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Women’s Lives

How to Read a Book

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By Monica Wood — Mariner Books, 2024

In Portland, ME, a women’s prison hosts a spirited book club where feisty inmates reveal their hopes and compassion. Harriet, a widowed, retired English teacher, finds purpose in guiding the club and introducing literature to the women. Though her daughters live abroad and she enjoys a secure life, Harriet wrestles with feelings of loneliness and uselessness.

Violet, a young inmate grappling with her manslaughter conviction, masks her remorse behind a tough exterior. Frank, a bookstore handyman mourning the loss of his wife due to Violet’s actions, adds tension to the story. Their paths cross after Violet is released and meets Harriet at Wadsworth Books, a cozy store filled with interesting people and foster cats. Their encounter sets off a chain of events that intertwines their lives, and the bookstore becomes a sanctuary for all three characters. 

The narrative poses a powerful question: Who deserves a second chance? Are we defined by our worst moments or by our potential for redemption? The possibility of goodness and healing through literature is central to this journey, inviting readers to contemplate the complexities of forgiveness and transformation at any age.

Don’t Forget to Write

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By Sarah Goodman Confino — Lake Union Publishing, 2023

Never-married Great Aunt Ada works as a matchmaker in Philadelphia. When Marilyn, her sassy 20-year-old niece, gets kicked out of the house for kissing the rabbi’s son in an embarrassingly public way, 77-year-old Ada takes her in, just as she took in Marilyn’s mother decades ago. Marilyn’s parents hope Ada will find a suitable husband for their daughter while she’s in Ada’s care. Instead, Marilyn realizes newfound freedom and sees firsthand how a woman can support herself and be fulfilled without a man. It’s the ‘60s, and Marilyn doesn’t want to go to college to find a husband—she wants to become an author and is thrilled when Ada gives her a typewriter. Ada herself is a gem—feisty, entrepreneurial, seemingly hard as nails, but with quite a loving heart underneath her tough exterior. The intergenerational bond between Marilyn and Ada deepens over time, filled with moments that are both funny and touching. As Marilyn’s choices become clearer, we wonder right up to the end what she’ll choose, and we’re rooting for her.

The Last List of Mabel Beaumont

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By Laura Pearson – Boldwood Books, 2023

Mabel Beaumont is an 86-year-old widow who has just lost her husband of 62 years. Arthur was a good man, who loved Mabel unconditionally. And though his wife was not affectionate, their marriage was one of mutual respect. Arthur habitually made lists for everything from shopping to love notes and died with an unfinished list: Find D. Mabel knows he means for her to find her long-lost, best friend, Dot. Mabel starts a list of her own. Soon, and very much out of character, Mabel makes friends of all ages, all of whom appear to have problems Mabel can solve (with a bit of meddling), and thus her list grows. Things rarely go as she hopes, but the women all offer their different skills to help reconnect Mabel and Dot. This relatable novel is told in Mabel’s voice, capturing the emotions, wisdom and regrets of an older woman dealing with loneliness, vulnerability and feelings of invisibility. She must get beyond what’s been holding her back all her life and live with joy, as she’s learned from her new friends. And now, nothing will get in her way. Put this one on your list.

The Old Woman with the Knife: A Novel

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By Gu Byeong-mo — Hanover Square Press, 2022

It seems ageism in the workplace is rampant, even for contract killers like Horn Claw. At 65, Horn Claw knows she’s not as spry as she once was, but she still gets the job done, even as her co-workers dismiss or even bully her. Born in a small town in South Korea, then abandoned by her birth family, who couldn’t afford another child to raise, Horn Claw has little opportunity to earn a legal income, and she struggles to survive in a society that is cruel to the poor and female. When we meet her, she calls herself a “disease control specialist,” but the vermin she eliminates aren’t rats but unlucky humans, dispatched with a poison-tipped knife. She has lost a hand due to the job but keeps working; she has no friends or social life. Her work is all she knows. With her advancing years, she’s slowing down, is less accurate and is softening. An uncharacteristic sentimental act is a mistake that could prove fatal to this assassin. Will she prevail? We hope so. Gu Byeong-mo is an award-winning, South Korean author. Old Woman with the Knife is her first novel translated into English.

