Bookworm: Two offerings about embracing your age
Books to help you see that history is just as often HERstory
“How to Be Old”
- By Lyn Slater
- c. 2024, Plume
- $28, 272 pages
“Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking – How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age”
- By Caroline Paul
- c. 2024, Bloomsbury
- $28, 288 pages
There’s an alternative, but it’s not always a good one. You can grow old or ... well, you could die. Other choices: Remain grumpy in your chair or look out the window and see what’s outside. You can have joy or regrets. Gather your years or deny them, keep the gray or dye your hair, live or die. You can read these great books on aging and ignore what’s inside or carpe diem.
The year before she entered her 60s, Lyn Slater says she “couldn’t find anything to wear.” Nothing “inspired” her, which seemed to be a metaphor: What she put on her body “always helped me tell stories about myself.”
She was excited to enter a fresh new decade of life, though, despite being inundated with reminders of her age, which only “served to provoke me.” She decided to return to school, to take classes for fashion design, to create a new wardrobe and a new story, and in “How to Be Old” (Plume, $28), she writes of a decade of radical change.
On her first day of classes, Slater noticed that she was, “the oldest person in the room” but nobody cared; they were more interested in what she wore. As time progressed and she learned that her experiences mattered, someone mentioned that she should have a blog. Slater began to dream. Soon, she began to blog.
“How to Be Old” is a delight that mixes a passion for fashion with glee for a second career and love at a later age. Readers will be well-served by heeding Slater’s advice: “It’s one thing to think about doing something; it’s another to actually do it.”
Keep that in mind, too, when reading “Tough Broad” by Caroline Paul (Bloomsbury, $27.99), who was once a firefighter and has always taken the wild road. Why, she asks, do we associate skateboarding with youth? Who says you can’t surf into your so-called senior years? Adventure seemed to be in Paul’s DNA so why should life be any different as an older woman?
Here, she picks up her active life by following several women who’ve embraced their outdoor passions, never mind age. Paul goes BASE jumping a 52-year-old woman and deep diving with an 80-year-old. She tries to “keep up” with a 93-year-old fast-walker. She learns to wing-walk, to swim long distances, kayak, and paddleboard with women older than her mother.
And on that note, Paul thinks about her mother. Her mom was always willing to join in when something seemed like fun. These memories help Paul learn where her adventurous streak came from, and new adventures help bring this book full-circle in a wonderful way. Readers will be charmed and inspired to try something new, to move and dive and breathe, no matter what their age.
Libraries and bookstore shelves are full of books about skincare, heart health, arthritis and joint care, and other physical issues of aging. But if you want a book about your inner life, these tales of embracing your age are nice alternatives.
Women’s history books for adults
- c. 2024, various publishers
- $24.99 to $30, various page counts
George Washington was the father of our country. Bill Gates co-established Microsoft. Thomas Edison improved the light bulb. Stephen King created Cujo. Walt Whitman wrote poetry, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and Bass Reeves brought bandits to justice. Notice one thing there? Those are all men, so why not flip the coin? Read these great books about women in American history ...
A generation of us grew up with television doctors who were all men, but in “The Doctor Was a Woman” by Chris Enss (Two Dot, $26.95), you’ll see how Hollywood missed the mark and that women wore white coats, too. Read about a women physician who worked for the railroad, one who left her home in South Dakota to tend to farmers and their families on the prairie, a ground-breaking plastic surgeon, a female dentist in the late 1800s, and several woman doctors who worked during times of pandemic. You’ll love these hidden stories that aren’t hidden anymore.
Study any “woman’s” magazine from the 1950s, and you’ll see plenty of ads targeted expressly to homemakers. In “Housewife: Why Women Still Do It All and What to Do Instead” (Legacy Lit, $30.00), author Lisa Selin Davis looks at why “homemaking” is still mostly women’s work today, even if the woman of the house is the breadwinner in a two-adult household. This is a wide and widely interesting look that, most importantly, doesn’t denigrate homemakers. Instead, this book leaves women – and men – with ways to find their own comfortable (and equal) choices.
No women’s history book would be complete without considering our First Ladies, and in “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden (Crown, $30.00), author Katie Rogers writes about how our most modern First Ladies have molded the role from one of quiet helpmate to one of activism and personal platforms. Though its focus is more contemporary, the book is overall a sweeping look at Presidential wives: Rogers reaches back into history for comparison and reality-check, making this a book that will delight historians and political animals alike.
And finally, if you like a little salt with your history, look for “Unbecoming a Lady” by Therese Oneill (Simon Element, $24.99). Despite what you might think, yesterday’s women didn’t always behave. Many of them were not quiet or demure or shy at all, and their place was definitely not always in the home. In this book, you’ll meet some of history’s loudest, most audacious women, the bravest, the and the ones who saw something they didn’t like and fixed it: inventor Lilian Gilbreth, Civil War doctor Mary Edwards Walker, wrongly hospitalized Elizabeth Packard, visionary Ellen G. White, Alaska millionaire Reindeer Mary Antisarlook, sideshow “fat lady” Celesta Geyer, miser Hetty Green, and others who did what they needed, or simply wanted to do!
If these books aren’t enough – because you know you’ll want more – check with your favorite librarian or bookseller. They’ve got all kinds of books to help you see that history is just as often HERstory.
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The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. She has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. Terri lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books. Read past columns at marconews.com.