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Next Chapter: Older Americans Month: Celebrating Resilience

Older American Month is celebrated each year in May. This booklist includes personal and public journeys of discovery and activism in fiction and nonfiction titles. (Created by the Older Adults Program Manager, May, 2021)

The Seattle Public Library

17 items

  • This Chair Rocks

    a Manifesto Against Ageism

    Applewhite, Ashton
    Applewhite argues that ageism has caught the baby boomers by surprise, but as with other forms of discrimination, it reveals itself on both a personal and institutional/societal level.
    BookNew York : Celadon Books, 2019. — 305.26 Ap57T 2019
  • Elderhood

    Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

    Aronson, Louise
    Aronson is a geriatrician who looks at our Act III years by drawing from science, medicine, history, anthropology, literature and popular culture. She shows us how to see aging differently and thus change our experience of elderhood.
    BookNew York : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. — 362.60973 Ar675E 2019
  • Nomadland

    Surviving America in the Twenty-first Century

    Bruder, Jessica
    Bruder explores the lives of older adults who have taken to the road in recreational vehicles to work in a succession of generally low-paying jobs and formed a community of the houseless but not homeless. The 2021 Oscar winner for Best…
    BookNew York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2017] — 331.39809 B8318N 2017
  • Barrington Jedidiah Walker is in his mid-70s, a West Indian living in London, who must figure out how to live openly as a gay man after 50 years of marriage to his wife.
    BookNew York, NY : Akashic Books, [2014] — FIC EVARIST 2014
  • On the Bright Side

    the New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 85 Years Old

    Groen, Hendrik
    Henrik lives in a Dutch care home and is an active member of the "Old But Not Dead Club." With wry humor, the members of the club address the quotidian indignities of aging. They must also confront the final illnesses of their friends and…
    BookNew York : Grand Central Publishing, 2019. — FIC GROEN 2019
  • A cultural theorist considers ageism as a construct of history and cultures, and explores the reasons for the lack of our ageism consciousness.
    BookNew Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2017] — 155.67 G9518E 2017
  • Addie and Louis, both widowed, have known each other for decades in the small town of Holt, Colorado. Quite unexpectedly, Addie has a proposition for Louis, which ultimately shakes both of their quiet lives.
    BookNew York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. — FIC HARUF 2015
  • Eight-three year old Etta leaves her Saskatchewan farm, walking over 3000 kilometers to the Atlantic Ocean on an epic adventure, interweaving the present with a dose of magical realism.
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster, 2015. — FIC HOOPER 2015
  • Late Bloomers

    the Power of Patience in a World Obsessed With Early Achievement

    Karlgaard, Richard
    The publisher of Forbes magazine argues that most of us are late bloomers, even though much attention is given to the wunderkind of Silicon Valley. Karlgaard delves into current brain research, particularly on the brain's adaptability,…
    BookCurrency : New York, [2019] — 158.1 K1466L 2019
  • Chinatown Pretty

    Fashion and Wisdom From Chinatown's Most Stylish Seniors

    Lo, Andria
    Andria Lo's photographs reveal the street style of Asian American elders in six Chinatowns in North America. Through photographs and stories woven from interviews, the authors celebrate complex life histories in addition to a DIY fashion…
    BookSan Francisco, California : Chronicle Books, [2020] — 779.2 L7801C 2020
  • McCourt published his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela's Ashes, in his 60s. 'Tis continues his story and his evolution as a writer.
    BookNew York : Scribner, 2005. — B M4599M 2005
  • Old in Art School

    a Memoir of Starting Over

    Painter, Nell Irvin
    Retired Princeton University history professor Nell Painter describes her journey to become an artist and her experiences as a student again as an older Black woman.
    BookBerkeley, California : Counterpoint Press, 2018. — 700.92 P1663P 2018
  • The authors provide brief portraits of older social activists and let them speak in their own voices about their renewed commitments to activism after retirement.
    BookLanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, [2020] — 320.08696 R25935H 2020
  • At 85 years old, Lillian is a retired advertising executive with Macy's, who has lived in New York City for over 50 years. On New Year's Eve, she takes a solo walk which turns into a ten mile peregrination around Manhattan. While…
    BookNew York : St. Martin's Press, 2017. — FIC ROONEY 2017
  • The Gray Panthers began in the early 1970s under the leadership of activist Maggie Kuhn. Sanjek recreates the historical time period and draws a portrait of the membership, particularly the New York City and Berkeley groups. The Gray…
    BookPhiladelphia, Pa. : University of Pennyslvania Press, [2009] — 305.26097 G7941S 2009
  • Nearing Ninety

    and Other Comedies of Late Life

    Viorst, Judith
    The children's book author has published a book of poems for each decade beginning in her 50s. With clear-eyed vision, her poems express the fortitude and the many pleasures of aging.
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster, 2019. — 811.54 V814N 2019