 

The Love Story of Missy Carmichael

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By Beth Morrey – G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2020

Millicent “Missy” Carmichael is struggling with loneliness and lacks a sense of self-worth. She wasn’t always so glum; she earned an underutilized degree in Classics from Cambridge, married an academic revered in his field and raised two children. She lives alone at 79, estranged from her daughter for an argument she now regrets, and her son and beloved grandchild live a continent away. She rarely leaves her big, bland house—she’s got her books and her sherry, after all. But she forces herself to a daily walk in the park near her home and is surprised to find she’s soon recognized by some of the regulars. Her cynicism for life is overpowered by the kindness shown by a woman with a child the same age as her grandson, and Missy is embraced by the woman’s park friends. This is further enhanced when Missy reluctantly agrees to foster a mongrel named Bobby. Beyond simple companionship (Bobby is a good listener), Missy is forced to go out regularly to walk and finds the dog to be a social lubricant, if only to explain why a female dog was named Bobby in the first place. Each of the characters plays a role in making Missy see her true value as a human being and gives her a sense of purpose and belonging long absent from her life. Filled with wry laughter and deep insights, The Love Story of Missy Carmichael is a story that shows us it’s never too late to forgive yourself and, just as important, that we should never discount the power of community.

 

Mornings with Rosemary 

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By Libby Page – Simon and Schuster (2018)

Editor’s note: This book was previously published as The Lido.

To some, the town of Brixton in south London would be just another storybook enclave. To widowed, 86-year-old Rosemary, it’s her world. And her world is changing. For the longest time, she knew everyone’s name, every shop and every shop owner. But a pub took the place of the grocery, and the library where she used to work is now closed. Her one constant is the lido. It’s the rec center and pool where she swims every day to escape and reminisce. It’s where she met her husband, married him and built their satisfying life. Now the lido is threatened as well; developers want to turn it into a health club. 

Kate, a friendless, fledgling journalist in her 20s, gets a small job at a small newspaper in the small town of Brixton. Often paralyzed by depression and anxiety, she wants her lifestyle stories to make a difference, to give her life meaning. When she hears about an effort to “save the lido,” she finds Rosemary, who agrees to meet with Kate only if she’ll agree to swim. Not a swimmer, Kate finds it surprisingly therapeutic. Both lonely and lacking a sense of purpose that knows no age, Rosemary and Kate join forces to keep the lido afloat and, in doing so, rescue one another. This is a buoyant tale of friendship borne of resisting the changes that come from “progress.” 

The Lager Queen of Minnesota: A Novel

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By J. Ryan Stradal – Pamela Dorman Books (2019)

Thirsty for a feel-good, intergenerational, family saga? This is a story of love, hardship and pure Minnesotan can-do. Estranged for 50 years, sisters Edith and Helen are both aging into poverty—one, financial, and one, emotional. Edith has spent her life struggling to make ends meet, never quite able to explore her own dreams. Helen has scrapped and schemed to make her lifelong dream of brewing beer a success, but the end of that road has turned out differently than she expected. Then there’s Diana, Edith’s granddaughter, who lurches her way through a childhood clouded by grief and delinquency into a career she never expected. When Diana is unable to nurture her fledgling brewery, Edith and her friends (all over 60) step in. None has ever brewed beer; some of them don’t even like it. None of them blink an eye. And here’s the best part: no one tells these women that they are too old to do it. Along the way, the women all learn a bit more about themselves and what they want to do with their lives (including making beers they would actually want to drink). Edith, Helen and Diana’s stories intertwine with interesting facts about beer and with what it’s like to grow up and grow old. This is a refreshing story that all can enjoy, even if your preferred brew is tea.

