentle reminder to cherish each day” (Entertainment Weekly, Best New Books) and offers us this important perspective: “You can read a multitude books about how to die, but Riggs, a dying woman, will show you how to live” (The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice).

Jennifer

Though this book is compared to When Breath Becomes Air a lot, Nina's voice is so different than Paul's. It is fascinating to me that John is dating Lucy now because their late significant others were so different. I LOVE that Nina and John met while teaching at CTY! That is amazing and it made me love this book more. I gotta be honest though, a lot of the imagery and metaphors and fancy writing goes right over my head. I don't get a lot of it. I need to read the complete works of Montaigne and Emerson to fully appreciate this book. I didn't relate to this as much as When Breath Becomes Air, but my favorite chapters are 16, 18, and the last two chapters.

This was one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. A beautiful memoir, especially good as an audiobook. Such an important reminder that all days need to be made the best of or enjoyed as they can be, even during the most difficult stuff, because time and life are really fleeting. 

Coley T

Erin Noel

Tragic and beautiful 

Despite how grim the topic, I enjoyed Nina’s playfulness, humor and reflection throughout her journey. I’m still in awe that she was committed to living her best life despite everything. Thank you for writing a raw, emotionally rich, and sobering work.

 Bruna Acioly Leão

The Bright Hour is a gripping, thought provoking, beautifully written book about life, and death and battling with it and living through it as brightly as one can.

Nina Riggs writes beautiful prose, prose that doesn't need any interesting story to hold itself to. She has one of those clear, compelling voices that could be telling you about the most mundane things and you would still be interested to hear. Unfortunately, her subject isn't anything ordinary. She is a young person dying and as any young person out there, she is obviously not prepared to die. Not just in a sense of leaving herself and the world, but also in a sense of leaving everyone, especially her kids behind. Not only that, but she has to cope with fighting cancer, while her mum is also sick and dying herself. But Nina doesn't find out that she is actually dying util about one year after her mother has passed. Up to this moment she was fighting and she had hope. But once her cancer becomes metastatic, she has to cope with the fact that is not going to go away anymore.

There were so many points of this book that moved me, made me almost cry, made me reflect on my life and be both sad for her story and glad that she got to live some of these special moments at all.

This book isn't just about Nina Riggs' cancer and her last days struggling with it or her life before. More than just a memoir of her life, this book offers insight and reflection that we could all do to apply into our own lives. It seems like we are always trying to get to some better place, to achieve some not yet reached happiness, some magical goal, when in fact we are meant to be living in the present. Because that is the only time we actually got to live. 

In the words of Montaigne (quoted by Nina so often that I am inclined to read him): 

“I want death to find me planting my cabbages, not concerned about it or—still less—my unfinished garden.” 

- I recommend the audiobook for this one, if you are interested in it, because the narration is lovely performed.

The Bright Hour A Memoir of Living and Dying

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