We often come across books we want to recommend, both fiction and non-fiction. They are all related in some way to the concept of getting older – there’s a lot out there and we’ll keep adding as we find new ones. We hope you enjoy them too.
In Old Rage, one of Britain’s best loved actors opens up about her ninth decade. Funny, feisty, honest, she makes for brilliant company as she talks about her life as a daughter, a sister, a mother, a widow, an actor, a friend and looks at a world so different from the wartime world of her childhood. And yet – despite age, despite rage – she finds there are always reasons for joy.
Home alone, classified as ‘extremely vulnerable’, she finds herself yelling at the TV and talking to the pigeons… In Old Rage, one of Britain’s best loved actors opens up about her ninth decade. Funny, feisty, honest, she makes for brilliant company as she talks about her life as a daughter, a sister, a mother, a widow, an actor, a friend and looks at a world so different from the wartime world of her childhood. And yet – despite age, despite rage – she finds there are always reasons for joy.
This is an inspirational must read for all of us as we attempt to navigate the ups and downs of later life!
Experienced cookery teacher and writer Beverley Jarvis has put together this book of 75+ delicious recipes to inspire her super-ager peers to eat well, with all the nutrients that are increasingly needed as we get older, and to cook whole-foods from scratch quickly and easily so that meals are enjoyable but never a chore. Her guiding principles, developed through her ongoing work with the organisation u3a (University of the Third Age), are: (mostly) no more than 35 minutes to prepare and cook; use short-cuts provided these don’t compromise nutritional quality; physical activity is good but use tips to make cooking less physically demanding; use fresh, health-enhancing ingredients. With most recipes being for two people this is the perfect book for empty-nesters and those who have recently retired. The book is completed with some dinner party recipes which take longer to prepare and cook, but are well worth the time when you have friends coming round.
Elizabeth Strout is the bestselling author of Olive Kitteridge – for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Oh William! is her new novel about love, loss and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any point in life.
Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband – and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidante. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a tender, complex, decades-long partnership.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, chronicling the customs of pre-contact hunter-gatherers and the secret lives of deer and dogs. In this book, the capstone of her long career, Thomas, now eighty-eight, turns her keen eye to her own life. The result is an account of growing old that is at once funny and charming, intimate and profound – both a memoir and a life-affirming map all of us may follow to embrace our later years with grace and dignity.
Growing Old explores a wide range of issues connected with ageing, from stereotypes of the elderly as burdensome to the methods of burial humans have used throughout history to how to deal with a concerned neighbour who assumes you’re buying cat food to eat for dinner.
Written with the wit of Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck and the lyrical beauty of When Breath Becomes Air, Growing Old is an expansive and deeply personal paean to the beauty and the brevity of life that offers understanding for everyone, regardless of age.
Michael Kinsley is a columnist at Vanity Fair, a contributor to The New Yorker and the founder of Slate. He lives in Washington DC.
The notorious baby-boomers – the largest age cohort in history – are approaching the end and starting to plan their final moves in the game of life. Now they are asking: What was that all about? Was it about acquiring things or changing the world? Was it about keeping all your marbles? Or is the only thing that counts after you’re gone the reputation you leave behind?
In this series of essays, Michael Kinsley uses his own battle with Parkinson’s disease to unearth questions we are all at some time forced to confront. This surprisingly cheerful book is at once a fresh assessment of a generation and a frequently funny account of one man’s journey toward the finish line.
“The least misfortune can do to make up for itself is to be interesting,” he writes. “Parkinson’s disease has fulfilled that obligation.”
As our population ages, more and more of us find ourselves caring for parents and loved ones – some 8.8 million people in the UK. An invisible army of carers holding families together.
Here, Kate Mosse tells her personal story of finding herself as a carer in middle age: first, helping her mother look after her beloved father through Parkinson’s, then supporting her mother in widowhood, and finally as ‘an extra pair of hands’ for her 90-year-old mother-in-law.
This is a story about the gentle heroism of our carers, about small everyday acts of tenderness, and finding joy in times of crisis. It’s about juggling priorities, mind-numbing repetition, about guilt and powerlessness, about grief, and the solace of nature when we’re exhausted or at a loss. It is also about celebrating older people, about learning to live differently – and think differently about ageing.
But most of all, it’s a story about love.
Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, bestselling author of The Good Granny Guide, The Good Granny Cookbook and The Pocket Book of Good Grannies has written many other books on plants and gardening, including Gardening Made Easy and The Imperial Flower. A grandmother of five, and the mother of TV chef Hugh, she lives with her husband in Gloucestershire.
In the new edition of The Good Granny Guide you will find a whole range of practical advice to help you make the most of the time you spend with your grandchildren, as babies, as toddlers, and through the primary school years.
Jane, a loving and closely involved grandmother of five children, has gathered first-hand tips from other grandparents and their families in many different situations. The result is a wonderfully insightful handbook – a vast resource of wisdom, history and humour – covering everything from childcare troubleshooting to what NOT to say to the daughter-in-law.
It’s said that life begins at 40 – but that number is constantly revised upwards as we live longer and longer. With the number of centenarians having quadrupled in the last thirty years, more of us can now hope to reach the 100-year mark than ever before. But how can we navigate this journey with grace, dignity and style?
In this charming and informative book, Daniela Mari – the Italian doctor caring for some of the oldest people on the planet – draws on her experiences as a renowned gerontologist to reveal the science behind a healthy, happy old age. It turns out that the world’s centenarians can teach us a thing or two about ageing well. Informed by the latest medical studies and incredible stories of individual longevity, Mari shows how our lifestyles can far surpass the influence of our genetics and why a daily glass of liquor isn’t the end of the world. From our sleeping habits and diet to the crucial importance of our passions and interests, Breakfast with the Centenarians is the essential handbook for a fruitful and fulfilling old age.
Grandparents are versatile. They are babysitters, weather forecasters, mother’s helpers, sweet collectors, child-minders, knitwear suppliers, au pairs, curators of G-plan furniture and providers of day-care for the under twelves.
Retirement is an exhausting job. Grandparents spend a lot of time in the garden making everything tidy and pretty, so they have something tidy and pretty to look at while they are doing the gardening
This delightful book is part of the Ladybird series specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them.
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. Featuring original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text.