Here are recorded the deaths of parents, children, pets, friends, lovers and soldiers; the death of God, a building, a marriage and an idea. Registering in range from agnostic humour to elegiac dignity, the stories in Cold Comfort show the extraordinary connections made by the imagination as it confronts the inevitability of death. Contributors include AS Byatt, Slavenka Drakulic, Kirsty Gunn, Tobias Hill, Lynne Tillman and William Trevor.