Retired and reckless
| Book cover | Book title and author | Book introduction | Websites for more information |
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Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout | Olive Kitteridge might be described by some as a battle axe or as brilliantly pushy, by others as the kindest person they had ever met. Olive herself has always been certain that she is 100% correct about everything - although, lately, her certitude has been shaken. This indomitable character appears at the centre of these narratives that comprise Olive Kitteridge. In each of them, we watch Olive, a retired schoolteacher, as she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life and the lives of those around her - always with brutal honesty, if sometimes painfully. Olive will make you laugh, nod in recognition, as well as wince in pain or shed a tear or two. We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and her own son, tyrannised by Olive's overbearing sensitivities. The reader comes away, amazed by this author's ability to conjure this formidable heroine and her deep humanity that infiltrates every page. | |
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Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon | 84-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she considers the charming new resident who looks exactly like a man she once knew – a man who died sixty years ago. His arrival has stirred distant memories she and Elsie thought they’d laid to rest. Lying prone in the front room, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light … | |
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The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catherine Ingleman–Sundberg |
The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules is an incredibly quirky, humorous and warm-hearted story about growing old disgracefully - and breaking all the rules along the way! 79-year-old Martha Andersson dreams of escaping her care home and robbing a bank. She has no intention of spending the rest of her days in an armchair and is determined to fund her way to a much more exciting lifestyle. Along with her four oldest friends - otherwise known as the League of Pensioners - Martha decides to rebel against all of the rules imposed upon them. Together, they cause uproar with their antics protesting against early bedtimes and plasticky meals. |
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A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler |
It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon ...’ This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before |
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I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron |
If there is any solace in growing older, it is that you will find yourself guffawing in hysterical recognition at the situations Nora Ephron describes, from the impossibility of trying to remember people's names at parties,to struggling with the new technology. You will find yourself rolling off the sofa snorting with laughter as she recalls with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn't (yet) forgotten, including what it feels like to produce a flop - and you will swallow down a lump in your throat at the poignancy of her insights into the pain of losing friends, and the guilt of separation and divorce. One thing is for sure, there is nobody else who can put her finger so very precisely, so beguilingly, with so much wisdom and with so much wit, on what we all struggle with as we journey into our later years. |
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Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou |
Broken Glass is a Congolese riff on European classics from the most notable Francophone African writer of his generation. |
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Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller |
An extraordinary debut, featuring a memorable hero, Norwegian by Night is the last adventure of a man still trying to come to terms with the tragedies of his life. Compelling and sophisticated, it is both a chase through the woods thriller and an emotionally haunting novel about ageing and regret. |
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A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler |
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler is a tender book about finding dignity and beauty in solitude. An exquisite novel about a simple life, it has already demonstrated its power to move thousands of readers with a message of solace and truth. It looks at the moments, big and small, that make us what we are. | |
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Nora Webster by Colm Toibin |
It is the 1960s and Nora Webster is living with her two young sons in a small town on the east coast of Ireland. The love of her life, Maurice, has just died so she must work out how to forge a new life for herself. As Nora returns to memories of the happiness of her early marriage, something more painful begins to intrude: memories of her own mother and what brought about the terrifying distance between them. |
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The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch |
When Charles Arrowby retires from his glittering career in the London theatre, he buys a remote house on the rocks by the sea. He hopes to escape from his tumultuous love affairs but unexpectedly bumps into his childhood sweetheart and sets his heart on destroying her marriage. His equilibrium is further disturbed when his friends all decide to come and keep him company and Charles finds his seaside idyll severely threatened by his past. |
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The Salt Path by Raynor Winn |
In one devastating week, Raynor and her husband Moth lost their home of 20 years, just as a terminal diagnosis took away their future together. With nowhere else to go, they decided to walk the South West Coast Path: a 630-mile sea-swept trail from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. This ancient, wind-battered landscape strips them of every comfort they had previously known. With very little money for food or shelter, Raynor and Moth carry everything on their backs and wild camp on beaches and clifftops. But slowly, with every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, the walk sets them on a remarkable journey. |
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce | When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life. |
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Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man by Joseph Heller |
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST, AS AN OLD MAN follows Pota's efforts to settle on a subject for his final work. In his search, Heller - through Pota - pays homage to his favourite authors and discusses the problems that have plagued so many writers whose later works failed to live up to the successes of their first: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, to name but a few. It is a rare and enthralling look into the artist's search for creativity, a search that comes at a point in life when impotence - both sexual and spiritual - has become a frustrating fact. Joseph Heller must have known that this would be his final novel; it stands as a fitting testament to the life and works of a leading light in modern literature. | |
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When All is Said by Anne Griffin |
At the bar of a grand hotel in a small Irish town sits 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. He's alone, as usual -though tonight is anything but. Pull up a stool and charge your glass, because Maurice is finally ready to tell his story. |
Older People’s day is celebrated annually in October. It is a day recognised by the UN as an opportunity to celebrate and appreciate contributions and achievements of older people.