 

Women in Sunlight

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By Frances Mayes—Crown, 2018

If you were one of the millions of readers who dreamed of moving to a fixer-upper in Italy after reading Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun (1996), get ready to pack your bags because she’s done it again. In her new novel, three single women are considering the next chapter of their lives during an exploratory visit to an upscale retirement community. Camille, 69, Susan, 64, and Julia, 59, are each moving on after personal tragedies. Despite knowing each other just a very short time, they decide to rent an Italian villa together. They are conflicted about the commitment to full retirement; the trip will serve to sow some oats and get the wanderlust from their systems. This story revolves around the power of place, lush with description, and of mature and supportive friendships. Ahh, the menus, the wine, the shopping, the freedom. How lovely it is for our trio: they seem to eat without gaining weight and furnish a villa, buy art and tour the countryside with indifference to the cost. (It is fiction, after all, and a glorious escape.)

The Dollhouse: A Novel

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By Fiona Davis — Dutton, 2017

Aspiring career women of the 1950s often left home to attend secretarial school or to seek jobs in New York City. The times called for young, unmarried women to live in supervised boarding houses to preserve their reputations, and the glamorous Barbizon Hotel was one such residence. The women experienced unfathomable sexism, yet they played as hard as they worked, with forbidden escorts and visits to jazz clubs in “bad” parts of town. This novel centers around the Barbizon, which was renovated to upscale condominiums in 1981. A few original tenants, now in their 80s, like Darby McLaughlin, were grandmothered in and still live on the fourth floor. New renter Rose Lewin, a journalist, is intrigued by an unsolved mystery from the ’50s and is determined to solve it with Darby’s help. Readers will enjoy this look at vintage Manhattan as the duo’s reconnaissance takes us back to the hotel’s heyday, illuminating the lives of residents and staff at that time in the city’s history.

My Mrs. Brown: A Novel

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By William Norwich – Simon and Schuster, 2016

Mrs. Brown is a drab and proper widow, living an invisible existence picking up after others in a small-town beauty shop, where she hears everything and says nothing. Staff and clients couldn’t care less about her in her thrift-shop clothes. An excellent seamstress with an eye for detail, she takes in sewing work to supplement her modest income. When the town’s society maven dies, Mrs. Brown helps clean out the mansion. In doing so, she spies an elegant, timeless Oscar de la Renta dress—and she knows she must have that dress, even though she cannot articulate why. This is a sweet story that takes you from pitying Mrs. B to cheering her on to get the dress. We’ve probably all had a have-to-have-it moment. Curiously, this was hers. It is in the pursuit of the dress that the real Mrs. Brown is awakened and appreciated. This little book, like Mrs. Brown herself, is not to be dismissed.

This is Your Life, Harriet Chance

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By Jonathan Evison – Algonquin Books, 2016

Harriet Chance is a delightful 78-year-old who enjoys a drink and talking to her late husband, Bernard. When Harriet learns that Bernard won an Alaskan cruise, she consults with him about going—she’s not a traveler, after all—and decides to take the trip. Once on board, Harriet is joined by a tedious, estranged daughter and is confronted with the fact that most of her life has not been as it seemed to her.

The story is told in the format of the ’50s television program “This is Your Life,” complete with the slow reveal of the contestant’s lifetime of hits and misses. Author Evison’s third-person narration mimics a television host’s as Harriet is laid bare as a wife, mother and friend. This bittersweet novel is a story of regret, redemption and self-forgiveness, with humor and memorable characters. It’s fun and hopeful and very hard to put down.

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation

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By Elizabeth Berg – Random House, 2008

Award-winning writer Elizabeth Berg shines in this book of short stories, told as you would talk to a friend at the kitchen table. One poignant and touching story tells the tale of two women in their 80s, friends for 50 years, who have accepted without words that one has reached the end of her life. In another story, a defiant dieter goes AWOL for a day, eats what makes her happy, if not satisfied, and returns to Weight Watchers with no one the wiser. And in another, an unsolicited recipe for pie is delivered in a meandering letter from an old family friend. In voices—each different, yet familiar—these 13 stories touch on many issues of a woman’s life. You will want to curl up with tea and tissues to savor every one.

Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale

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By Lynda Rutledge – Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2012 

Septuagenarian Faith Bass Darling—once spunky and vibrant, now merely eccentric—has dementia, and her memories are unreliable at best. On the eve of Y2K, acting on a message from God, reclusive Faith puts all of her worldly possessions out on the front lawn to sell for a fraction of their considerable worth. Estranged daughter Claudia returns to find what’s left of her family estate in shambles, a legacy extinguished. Her mother is now virtually unreachable, proving even old money and good health can’t buy a happy ending. The story features well-developed and endearing characters, revealing a history of a privileged family life tinged with sadness and misunderstanding. Author Rutledge ultimately asks us to consider: what is left of who we are if our memories fail and our possessions no longer hold any value? What if we gave them all away?

