Love and Trouble


Book Description

Blazingly intelligent, wickedly funny, and piercingly honest, a memoir that captures the perils and pleasures of girlhood, womanhood, and life itself. “One of my favorite books of the last few years.” —Cheryl Strayed “Sentence for sentence, a more pleasure-yielding midlife memoir is hard to think of.” —The Atlantic At mid-life, Claire Dederer developed a sudden yearning for jailbreak. In this exuberant memoir, she reflects on two periods in her life uncannily similar in their emotional intensity: her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of unruly and mysterious new hungers, and her recollections of herself as a teenager.




Sex and the Seasoned Woman


Book Description

A seasoned woman is spicy. She has been marinated in life experience. . . . She can be alternately sweet, tart, bubbly, mellow. She can be maternal and playful. Bossy and submissive. Strong and soft. . . . The seasoned woman knows who she is. She could be any one of us, as long as she is committed to living fully and passionately in the second half of life. In her most groundbreaking work since Passages and The Silent Passage, bestselling author Gail Sheehy reveals a hidden cultural phenomenon–increased vitality in women’s sex and love lives after fifty. Sex and the Seasoned Woman is the story of an intimate revolution taking place under our very noses. Boomer generation women in midlife are open to sex, love, dating, new dreams, exploring spirituality, and revitalizing their marriages as never before. This is a new universe of passionate, liberated women–married and single–who are unwilling to settle for the stereotypical roles of middle age and are now realizing they don’t have to. As life spans grow longer and as societal constraints continue to loosen, older women–once free of the exhausting demands of young children, needy husbands, and demanding careers–find themselves ready to pursue the passionate life. They embrace their “second adulthood” as a period of reawakening. Written in Sheehy’s singularly compelling style, combining interviews and research, this book gives voice to more than a hundred fascinating and colorful women. The inspiring stories tell of wives who reinvigorate their marriages after their children leave the nest as well as divorced, widowed, and long-single women who find new dreams and new loves. Sheehy delineates a crucial link between cultivating a new dream and reopening the pathway to intimacy and sexual pleasure. She also examines the latest medical breakthroughs addressing symptoms that have unnecessarily curtailed women’s sex lives. From women who find their sexuality reawakened by a younger lover, to couples whose marriages survive health crises and grow stronger, to women who finally find a soulmate in their sixties, to stories from seasoned sirens in their seventies, eighties, and even nineties, these portraits cover an enormous range of experience. In them, Sheehy locates the universal patterns that enable us all to recognize and understand our own lives.




There Are No Grown-ups


Book Description

The best-selling author of BRINGING UP BÉBÉ investigates life in her forties, and wonders whether her mind will ever catch up with her face. When Pamela Druckerman turns 40, waiters start calling her "Madame," and she detects a new message in mens' gazes: I would sleep with her, but only if doing so required no effort whatsoever. Yet forty isn't even technically middle-aged anymore. And there are upsides: After a lifetime of being clueless, Druckerman can finally grasp the subtext of conversations, maintain (somewhat) healthy relationships and spot narcissists before they ruin her life. What are the modern forties? What do we know once we reach them? What makes someone a "grown-up" anyway? And why didn't anyone warn us that we'd get cellulite on our arms? Part frank memoir, part hilarious investigation of daily life, There Are No Grown-Ups diagnoses the in-between decade when... • Everyone you meet looks a little bit familiar. • You're matter-of-fact about chin hair. • You can no longer wear anything ironically. • There's at least one sport your doctor forbids you to play. • You become impatient while scrolling down to your year of birth. • Your parents have stopped trying to change you. • You don't want to be with the cool people anymore; you want to be with your people. • You realize that everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently. • You know that it's ok if you don't like jazz. Internationally best-selling author and New York Times contributor Pamela Druckerman leads us on a quest for wisdom, self-knowledge and the right pair of pants. A witty dispatch from the front lines of the forties, THERE ARE NO GROWN-UPS is a (midlife) coming-of-age story--and a book for anyone trying to find their place in the world.




Better Than Ever


Book Description

Better Than Ever is a new kind of book about love and sex. Targeted particularly at people in their later years, it looks at the pleasure that can still be gained from healthy sexual relationships whether all the appropriate bits are working or not! In Better Than Ever Dr Zilbergeld explains the wondrous world of love and sex among men and women in their later years. A world-renowned sex therapist for 27 years, Dr Zilbergeld uses intensive research, and the words of people he calls the lovers, to illustrate and explain the world of men and women who are masters of the world of sexuality. Dr Zilbergeld also explains the obstacles that prevent people with medical or psychological problems from entering the world of love and sex, and provides solutions that will give them hope that they, too, can become lovers in their own relationships.




