Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

There is a whole genre for young adults, but books about characters in their golden years are more rare. This week, we are looking for books that either feature an older character, or has a theme of aging and getting older.

Suggestions:
50 Novels About Older Women:
12 Fiction Books About Aging and the End of Life:
Must-Read Nonfiction on Aging and Elder Care:
40 Best Books about Getting Older:
9 Novels About Aging and Getting Older:
10 Popular Books with Mature Characters:

ATY Listopia: /list/show/1...

What are you reading for this prompt, and do you have any recommendations?

I plan to read a book that I've had on my plan for several years! I think 2022 will be the year I read it. Sweetland by Michael Crummey.

I reccomend The Summer Book by Tove Jansson.

Miss Marple for me. The Body in the Library.

Quartet in Autumn- Barbara Pym
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot - Marianne Cronin

Some books I've liked:
Olive, Again - Elizabeth Strout
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk - Kathleen Rooney
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant? - Roz Chast
The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence
When All Is Said - Anne Griffin
The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher

I plan to read:
Old Man's War
When All Is Said

Maybe:
The Thursday Murder Club
A Tale for the Time Being
Our Souls at Night
Hendrick Groen

I liked:
Lonesome Dove
The Lager Queen of Minnesota

I want to read:
✔The History of Love
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
✔Our Souls at Night +rural area, rejected prompt "soul"
Three Things About Elsie
✔A Gentleman in Moscow- - Now that I've read it, I don't think it fits.
The Story of Arthur Truluv
✔The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy
✔Have a little faith

I recommend
Olive, Again
Gilead
When All Is Said
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
The Lager Queen of Minnesota
I recently read The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot. It's lovely but sad of course.

plus many more
The only book on the listopia (of the books I read) that I didn't really like was The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

One recommendation I have is A Man Called Ove.

I'm thinking either The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot or The Switch.

Add me to a fan group of Lager Queen. A couple of lesser known books that fit the prompt that I enjoyed:

Three Things About Elsie
The Big Finish
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

And I literally just finished Sorry I Missed You, which I read for "more than 2 people on the cover." One of the main characters is an older woman. It was quirky but I liked it.

A few books I would recommend:
Britt-Marie Was Here
The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop this is a sequel to Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe but could be read as a stand alone.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

These are ones I am thinking about for this prompt:
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
How the Penguins Saved Veronica
Miss Benson's Beetle
The Car Share

I highly recommend the following:

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot
How the Penguins Saved Veronica
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett
A Man Called Ove
The Thursday Murder Club

Mine is a bit of a cheat, I kind of fell for the YA trap! My choice is The Declaration where the main characters are kids, but it does have the theme of aging (or rather, people attempting to live forever and the fact that their bodies still age). Bit of a dodge, but it's a book I've been wanting to reread for ages!

I can recommend:
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

I read and recommend these:
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
The Thursday Murder Club - quirky characters
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
The Story of Arthur Truluv
Any of the Mrs. Pollifax Mystery series
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared-a delightful tongue-in-cheek historical fiction with a hint of fantasy. Highly recommend audio-as it gives you this perspective that the book might not.

On my own list, I have these options:
The Man Who Died Twice - book 2 of the thursday Murder Club
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy - somewhat of a sequel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
An Unnecessary Woman

I've picked Dava Shastri's Last Day. The concept seems clever.

One idea is any of Agatha Christie's Poirot or Miss Marple books! I haven't read the first few 2 Poirot books yet but in the 3rd (of 40+ books I believe!), The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, he is already retired, and comes out of retirement to solve the case. So I think any of his books could count as featuring an older character.

I want to read:
An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helen Tursten
How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior
I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50 by Annabelle Gurwitch
Closing Time by Joseph Heller
Or What You Will by Jo Walton

I highly recommend:
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

I’m planning to read Alive, Alive Oh!: and Other Things that Matter, Diana Athill’s memoir written when she was 98. I have a soft spot for her as she knew and liked my great-grandmother.

Fictional books I would recommend include:

The Stone Angel
A Man Called Ove
Olive Kitteridge and the sequel Olive, Again
Our Souls at Night
Love in the Time of Cholera

I loved The Thursday Murder Club and plan to read the sequel, The Man Who Died Twice.

Robin P wrote: "I loved The Thursday Murder Club and plan to read the sequel, The Man Who Died Twice."

Oh, I was planning to read the first or both of those this year; didn't think to use them for this prompt! Good recommendation.

**This is scheduled for the end of the year, so:
A Christmas Carol

I have many of these listed for other prompts:
Olive Again
When All is Said
The Hearing Trumpet
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot
How the Penguins Saved Veronica
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett
The Lager Queen of Minnesota.
Red Address Book

Before Covid, I picked up this book at the bookstore because it looked like fun. It takes place in a nursing home in the Netherlands and is full of hijinks. I didn't have the heart to pick it up during the pandemic with all of the tragedy happening in our nursing homes. Hopefully by week 50, I will be in the right mindset to celebrate the aged among us who have survived the pandemic (including my 85 and 86 year old parents). The book is On the Bright Side: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 85 Years Old translated by Hester Velmans. It is actually a sequel to The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old if you want to start with the first one.

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Anyhting I haven't read in the Miss Marple series.

I finished a couple recently that fit this prompt:
Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

Really enjoyed both.

I read Lily Harford's Last Request for this prompt. It's was an ARC from Netgally and the book is due to be published early February. It was a sweet book about a woman with dementia. Worth the read.