The Bird Sisters

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By Rebecca Rasmussen – Broadway, 2011 

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story of two sisters, now in their 70s, who still live in the house where they grew up. Called the Bird Sisters because they rehabilitate wounded and dying birds, they are eccentrics in a small Wisconsin town of gently quirky inhabitants. Their story is told in chapters that alternate between the present and 1947, when the girls were teenagers trying to fix their parents’ broken marriage. They reflect on a cousin in fragile health whose summer visit changed them all. These charming, naïve sisters thought they knew what their futures held: a secure and predictable married life for sweet Millie and adventure for ornery Twiss. Neither got what she wanted. The Bird Sisters is a tale of secrets, sisterly love and devotion, and of two women you’ll remember long after you close the book.

Emily, Alone

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By Stewart O’Nan – Viking Adult, 2011 

Stewart O’Nan has a knack for crafting seemingly mundane and minute details into such thoughtful prose that his words become etched in a reader’s mind. In this novel, Emily is a widow in her 80s who has given up driving, resigned to relying on her sister-in-law, Arlene, as chauffeur. When Arlene faints at their regular lunch buffet, Emily drives home. This single moment sparks a renewal of her independence. With an ironic sense that she is reversing her dependence on others at an advanced age, what follows is a year in the life of Emily Maxwell. O’Nan’s depiction is so believable, you may be convinced that he was an older woman in a previous life, and so intimate, it feels like spying. Has O’Nan offered us a look into our own aging, perhaps?

Breaking Out of Bedlam

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By Leslie Larson – Crown, 2010 

Meet cantankerous Cora, taken from her home by well-meaning adult children who worry about her over-medicating and disregard for personal hygiene. At age 82 and 300 pounds, widowed Cora is placed, against her wishes, into assisted living. In a journal gifted to her by a grandchild, Cora reveals the story of her life from her shotgun wedding at 17, through the loss of her husband, and to her arrival at the Palisades nursing home. The staff and residents are scrutinized with Cora’s brand of candor and profanity—you’ll shake your head at Cora’s contempt as she sets the record straight and begins life anew. Kudos for Leslie Larson for a refreshing take on a stage of life so often portrayed disparagingly. How nice to see Cora learning, growing and reinventing herself!

Olive Kitteridge

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By Elizabeth Strout – Random House, 2008 

Are you bored with the glut of female protagonists, divorced, barely out of their 20s, helpless and relying on serendipity to get by? Meet Olive Kitteridge, a heroine like no other. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel told in 13 short stories, you may identify with Olive as she becomes older, unapologetic and real. She complains and she judges, all the while observing others critically as they take on life’s challenges. Hidden beneath a crust of personal shortcomings, Olive emerges as a friend in times of need, a loving but flawed mother, and a woman who grows to accept life on life’s terms. You’ll find yourself rooting for this antihero, who is aware of her own aging and mortality, always surprising with her underlying compassion. Here’s to the Olive Kitteridge in all of us.

Florence Gordon

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By Brian Morton – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014

Florence Gordon is an aging feminist and academic, an intolerant woman who wants to be left alone to write a memoir she thinks no one will read. Arriving at a restaurant to find a surprise 75th birthday party (her own), she leaves; she’d rather write. Yet solitude eludes her as her daughter-in-law and granddaughter arrive in town, and Florence is sucked into the drama that is her son’s fragile marriage. Her disdain for her son’s wife is met with adoration, although her granddaughter, distant but curious, can’t quite figure her grandmother out. And now, unimaginably, book reviews dub her a national treasure, and she is jettisoned into book tours and speaking engagements. She deals with a health crisis, her ex-husband’s envy of her success, a hip young editor, and her granddaughter as her assistant. Acerbic enough to make you wince, while witty and whip smart, Florence Gordon is a woman you will love, hate and remember.