Book of Old Ladies - by Ruth O Saxton (Paperback)

About the Book

A book lover's guide to embracing beauty, sensuality, creativity, connection, wonder, and joy in late life, The Book of Old Ladies introduces readers to thirty fictional texts featuring "women of a certain age" who prepare for the journey of aging, inhabit the territory, and increasingly become their truest selves.

Book Synopsis

This is a book that champions older women's stories and challenges the limiting outcomes we seem to hold for them. The Book of Old Ladies
introduces readers to thirty stories featuring fictional "women of a
certain age" who increasingly become their truest selves. Their stories
will entertain and provide insight into the stories we tell ourselves
about the limits and opportunities of aging. A celebration of women who
push back against the limiting stereotypes regarding older women's
possibility, The Book of Old Ladies is a book lover's guide to
approaching old age and dealing with its losses while still embracing
beauty, creativity, connection, and wonder.

Review Quotes

". . . Saxton's beautifully fluid prose would be a pleasure to read
while relaxing at the beach. A thought-provoking, informative, and
valuable literary analysis."

--Kirkus Reviews

"Saxton teases out the diverse ways that these aging fictional women
have 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 A. Chappell, editor at Ink Brush Press

"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, Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, University of New Mexico

"Saxton's work will delight, inform, educate, and enlighten all who read her book."

--Viji Nakka-Cammauf, president of the Alumnae Association of Mills
College and founder and president of Little Flock Children's Homes

"In The Book of Old Ladies, Ruth Saxton offers readers, through
curated conversation, the opportunity to defy the
sweet-as-the-day-is-long stereotype and to examine the more fully
developed and--thank goodness--realistic senior woman."

--Jennifer King, director of the Downtown Oakland Senior Center

"The Book of Old Ladies is an inspiration for what life can be like in my future."

--Sky Bergman, award-winning filmmaker and professor of photography and video at Cal Poly State University

"With an engaging, conversational style and feminist lens, Ruth Saxton
guides us through an array of twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels
and stories . . . An essential read."

--Eileen Barrett, editor of American Women Writers: Diverse Voices in Prose and professor of English at California State University

"The Book of Old Ladies reminds us of the true joy of reading
fiction . . . Ruth Saxton is an elegant writer, and this thoughtful book
is a gem for anyone who understands the meaning of lifelong connection
to literature."

--Yiyun Li, award-winning author of Dear Friend and Kinder Than Solitude

". . . 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

"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, Professor of Literature, American University

"The Book of Old Ladies [is] essential reading for anyone
invested in or intrigued by 'old lady' narratives, women's perspectives
in literature, and age, aging, and ageism . . ."

--Kortney Stern, PhD Candidate, University of Indiana

About the Author

Dr. Ruth O. Saxton is a Professor Emerita of English at Mills College in Oakland, CA. Over the course of her forty-two-year career, she has studied, taught, and published works on fiction by women for decades, focusing on how narratives limit or expand what we imagine to be possible. Dr. Saxton served as the college's first Dean of Letters, cofounded the Women's Studies program, and founded the Rhetoric and Composition program. Her scholarly works include The Girl, Constructions of the Girl in Contemporary Fiction by Women; Approaches to Teaching Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (with Eileen Barrett); and Woolf and Lessing: Breaking the Mold (with Jean Tobin). She currently resides in Oakland, CA.