A Certain Age

A warm, thoughtful, and well-researched study of how elderly parents and their middle-aged children can, with wisdom, courage, and respect, relate to one another with genuine friendship.--Louise Fradkin and Mirca Liberti, cofounders of Children of Aging Parents

Situated at the crossroads of gender studies, narratology, and cultural studies, this book investigates the impact that the demographic and cultural revolutions of the last century have had on Italian women's life courses and on their literary imaginations. The geographic and chronological focus is Italy of the 1990s. The study is divided into two parts that represent an ideal progression from contexts to texts.

Older women run their own businesses. Older women go to aerobics classes. Older women fall in love. In fact, older women have active lives and make a major contribution to the community despite the the public assumption that they are past their use-by date. A Certain Age explores the public and private worlds of older women. Challenging the emphasis on declining health in other studies of ageing, it looks at the interactions between older women and family, friends and the community, as well as their work and leisure activities. The authors discuss the factors that are important in older woman's lives such as home, menopause, fitness, learning, widowhood and intimacy. They show that many older women maintain good health and an independent lifestyle while others experience barriers that prevent them from continuing to be active members of their community. A Certain Age is valuable reading for anyone who works with older people, develops programs or policies for older people, or is interested in the experience of growing older.

A Certain Age is an unconventional, evocative work of history and a moving reflection on memory, modernity, space, time, and the limitations of traditional historical narratives. Rudolf Mrázek visited Indonesia throughout the 1990s, recording lengthy interviews with elderly intellectuals in and around Jakarta. With few exceptions, they were part of an urban elite born under colonial rule and educated at Dutch schools. From the early twentieth century, through the late colonial era, the national revolution, and well into independence after 1945, these intellectuals injected their ideas of modernity, progress, and freedom into local and national discussion. When Mrázek began his interviews, he expected to discuss phenomena such as the transition from colonialism to postcolonialism. His interviewees, however, wanted to share more personal recollections. Mrázek illuminates their stories of the past with evocative depictions of their late-twentieth-century surroundings. He brings to bear insights from thinkers including Walter Benjamin, Bertold Brecht, Le Corbusier, and Marcel Proust, and from his youth in Prague, another metropolis with its own experience of passages and revolution. Architectural and spatial tropes organize the book. Thresholds, windowsills, and sidewalks come to seem more apt as descriptors of historical transitions than colonial and postcolonial, or modern and postmodern. Asphalt roads, homes, classrooms, fences, and windows organize movement, perceptions, and selves in relation to others. A Certain Age is a portal into questions about how the past informs the present and how historical accounts are inevitably partial and incomplete.

'I lost my virginity to a twenty-five year-old man. And on a schoolnight, too.' Sex with an Older Man Parents who don't understand Politics in the playground Blowjobs behind the bike-sheds Skinning up in the schoolyard It's what happens when you reach a Certain Age. Just the hormones kicking in. We've all been there . . . haven't we? A CERTAIN AGE - the reality behind the problem pages. It's what Just 17 never told you about growing up.

A delightfully honest look at the realities of starting out with horses…when you're getting older. Are you a woman at midlife or beyond? Have you just discovered you have a passion for horses? Or maybe you've now found time for them after years devoted to a job and family? Surveys show that riders over the age of 40 are the fastest growing segment of the equestrian world, with those age 65 and above seeing the biggest jump—so you are far from alone! With carefully curated guidance collected over years of horsing around, rider and writer Fran Severn wants to embolden and empower you with tips, lessons, and advice as you begin enjoying a life with horses in it. In these pages, you'll find options for: Riding…and not riding (but still having horses in your life). Finding an instructor and being a good student. Coming to grips with what your body can and can't do in terms of fitness, weight, and fear. Understanding the realities of arthritis, menopause, and changing vision, hearing, and breathing. Knowing the rules for buying, leasing, and boarding horses. Dealing with family and horse-related finances. And much more. Riders of a Certain Age provides an important reference to any older individual who craves the companionship of a horse and the sisterhood that can go along with it.

Anne Aly, Liz Byrski, Sarah Drummond, Mehreen Faruqi, Goldie Goldbloom, Krissy Kneen, Jeanine Leane, Brigid Lowry and Pat Torres are among fifteen voices recounting what it is like to be a woman on the other side of 40. These are stories of identity and survival, and a celebration of getting older and wiser, and becoming more certain of who you are and where you want to be.

"Women of a Certain Age" is the story told by each of four women in a retirement community who have dinner at the same table every day. Maggie, a retired librarian, was married for many years to a psychiatrist who had been recommended to her by an Emergency doctor treating Maggie when she had been attacked by four men on her way to the bus stop one day after the library closed. Her friend Laura, a journalist at the town's daily newspaper, too her to her doctor's appointment the following afternoon and their friendship lasts through marriage, children and the death of their husbands. They both enter the same retirement community. Zoe, a healthcare professional specializing in massage therapy, is a strong intuitive and meeting the women as a newcomer to the retirement community, she livens up the conversations during dinner and becomes an interesting addition to the friendship bond the women have formed. The fourth woman to become part of that bond, Bethanne, has come from a women's shelter for abused women after she finally had the courage to leave her husband. Together, the four women become fast friends and decide to create an appropriate form of punishment for the abusive husband who is leading a life of luxury, decadence and women. He has several off-shore bank accounts which the four women plan to break into helped by an influential friend, thereby bankrupting the man to prevent him from victimizing other women for the rest of his life.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! “This Golden Girls meets James Bond thriller is a journey you want to be part of.” -Buzzfeed 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. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills. When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they’ve been marked for death. Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They’re about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman—and a killer—of a certain age.

