The Book of Old Ladies
Celebrating Women of a Certain Age in Fiction
by Ruth O. Saxton
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Sep 08 2020 | Archive Date Sep 07 2020
Talking about this book? Use #TheBookofOldLadies #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
“The Book of Old Ladies reminds us of the true joy of reading fiction. This joy has little to do with what is trendy or what makes the loudest argument, but how literature sustains living. Ruth Saxton is an elegant writer, and this thoughtful book is a gem for anyone who understands the meaning of life-long connection to literature.”—Yiyun Li, 2010 MacArthur Fellow and PEN/Jean Stein Book Award-winning author of Where Reasons End
"...thoughtful and thought-provoking....Her careful deconstruction of plot and character reveal more than a few misogynist literary stereotypes and provoke readers to think more generally about where our ideas and assumptions about aging come from. This can be a powerful jolt….The Book of Old Ladies asks us to consider the sexism that treats old women differently, more-often-than-not painting them as doddering, ineffectual crones. Can we imagine — and then create — something less demeaning? Literature, Saxton suggests, can send us in the right direction, but it is ultimately up to us to change the world.”—The Indypendent
“. . .a marvelously curated collection of must read stories that carve a path forward for women who have come of age—and whose time has finally come.”—Julie Shigekuni, PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award-winning author of In Plain View and Unending Nora
“In The Book of Old Ladies, Ruth Saxton offers readers, through curated conversation, the opportunity to defy the sweet-as-the-day-is-long stereotypes, and to examine the more fully developed, and—thank goodness—realistic senior women.”—Jennifer King, Director, Downtown Oakland Senior Center
“Saxton teases out the diverse ways that the aging fictional women had to reimagine and reinvent themselves, just as she did, to cope with the demands of a society that dismisses their contributions and demeans their intelligence.”—Julie Chappel, PhD, author of Faultlines and Perilous Passages
"Surprises and delights await readers of Ruth Saxton's The Book of Old Ladies, a fresh take on literary expectations as well as cultural stereotypes regarding 'women of a certain age.'"—Roberta Rubenstein, PhD, author of Literary Half-Lives and Virginia Woolf and the Russian Point of View
"The Book of Old Ladies is a stunning reclamation and affirmation of what is possible for women's lives . . . An urgent, necessary, and long overdue resource for scholars and general readers alike."—Patricia Powell, Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award-winning author of The Fullness of Everything and The Pagoda
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781631527975 |
| PRICE | $16.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 304 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Deena S, Reviewer
On Goodreads:
I received an ARC of this book through Net Galley. Thank you so much to both Net Galley and the Author Ruth Saxton for giving me the opportunity of discovering such a wonderful book. The author discusses 31 books about aging women protagonists. Her summaries of each were wonderful. I particularly enjoyed her discussions detailing how the women were portrayed and the limitations of them we were given. I felt like this was a book club which actually opened my eyes to more of the story than was written. I had never approached books from this view. Even the books I had read that the author reviewed were 'new' to me through her eyes. I feel that life is all about learning and this book asks me to seek more from my reading. I have added most of these books to my TBR and look forward to spending more time with each of these characters. Thank you for this book which explains more fully the lives of aging women.
On my FB page BOOKIES!:
BOOKIES! I just read such an interesting book. It is an advanced readers copy from Net Galley. It will be out in September. This is a book written by a female professor about how older women are portrayed as main characters in fiction from the last 50 years. She took 31 books and divided them up into 5 categories then summarized and compared them. I now have about 25 books added to my TBR pile. She talks about the stereotypes of older protagonists, like one brief romance years ago was the focus on her whole life (NOT!). But how many books have we read like that? Or how women could have families and jobs but had to give up their creative aspirations because of society's limitations. The author states her purpose for writing this book was to "...make you want to pick (these books) up and begin your own search for models of aging that defy the restrictive plots that do not represent women's true possibilities."
Amber T, Media/Journalist
It can often feel like youth has a monopoly on starring roles in fiction, so this is a refreshing look at women who are older and wiser in the realm of fiction. Nicely researched and well-written, The Book of Old Ladies proves that everyone should get the chance to star in their own story.
Abby S, Reviewer
A really interesting read a look at women of a certain age their thoughts life experience.I really enjoyed reading this book and will be recommending to friends who I know will enjoy it.# netgalley#shewritespress
Cristie U, Bookseller
This was a great collection of stories about women of old age. The ability to see ourselves via her writing shows how gifted of an author Ms. Saxton is. This was a great read!
Joan W, Reviewer
I received an ARC from NetGalley, the author, and publisher for an honest review. The book starts out with, "I have always read fiction to find models for how to live, how to be. I am not alone; we search for ourselves in story, often seeing our lives in fictional plots and imagining out potential future through lenses of fictional lives.
The author does know because that is exactly why I wanted to read the book. The book was a different type of writing that I was used to but I was amazed at how often I got a glimpse of me in the stories. 2020 is a different kind of year and this book is a different kind of book but I am learning so much from both. As I was reading the book, I kept thinking this is one of those books I need to save because I think it is also one of those books that you see what you need to see now but as my journey continues and I reread this book, I will see things I didn't see when I read it this time.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
