Aging Fiction

From birth to death, a lyrical exploration of the role of transformation in human life. To be alive is to be in perpetual metamorphosis: Growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, physician and writer Gavin Francis considers the inevitable changes all of our bodies undergo - such as birth, puberty, and death, but also laughter, sleeping, and healing - and those that only some of our bodies will: Like getting a tattoo, experiencing psychosis, suffering anorexia, being pregnant, or undergoing a gender transition.

This audiobook will educate you on why there are so many people in this country dying, going blind or losing limbs to diabetes? Diabetes is a lifelong manageable disease that can be controlled and the goal is not to let it control you. Diabetes is not and should not be a death sentence for anyone, however, due to the lack of information and education, many people do die from the disease. It is after all the third largest killer in the U.S. and the number one killer of African Americans!

This award-winning anthology of poetry and prose takes a new look at being a woman - particularly an aging woman - in a society that prizes and glorifies youth. The works are by both younger writers looking forward in time and writers who have experienced the joys and challenges of growing older. This international best seller was put together by editor Sandra Martz who selected the collection's pieces from thousands of submitted manuscripts.

When Eva Moore wakes up on her fiftieth birthday, her drab middle-class life immediately starts to unravel. First, she receives an anonymous Facebook message claiming her husband is having an affair. Next, she is restructured out of her job by her obnoxiously young boss. Then, just when she thinks her life can't get any worse, her elderly parents wilfully go missing from their group tour of India. The only clues they've left behind is an increasingly bizarre series of TikTok videos.

In this beautifully crafted novel from the author of the critically-acclaimed Two Sisters, comes the story of a woman who retreats into a fantasy world on New York City’s Upper West Side as she slowly loses her once whip-smart husband to dementia - perfect for fans of Still Alice. When life falls apart, a little fantasy goes a long way… It started as a dream vacation in Spain, with Fay and Paul Agarra enjoying all the delights of a European holiday. A respected New York City judge, Paul has always been the man Fay can rely on, no matter what.

In the middle of summer, omnipresent heat radiates as a group of elderly people are remembering their youth. The story focuses on two sisters, Leokadia and Helena, who live together in a retirement home not far from Warsaw. These are not ordinary stories they are sharing, because both of them were imprisoned as children in Auschwitz during World War II.

The residents in Brisbane's Riverview apartment block barely know each other. They have no idea of the loneliness, the lost hopes and dreams, being experienced behind their neighbours' closed doors. Vera, now widowed, is trying her hardest to create a new life for herself in an unfamiliar city environment. Unlucky-in-love Maddie has been hurt too many times by untrustworthy men yet refuses to give up on romance. Ned, a reclusive scientist, has an unusual interest in bees and worm farms. Meanwhile, the building's caretaker, Jock, has all but given up hope of achieving his secret dream.

In their youth, lovebirds Elizabeth and Ray had to fight to be together. Their future was full of promise and, blessed with children and careers, their happiness complete. But a twist of fate changed their lives forever. Now in her 60s, Elizabeth is desperately lonely. She rarely sees her two adult sons and her closest friend is a talkative budgie. But when her grandson, Zach, gets into trouble with the police, she decides to take him on a road trip to find his grandfather, her lost love Ray, in the hope of mending their broken family.

Great advice on exercise and nutrition for a healthy lifestyle. Are you living a fairy tale? If you are really serious about getting the best body, the best nutrition and the best antiaging methods, once pudgy young woman, now bodysculpting champion Donna Aston will show you: why 95 percent of people who lose weight regain it and then some, how low-fat dieting is the greatest scam going, and why those empty processed carbohydrates go straight to the fat bins on your hips.

Everything is a Little Broken invites listeners to both laugh and cry at some of the painful, heart-wrenching, and absurd moments Mira Cayne and her father, Matt Frank, experience as age and infirmity begin to take their toll. Their story will be instantly recognizable to the 41 million Americans caring for older adults in their lives.