The books written by Joanna Nell would fit here. Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village, Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home, Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker and Tea Ladies of St Jude's Hospital. They're all brilliant.

Based on a friend's recommendation, I just finished the wildly popular The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. I highly enjoyed the characters and the murder mystery here, although it got a bit scattered (too many things going on at once) towards the end. Still, this was a thoroughly entertaining and very funny cozy mystery that I'd definitely recommend.

For this prompt, I'd also give a shout out to Moon Tiger and How It All Began by Penelope Lively, as well as Our Souls at Night and Have You Seen Luis Velez?.

I'll be reading The House at Riverton, happily one I already own as I was so enamored by my first experience with Kate Morton that I immediately began to collect her other works with the intention of working through them over time. I'm delighted to have an excuse to read this one now.
"In this book, Grace is ~100 years old and dying very soon. She has a story and a secret about the past to tell her wayward grandson who's gone missing after his wife died of an aneurysm. Through flashbacks and other POVs, we learn about Grace's time as a maid and ladies maid in the Hartford family household. " - from this lovely review by James

I read The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry for this one, and it fits the prompt well for aging.

I read (but unfortunately hated):
The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis - My Review

Stacey wrote: "Based on a friend's recommendation, I just finished the wildly popular The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. I highly enjoyed the characters and the murder mys..."

I also read and enjoyed this for this prompt.

My bookgroup is reading The Thursday Murder Club in February, so happy to see it has a place to go!

I will say, when this was a prompt 2 years ago I kept it open till the end since many books qualify. I ended up using Practical Magic for it. But such an easy category to fill- I'm kinda annoyed to be checking it off so early.

I read The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, which featured a retired theater actor, probably in his sixties.

I'd recommend Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

I plan on using The Love Talker by Elizabeth Peters. One of the characters is over 50. I would recommend the Mrs. Polifax books by Dorothy Gilman.

I’m reading A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. I may use it for this prompt since one of the characters, old Juki, is 104 years old.

I am reading The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. I can recommend The Twilight Hour by Nicci Gerard.

I read The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. I had a hard time last time this prompt showed up determining what age exactly makes someone elderly (the Professor is only, I think, in his 60s, which isn't that old). But I still think it fits.

My two recommendations are The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon. The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of my favorite books - Oscar Wilde is such a clever, brilliant author and these characters are so compelling and seductive. I especially recommend it if you think you already know the story or the basic premise - I didn't feel especially drawn to reading it for exactly that reason and I was absolutely blown away by it. It is a book that's really deeply about aging and beauty, so it would be perfect for this prompt.

Remnant Population is a book I didn't quite love, but I did think it was really good and I would still recommend it without reservation. There's a colony of humans on a faraway planet, but the colony isn't really paying off, so the company responsible for it decide to pull the colonists (who have been living there for decades) out. An old woman, who feels like she has spent her entire life taking care of other people, decides to just...not go. She thinks that being the last human being on a deserted planet sounds perfect. But then it turns out that the planet was not as uninhabited as they all thought and her plan goes a bit sideways.

Here's a new one that was just released that sounds really good for this topic: The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo. The publishing date was March 8, but it's already received good reviews and lots of buzz, described as, "an aging assassin with hand tremors". It could also work for GC's week #18 - book by an Asian or Pacific Islander author.

I just finished reading The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin. It was lovely — made me laugh AND cry.

I read The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman, the second in the series "The Thursday Murder Club". Was just as good as the first!

I read An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten on a recommendation, and the dark humor was on point. I'm happy to see my library has the next installment, An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed

I read The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett for this prompt. I was a bit worried about it being sad and it was at times but mostly uplifting and a positive discussion of death.

I read Retirement Homes Are Murder by Mike Belefer, about an octogenerian with memory issues who discovers a body on his second day at his new retirement home.

I'm doing a mini-challenge set for this prompt. The target goal is a dozen. 🎯

✔The History of Love
✔Our Souls at Night
✔The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy
✔Have a Little Faith: a True Story
✔The Remains of the Day
✔My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
✔Britt-Marie Was Here
✔What Rose Forgot - very fun
✔How the Penguins Saved Veronica
✔Oh William!
✔A Single Man
✔️An Artist of the Floating World

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Three Things About Elsie
The Story of Arthur Truluv
A Year of Marvelous Ways
Elizabeth Is Missing
The Big Finish
Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival
An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good


Partially fits
✔Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China - it follows a family for 40? years, and includes many stages of aging.
✔This is the Story of a Happy Marriage - the chapters about her grandmother are wonderful.
✔Plainsong - a couple characters
✔Eventide - a couple characters - but they're great
✔A Gentleman in Moscow
✔The Sparrow
✔The Notebook -a supporting character

The Change would be perfect for this prompt. The female characters in this book are going through menopause and coming into some supernatural powers as a result.

I'm reading it now and loving it.

Sarah wrote: "The Change would be perfect for this prompt. The female characters in this book are going through menopause and coming into some supernatural powers as a result.

I'm reading it now..."

OMG that would be SO much better than hot flashes.

I'm going to finish off .

There are several older characters in it but the two main ones are the extremely absent minded Earl of Emsworth and Uncle Fred, the Earl of Ickenham.

I read Over and Over Again by Cole McCade, which contains a may/december romance and a lot of introspection about aging.

I read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End which is about elder care.

What are you reading for this prompt?
I read The Old Man in the Corner by Emmuska Orczy. Short stories told by the Old Man

I read The Thursday Murder Club