A Week in Radio: Grief and the comfort of books “GRIEF is not elegant, and it is not well-mannered,” Cathy Rentzenbrink reminded us on Guide Book on Radio 4 last Tuesday. “And we do very silly things, I think, in grief. Often because we just want to escape our own pain.” Tell me about it, I thought listening in the kitchen, while looking at a picture of my late wife. The idea behind Guide Book is to bring together writers to talk about how books might help us navigate everyday life. Tuesday’s show saw Damian Barr talking to fellow authors Rentzenbrink and Stella Duffy about loss (both personal and collective in this age of coronavirus), the way it lives on in us and what part books might play in helping us grieve or even just ameliorate the pain.