Brooke Shields is not Allowed to get Old, Brooke Shields, 2025, Flatiron Books. I listened to this book, and it was read by Brooke so that was fun. There were a lot of core messages around women and aging that really resonated with me.

Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: Claiming the Gifts of Elderhood, Ron Pevny, reprint 2014, Atria Books/Beyond Books - This book is very aligned with many of the themes I have been thinking about. It provides many concrete activities to undertake to help you on your journey towards being an elder. The organization that Ron Pevny founded still hosts Conscious Eldering retreats across the country, there’s one in Ohio in May 2026 and one in New Mexico in 2026. I plan to attend one of them.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead, Brene Brown, 2012, Avery - This is one of many Brene Brown books with similar themes. I find her work to be insightful and earnest and relevant for many women. She opens up new ways of thinking about experiences and reactions that could be helpful in allowing people to grow.

Deep Listening: Transform Your Relationships with Family, Friends, and Foes, Emily Kasriel, 2025, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY. This book has lots of similar elements to Conscious Living, Conscious Aging. Being good at listening, just like being good at being an elder, has an awful lot to do with knowing yourself and accepting yourself first.

Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life, Bill Perkins, 2020, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book changed the way John and I thought about how we spend our money and how we spend our time. Highly recommend.

The ElderGarten: A Field Guide for the Journey of a Lifetime, Sally Z. Hare, 2023, Prose Press, Pawley’s Island, SC, USA - This is short, sweet book that introduces many of the themes I am following for becoming an elder.

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Richard Rohr, 2011, Jossey-Bass - This was the first book I read on this topic of considering your second half of life in a more deliberate way than our culture prescribes. My mom was a big fan of Richard Rohr, so when I saw this book, I knew I wanted to read it. I bought a copy for my mom as well, but we never discussed it, so I’m not sure if she read it or not.

From Age-Ing to Sage-Ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older, Zalman Schacter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller, original printing 1995, Grand Central Pub - this one I read a while back, but it was good enough that I purchased a copy after I finished reading the library one. I’ll have to come back and give a summary.

From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, Arthur Brooks, 2022, Portfolio - This is the second book I read on this topic, and is much more focused on career/professional than the other books, But, there are many parallel themes, such as finding meaning and purpose, slowing down, reflecting on your life.

The Grief Recovery Handbook, John James and Russell Friedman, January 2017, William Morrow & Company. A therapist recommended this book when I was struggling after my mom died, and I have recommended it to several others since then. It helped me.

Hagitude: Reimagining the Sec, ond Half of Life, Sharon Blackie, 2022, September Publishing, UK - This book I am still trying to make my way through. I loved Sharon Blackie’s other two books - “If Women Rose Rooted” and “The Enchanted Life.” This one has been harder to get through - I’d love to have another person to talk with about it, so let me know if you start reading it and want to discuss.

Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life’s Second Half, Dr. Kerry Burnight, 2025, Worthy Books. This book contains many of the principles from the science of well-being, contentment, connection, meaning, growth and purpose. It provides a simple framework for getting “unstuck” and developing a healthier perspective, with lots of anecdotes to illustrate the points.

Muse: The Magnetism of Women who Stop Abandoning Themselves, Dr. Amanda Hanson, 2025, Greenleaf Press - I finished this book in December 2025. I met Dr. Hanson at a retreat she led in Boone, NC in June 2024. Her message about working through learned habits that were taught in our culture to find your own instinct resonates with me. She has a strong presence on Instagram, so you can look her up there also,

Primal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You Know, Angus Fletcher, 2025, Avery - This book is not specifically about ageing or eldering, but it does introduce a new way of thinking about, well, thinking, that takes us away from computation and logic and leads us more towards intuition and imagination. These ideas are so well aligned with how I am thinking about eldering that I decided to include it. And, the author is a professor at Ohio State who also works in Project Narrative and focuses on storytelling, so there are many connections.

On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, Parker Palmer, 2018, Berrett-Koehler Publishers. - I have not read this yet.

The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, Connie Zweig, 2021, Park Street Press - I have not read this yet.

The Power of Meaning: Creating a Life that Matters, Emily Esfahani Smith, 2017, Crown, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30008950-the-power-of-meaning - I read this many years ago and it was incredibly powerful in terms of working on your purpose, including conveying why it is important by telling many stories and tools for uncovering your purpose for yourself.

The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly: Life Wisdom from Someone Who Will (Probably) Die Before You, Margareta Magnusson, 2022, Scribner - This was a short little book. I did not find it had the wisdom and presence of many other books on this list about aging; it was more of a common telling of the challenges of getting older with an interesting life story thrown in. Things like “everyone over 80 should use a walker” were a bit cringey. Much of the book held fast to the idea that being older means things get worse, and there was lots of complaining. Not aligned with my perspective.