Books To Read in Your 60s

Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that’s their secret weapon … They’ve spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they’re sixty years old, four women friends can’t just retire — it’s kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Deanna Raybourn.

Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves. A female cop with her first big case. A brutal murder. Welcome to … The Thursday Murder Club! In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea comes “a bold exploration of womanhood, feminism, parenting, aging, love and more” (Associated Press). So what feeds the soul of feminists — and all women — today? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over our bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work yet to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will “light the torches of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.”

From her unforgettable reckonings with grief (for her husband in The Year of Magical Thinking and for her daughter in Blue Nights), to her exploration of two iconic regions of America in South and West, through the indelible pieces of reporting collected from across her career in Let Me Tell You What I Mean, the books collected here show Didion at her best: Bearing witness to our history, illuminating our culture, and shedding light on the human condition.

From the author of The Joy Luck Club comes a gorgeous and witty exploration of birding and nature. This inspiring work cultivates hope and connection, revealing the rhythms of our world and uncovering its beauty hidden in plain sight.

From “one of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation” (Caryn James; The New York Times) — a ghost story set in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, an elegiac consideration of grief, devotion (filial and romantic), and the vanishing and persistence of all things — seen and unseen. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home takes us through a trap door, into a windswept, imagined journey to the tragic-comic landscape that is, unmistakably, the world of Lorrie Moore.

Feeling overwhelmed? Step away from life’s demands and free yourself up for what matters with this succinct and sensible guide by the Zen Buddhist author of the international bestsellers The Art of Simple Living and Don’t Worry.

A tapestry of joyful and startling interconnected stories that celebrate how people from all across America cope with adversity and unexpected changes in a confusing world — from the beloved New York Times bestselling author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Fannie Flagg once said that what the world needs now is a good laugh. And that is what she gives us in these warmhearted, always surprising stories about people who are finding clever ways to deal with the curveballs life sometimes throws at us.

A guide to the art of journaling — and a meditation on the central questions of life — by the bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms, with contributions from Hanif Abdurraqib, Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, George Saunders, and many more. Whether you’re a lifelong journaler or new to the practice, this book gives you the tools, direction, and encouragement to engage with discomfort, ask questions, peel back the layers, dream daringly, uncover your truest self — and in doing so, to learn to hold the unbearably brutal and astonishingly beautiful facts of life in the same palm.

A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about — until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: One of them from the grave, another maddeningly present.

A practical guide to aging and health for women who have felt ignored or marginalized by the medical profession, from a leading OB/GYN and expert on menopausal and post-reproductive health. Grown Woman Talk is for any woman who is standing at the intersection of aging and health, anxious and wanting solutions. Part medical handbook, part memoir, and part sister-girl cheerleader, this book is filled with useful resources and real-life stories of victory and defeat. It not only highlights the current data around women’s health issues, but it also places that data in a helpful context.

The award-winning authors and podcasters Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle created We Can Do Hard Things — the guidebook for being alive — to help fellow travelers find their way through life.

A groundbreaking manifesto on living better and longer that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals a new approach to preventing chronic disease and extending long-term health, from a visionary physician and leading longevity expert. Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.

The Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel by 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Kazuo Ishiguro. An Artist of the Floating World is a sensual and profoundly convincing portrait of the artist as an aging man. At once a multigenerational tale and a samurai death poem written in English, it is also a saga of the clash of the old and new orders, blending classical and contemporary iconography with compassion and wit.

A sweeping and beautifully rendered exploration of home and yearning, following the fracturing of a family upon the demise of its patriarch. Intimately drawn and set against a fraught political backdrop, yet equally full of hope, humor, and humanity, A House for Alice traces the scars of grief and betrayal across generations and uncovers the secrets we keep from those closest to us.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age, this is an intimate, revelatory exploration of the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten — aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon — shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table.

From bestselling author Martha Beck, a new path to overcoming anxiety by awakening the creativity within. In Beyond Anxiety, Dr. Beck explains why anxiety is skyrocketing around you, and likely within you. She also tells you how to not only reduce your anxiety but use it to propel you into a life filled with peace, meaning, and joy. The opposite of anxiety, it turns out, is a wonderful new way of life — one that can calm and inspire us as individuals and help us become a source of healing for everything around us.

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon” (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.