Older Americans Month: Powered by Connection
Older American Month is celebrated each year in May. This booklist includes stories about connection and positive, inclusive aging narratives with both fiction and nonfiction titles. (Created by the Older Adults Work Group, May, 2024)
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The Backyard Bird Chronicles
"In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater--an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired."
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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How to Be Old
"A personal memoir in which Lyn Slater, known on Instagram as "Accidental Icon," brings her characteristic style, optimism, forward-thinking, and rules-are-meant-to-be-broken attitude to the question of how to live boldly at any age. When Lyn Slater started her fashion blog, Accidental Icon, at age sixty-one, she discovered that followers were flocking to her account for more than just her A-list style. As Lyn flaunted gray hair, wrinkles, and a megadose of self-acceptance, they found in her an alternative model of older life: someone who defied the stereotypes, refused to become invisible, and showed that all women have the opportunity to be relevant and take major risks at any stage of their life...In this paradigm-shifting memoir, Lyn exemplifies that even with its unique challenges, being old is just like any new beginning in your life and can be the best and most invigorating of all of life's phases, full of rebellion and reinvention, connection and creativity"
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Outer Voices, Inner Lives
"A powerful collection of stories and personal reflections by writers with the wisdom and understanding that comes with growing older. With a foreword by iconic author Patricia Nell Warren, these stories will resonate with older readers who may share many of the experiences captured here. And younger readers will find a source of inspiration, imagination, and the resiliency of the creative spirit."
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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We Who Walk the Seven Ways
"We Who Walk the Seven Ways is Terra Trevor's memoir about seeking healing and finding belonging. After a difficult loss, a circle of Native women elders embraced and guided Trevor (Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, and German) through the seven cycles of life in the indigenous ways. Over three decades, these women lifted her from grief, instructed her in living, and showed her how to age from youth into beauty. With tender honesty, Trevor explores how the end is always a beginning. Her reflections on the deep power of female friendship, on losing a child, reconciling complicated roots, and finding richness in living every stage of life shows that being an American Indian with a complex lineage is not about being part something--it is about being part of something"
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Tough Broad
Caroline Paul has always filled her life with adventure: From mountain biking in the Bolivian Andes to pitching a tent, mid-blizzard, on Denali, she has never been a stranger to the exhilaration the outdoors can hold. Yet through it all, she has long wondered, Why aren't women, like men, encouraged to keep adventuring into old age? Tough broad is her quest to understand not just how to live a dynamic life in a changing body, but why we must.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Our Gen
"The Gen--short for Sexagenarian--is an upscale fifty-five-plus community located in the bucolic suburbs of Philadelphia. Main character Cynthia befriends the Gen's two other Black residents, Bloc and Tish, as well as Lavia, who everyone assumes is from India. They regularly convene to smoke weed, line dance, and debate politics and philosophy as the wine goes down like silk. Their camaraderie is exhilarating. But beneath the fun and froth, storms gather. With its walls of windows gushing light and air, the Gen becomes the catalyst for secrets to be exposed."
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Lift Every Voice
"Presenting interviews with more than fifty members of the oldest generation of Black Americans, including civil rights activists, hometown heroes, celebrities and many others, this testament to the strength and stories behind these individuals reveals their lives, experiences, and wisdom."
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Chinatown Pretty
"Andria Lo and Valerie Luu have been interviewing and photographing Chinatown's most fashionable elders on their blog and Instagram, Chinatown Pretty, since 2014. Chinatown Pretty is a signature style worn by pOh pohs (grandmas) and gUng gungs (grandpas) everywhere, but it's also a life philosophy, mixing resourcefulness, creativity, and a knack for finding joy even in difficult circumstances."
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Work, Retire, Repeat
"The issue of the future of Social Security, on which millions of Americans depend, produced great political theater at the State of the Union address. That highlighted a bigger problem of financing retirement as baby boomers seek to retire, often with limited resources. Many argue that the solution to the problem is for people to work longer. Teresa Ghilarducci, a noted expert on retirement, argues that the "working longer" idea is wrong, unnecessary, and discriminates against people who work in lower wage occupations...This book tells the stories of people locked into jobs later in life not because they love to work but because they must work. She demonstrates how relatively low-cost changes in the way we manage, and finance retirement will enable people in their so-called "golden years" to choose how to spend their time."
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Breaking the Age Code
"A leading expert on the psychology of aging discusses how our individual beliefs about aging can have a profound effect on our life expectancy and offers stunning new revelations about the mind-body connection."
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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