This timely book assembles a chorus of sophisticated, edgy, and humorous voices on the topic of being unmarried in one’s prime. Far from being out to pasture, these writers zestily take on the challenges and enjoy the rewards of growing older as a single woman: sex (or not), occasional loneliness, single motherhood, second careers, menopause, critter comforts, and more. Joyce Maynard (“fifteen years divorced and pushing fifty with a short stick”) tries online dating, Kathi Kamen Goldmark embraces her newly empty nest, Susan Griffin savors the joys of solo travel, Wendy Merrill dumps a younger lover to save her self-esteem, Diane Mapes prefers the joys of aunthood over motherhood, Ms. Gonick dates a sexy (if uneducated) cowboy, and Rachel Toor finally finds the perfect companion — and he has four legs.

This novel is the story of seven friends who have known each other since their college days. During one of their reunions they decide that after their careers end, they will enter a retirement community in Myrtle Creek, Oregon. Benjamin Pollack, a retired anthropolist, selects an apartment on the second floor. When the lease is signed, he tells the general manager of Oakbrook Manor that he'd like to be seated at a table for eight, since he has six friends who will join him when their careers end as well. the next friend to join the group is Conrad Ballister, a retired investment banker. He witnessed a car accident, seeing a truck driver run into the back of a passenger car, leave the scene with a sneer after refusing to give out his drivers license to the owner of the car. He decided to study law once he got out of school, to bring justice to people like the hapless driver of that passenger car. A few months later, he is joined by Martin Fraser, a retired Herald Tribune correspondent. When he is brought to the table by the dining room manager, he is welcomed with open arms by Conrad and Ben. After dinner, Ben invites Martin and Conrad to his apartment for a cognac, as they get reacquainted. They decide to get together once a week to hear each other's lifestory. Sam Whittier is the friend who studied law, and decided to enter the political arena to be elected judge in the San Francisco court system. Alan Carstairs, a former classmate of Sam Whittier in law school, elected to become a lawyer who did pro-bono work on the side in order to help those who could not afford the hefty lawyer fees. Peter Evans, was a famous portrait painter until he developed weak muscles in his hands and could no longer claim perfection to a job well done. Roberto Giovanni grew up in a dysfunctional family, and as the oldest of five children, ended up responsible for his siblings after his father had left, and his mother died shortly thereafter.

WOMEN OF A CERTAIN AGE is an 80,000 word version of what goes on in a retirement village in South Florida as seen through the eyes of four senior women. Though this is a work of fiction, many of the situations depicted were real. The authors may have exaggerated these events but they do represent actual incidents that took place in senior communities. Written in an anecdotal style, this novel explores the premise that life goes on after Social Security as does dating and intimacy. Children, even when they are fully grown, pose headaches for their parents. Death is a frequent visitor; the inevitable is always at the next sunrise. These women cope with humor and love. All of this, and more, becomes a way of life and they learn to manage and to survive with the hands they are dealt. We view their heartbreaks, their joys, their good days and bad, and their intense loyalty to one another. The strength of WOMEN OF A CERTAIN AGE lies in its honest dialogue, realistic situations, and its portrayal of what occurs with the graying of senior women. We learn to love these people, flaws and all, as we begin to understand that they are all a reflection of ourselves and that one day, if we are lucky, we will walk in their shoes.

As a mortal woman in medieval Yorkshire, Marion Chase falls in love with a young woman and is shunned by the church and the village. Marion takes refuge in a forest cottage and becomes an herbal healer. When men from the village threaten to burn her as a witch, Marion is rescued by a vampire, transformed, and joins a Sisterhood in York dedicated to ethical living for vampires. When Henry VIII's 1546 ban on prostitution reaches York, the Sisterhood closes its brothel and disbands. The vampires scatter and Marion becomes a battlefield nurse travelling throughout Europe. She travels to America during the Civil War and is then instrumental in the development of blood banking in the 1930s. In the 21st century Marion runs a Chicago blood bank with a hidden sideline of providing ethically sourced blood to Midwestern vampires. All is well until Marion falls in love with the one person who can destroy her. Rachel Sutter is an FDA inspector who is the living likeness of Marion’s medieval love.

From social and political issues to found poems, Gibson's fresh, evocative (and sometimes provocative) writing is both modern and timeless. These poems spring from taxis, supermarkets and long car drives through the wind and rain. They spring from fantasies, daydreams, nightmares, from love and hate, but, above all, they exalt and enhance everyday experiences.

"Age Discrimination is a brand-new title that provides detailed analysis of the application, impact and practical effect of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006."--Publisher.

This story is based on the children of the main characters described in "Women of a Certain Age" and "Gentlemen of a Certain Age". As an author, the idea of creating a sequel to the first two novels gave my imagination a boost, and putting the grandchildren of the characters of the second book in a setting of their own adventures and love interests, I made it into a trilogy. Although "Women of a Certain Age" did not relate necessarily to "Gentlemen of a Certain Age", the third novel describes the lives and adventures of the children of the characters in both books. After their education, and college experiences many of the characters become friends when they meet ocasionally while visiting their grandparents who had decided to enter the same retirement community once their careers ended. The grandchildren become acquainted as well, thereby starting another circle of friendships that may create yet another one through the next generation -- circles linking together once again, designing another brand-new pattern.