It is a time of reckoning for José-Maria Alvarez, an aristocratic Spanish banker living in a Swiss village with his American wife. Nearing the end of a long and tumultuous life, he’s overcome by hallucinatory memories of the past. Among his most cherished memories are those of his boyhood in 1950s Franco-era Spain and the bucolic afternoons he spent salmon fishing on the Sella River with his father, uncle, and much-loved younger brother. But these fond reveries are soon eclipsed by something greater.

A razor-sharp story collection from a writer who is always "furiously good" (Zadie Smith, best-selling author of Swing Time). With her signature humor and compassion, A.M. Homes exposes the heart of an uneasy America in this collection - exploring our attachments to each other through characters who aren't quite who they hoped to become, though there is no one else they can be.

Retired architect Otto Laird is living a peaceful, if slightly bemused, existence in Switzerland with his second wife, Anika. Once renowned for his radical designs, Otto now spends his days communing with nature and writing eccentric letters to old friends (which he doesn't mail). But Otto's comfortable life is rudely interrupted when he learns that his most significant and revolutionary building, Marlowe House, a 1960s tower block estate in South London, is set to be demolished.

Tassen siempre ha sido perro de un solo hombre. Y desde que murió el Mayor Thorkildsen, se ha visto obligado a entenderse con la anciana viuda de éste. Ambos echan de menos al Mayor y por las noches, frente al resplandor de un buen fuego, se consuelan leyendo sobre la expedición de Roald Amundsen al Polo Sur, que culminó con éxito gracias a las decenas de intrépidos perros de Groenlandia que el aventurero noruego decidió llevar consigo. Cuando el hijo y la nuera del Mayor planean quedarse con la casa, Tassen y la señora Thorkildsen, inspirándose en los audaces perros de Amundsen.

Rose is delightful, flamboyant, and a widow. Having just lost her husband, Rose's daughter steps in to find Rose increasingly disoriented and forgetful. Even as a nurse, Maureen does not recognize the early signs of her mother's dementia - a diagnosis that changes her mother's life and those close to her. The contrast between the reality of Rose's condition and the "Casablanca Style" in which she lived is stark yet beautiful. This book parallels Still Alice's medical description of the illness but picks up where Still Alice leaves off.

When their parents died in a plane crash, Nick and his identical twin, Nate, end up bouncing around foster care, always trying to find a way back together. No one wants two teenage boys, until the night Mama Jean made them a deal they couldn't refuse. Now he has finished college, and is the new baseball coach and teacher at his old high school. Excited to have landed a job so close to his home and responsibilities on the Farm, he arrives ready to help the teenagers he surrounds himself with daily. The last thing he expects is to run into Hope, the girl that had left Mama Jean's program without any explanation years before.

Before her death, Mama Jean, as she was fondly known by the foster children she took in, set in motion the plans for the Hertzel-Mendall Family Farm, a community established to offer homes to families that fostered children. The "farm" offers therapeutic, recreational and many other services all in one place to achieve the best outcomes for children in the foster care system. "Mama" Jean Hertzel fostered teenagers who had run out of options - teens who were considered unadoptable mostly due to their ages but sometimes for other reasons.

Savannah Greane is a good mother in a terrible situation, on the brink of losing her son due to injuries sustained in another attack by her ex-husband. She has run for years, limited personal friends for fear others could get hurt, and lived in shelters, but he found her and now his parents are suing for custody, saying she is unable to care for her son. When a tall man walks into her room and offers her a solution, it seems too good to be true, but she doesn't have any other option.

Katja truly adored all her foster siblings, but Lincoln holds a special place in her heart. He had already been with Mama Jean when they had taken her in, straight from the hospital; and through the pain of physical and emotional healing, they had become best friends, a friendship that endured through their childhood and into adulthood. The two of them are the glue that holds all of the others together.

Hadley is an eternal optimist, despite her pint-sized stature. She is loved and adored by everyone, full of joy and kindheartedness. Until the day, Logan Reems takes it upon himself to become her designated, albeit it reluctant knight in shining armor and rescue her from the mud. She has never come up against anyone so haughty and mean spirited. Her determination to avoid contact with him is derailed when she finds out his two boys will be in her kindergarten class.