Tantric Sex and Menopause


Book Description

A tantric guide to discovering the hidden gifts of menopause • Explains why Tantra works for menopausal women and how their bodies are naturally entering a more tantric phase focused on creative, spiritual energy • Details tantric practices and tools to connect with the body’s inner intuitive wisdom, remove the “performance pressure” of conventional sex, and set the stage for passion and pleasure to thrive both in the bedroom and beyond • Explores what to expect physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and in relationships As women, we live so closely to the body--through menstruation, pregnancy, birthing, motherhood, and then menopause. Each of these transitions changes a woman in a multitude of ways, most of which are celebrated. Yet menopause often causes women to feel despondent, as if our bodies are broken or deficient, especially when it comes to sex and intimacy. However, as tantric teachers Diana Richardson and Janet McGeever show, menopause has many hidden gifts to offer if we learn to embrace rather than suppress the changes this natural transition brings. Shining the light of tantric intelligence on menopause, the authors reveal how to explore and experience menopause in a radically positive fashion, suffused with a sense of vital awakening and “re-wilding” of a woman’s sexuality, creativity, and spirituality. Explaining what to expect physically, emotionally, and spiritually, as well as what it means for relationships, they detail tantric practices and tools to connect with the body’s inner intuitive wisdom and heart energies, remove the “performance pressure” of conventional sex, and set the stage for passion and pleasure to thrive both in the bedroom and beyond. They explain why Tantra works for menopausal women and how their bodies are naturally entering a more tantric phase focused on creative, spiritual energy. They explore how, in Tantra, sex is practiced not for the sake of sex itself but as an instrument for going “beyond” sex, for better health, improved relationships, enhanced self-control and emotional balance, and even higher states of consciousness. They also offer many self-help practices, exercises, and meditations to reinforce a positive attitude toward menopause and overcome many of the physical and sexual problems, such as pain, dryness, loss of interest, and loss of libido. Providing a guide for women who are approaching, experiencing, or have gone through menopause, the authors show how a more informed, tantric approach to menopause allows each woman to deepen her trust in the perfect functioning of the female body, embrace her natural sexual response, and reconnect with her inner self.




Poser


Book Description

Witty and heartfelt, clear-sighted and irreverent, Poser is the book that sane, sensible and intelligent mothers around the world have been waiting for




Why We Can't Sleep


Book Description

The acclaimed author explores the hidden crises of Gen X women in this “engaging hybrid of first-person confession, reportage [and] pop culture analysis” (The New Republic). Ada Calhoun was married with children and a good career—and yet she was miserable. She thought she had no right to complain until she realized how many other Generation X women felt the same way. What could be behind this troubling trend? To find out, Calhoun delved into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw that Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age—problems that were being largely overlooked. Calhoun spoke with women across America who were part of the generation raised to “have it all.” She found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. And instead of being heard, they were being told to lean in, take “me-time,” or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order. In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament. She offers practical advice on how to ourselves out of the abyss—and keep the next generation of women from falling in. The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them.




Is There Still Sex in the City?


Book Description

Six female friends endure the highs and lows of sex & dating after fifty in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Sex and the City. Set between the Upper East Side of Manhattan and a country enclave known as The Village, Is There Still Sex in the City? follows a cohort of female friends—Sassy, Kitty, Queenie, Tilda Tia, Marilyn, and Candace—as they navigate the ever-modernizing phenomena of midlife dating and relationships. There’s “Cubbing,” in which a sensible older woman suddenly becomes the love interest of a much younger man, the “Mona Lisa” Treatment—a vaginal restorative surgery often recommended to middle aged women, and what it’s really like to go on Tinder dates as a fifty-something divorcee. From the high highs (My New Boyfriend or MNBs) to the low lows (Middle Age Madness, or MAM cycles), Bushnell illustrates with humor and acuity today’s relationship landscape and the types that roam it. Drawing from her own experience, in Is There Still Sex in the City? Bushnell spins a smart, lively satirical story of love and life from all angles—marriage and children, divorce and bereavement, as well as the very real pressures on women to maintain their youth and have it all. This is an indispensable companion to one of the most revolutionary dating books of the twentieth century from one of our most important social commentators. Praise for Is There Still Sex in the City? A Best Book of the Summer at Us Weekly, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, andPopSugar “Bushnell’s voice is as knowing and sharp as ever.” —Jancee Dun, Washington Post “A collection of commentaries and recounted hijinks (and lojinks) . . . Sometimes funny, sometimes silly, sometimes quite sad—i.e., an accurate portrait of life in one’s 50s.” —Kirkus Reviews “The effervescent Bushnell still has the ability to make readers laugh with her casually dry one-liners.” —Bookpage “Candace keeps her wits and her wit about her . . . Bushnell is still plenty edgy, funny, and entertaining.” —Booklist




Her Turn


Book Description

A delightful novel in the vein of Younger and The Unbreakables, with a hint of Nora Ephron, about a journalist who stumbles into an unusual relationship with the woman married to her former husband. A journalist in Washington, DC, Liz has turned lemons into lemonade after her husband walked out on her a decade ago. She likes her life—she’s the editor of My Turn, a weekly column in which readers write about their lives, has a few romantic nibbles—some better than others—a good relationship with her teen-aged son, and has come to terms with the shock and heartbreak of her divorce. Or so she thinks. One day at work, she receives a letter for the column she can’t ignore, because it’s written by her ex-husband’s current wife—AKA the other woman. It is the beginning of an unexpected correspondence between the two women—but only Liz knows the truth about their connection. Could it be she still cares? How far will she take this unusual relationship? And what happens if the truth comes out? Her Turn is an immensely readable, joyful novel about fidelity and forgiveness that explores one woman’s second act in life, and the ties that still bind her to the first.




Midlife


Book Description

From acclaimed photographer Elinor Carucci, a vivid chronicle of one woman's passage through aging, family, illness, and intimacy. It is a period in life that is universal, at some point, to everyone, yet in our day-to-day and cultural dialogue, nearly invisible. Midlife is a moving and empathetic portrait of an artist at the point in her life when inexorable change is more apparent than ever. Elinor Carucci, whose work has been collected in the previous acclaimed volumes Closer (2002, 2009) and Mother (2013), continues her immersive and close-up examination of her own life in this volume, portraying this moment in vibrant detail. As one of the most autobiographically rigorous photographers of her generation, Carucci recruits and revisits the same members of her family that we have seen since her work gained prominence two decades ago. Even as we observe telling details--graying hair, the pressures and joys of marriage, episodes of pronounced illness, the evolution of her aging parents' roles as grandparents, her children's increasing independence--we are invited to reflect on the experiences that we all share contending with the challenges of life, love, and change.