There's maybe never been a more important moment for #BookSky to get REALLY into small & indie presses. If you don't know where to start, tell me what you're into and I'll give you a recommendation
There's maybe never been a more important moment for #BookSky to get REALLY into small & indie presses. If you don't know where to start, tell me what you're into and I'll give you a recommendation
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Currently looking for fiction featuring septuagenarian and octogenarian protagonists. Any recs?
The two old women of the title are 75 and 80 respectively so you get both decades in one book. :) #booksky #SpinsterSeptember
I can't recall/find the protagonist's age, but maybe also of interest would be Henning Mankell's novel ITALIAN SHOES translated by Laurie Thompson, which features an older male protagonist who, I think, is within the age range you're looking for, and aging is one of the many themes of the book.
(It seems the protagonist is 70 in the second book to feature him, AFTER THE FIRE, which I didn't like as well as ITALIAN SHOES. But there isn't a large gap, as I recall, in events between the books, so he is either 70 by end of book or just about to turn... So should count for you.)
Had to look it up to confirm but Jo Walton's brilliant novel MY REAL CHILDREN features an 89 year old woman as the protagonist: www.jowaltonbooks.com/books/my-rea... (The wikipedia entry for the book is spoilery, but did give the protagonist's age.)
You are a treasure! Thank you.
🙂🙂🙂 Always happy to gush about good books!
A timely request: Check out the hashtag #SpinsterSeptember for a lot of good recommendations! #booksky (My personal rec would be to read May Sarton, novels and journals both. Soooo good!)
Thank you Lawrence! @miriamgershow.bsky.social i made a post a while back on 60+ heroines in books, you might find what you are looking for in the below picture (i’d also add The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington)
Oh fantastic! Thank you!
I would also recommend the memoirs of Diana Athill, who writes about both publishing and aging very well. She was editorial director at Andre Deutsch and published many important voices Jean Rhys, VS Naipul, Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Atwood, etc. STET is her most famous publishing memoir.
INSTEAD OF A BOOK: LETTERS TO A FRIEND is a memoir in 30 years of her letters to gay American poet Edward Field, who is now over 100 years old (!!!). SOMEWHERE TOWARD THE END is her memoir about aging (and class, race, sex, etc.). Her own fiction is fine but the memoirs have real zing.
Relatedly for good writing on both aging and writing (even if not fiction which was the original ask): Ursula K. Le Guin's NO TIME TO SPARE: THINKING ABOUT WHAT MATTERS.
For a fun, light read I enjoyed Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jessie Q. Sutanto.
And the sequel, too. :)