Novels about older women

While this is from 2019, I thought this was a good resource for us over sixty group. Happy to see additions to this list.

https://bookriot.com/novels-about-older-women/

I see it only includes one of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple books, but there's a whole series of them.

Also the Vera Stanhope series by Ann Cleeves.

>1 perennialreader: That is a really great list--some I'd never heard of. Thank you!

>2 John5918: I love Vera! Also, love her other series, Shetland.

I added a couple to my wish list.

What about all the Elizabeth Strout books?

What about the Mrs Pollifax series, beginning with The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax. Probably out of print now, but you may find them in libraries/charity shops.

>1 perennialreader: Thank you for that list. Some new ones for me on there.

I liked Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey

Where is the cutoff for "older" women? 40? 50? 60? 70?

I would add Elizabeth Gaskill's Cranford.

>9 Crypto-Willobie: "older" women in literature I would say at 50 or older, because one doesn't find many of that age in lit! Of course, in real life--it's different, because "we" could not be "older";)

>10 Tess_W:

So the DI Nikki Galena series by Joy Ellis doesn't quite make it as I believe she is still in her forties at least at the beginning of the series, although I think later books are set several years later, so who knows?

>9 Crypto-Willobie: Anyone older than me! :)

I'd say 50 and up, but maybe that's arbitrary. A story in which a woman has some kind of struggle due to advancing age might be a better gauge. Buck's The Pavilion of Women is a good book about a woman coming to terms with what her culture says about aging, and I believe she is only 40.

I've just started reading the first of Simon McCleave's series about DI Ruth Hunter. She is apparently around 48 years old.

The Crystal Mouse by Babs Deal is a pretty eerie little novel featuring an elderly widow who moves into a just-completed apartment block (in Miami, I think), only to find herself more or less the only inhabitant. Of course strange things start happening. I have the paperback that was published by NEL in the seventies.

One of my favorite books is The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence. The book's protagonist is a ninety year old woman and her character is memorable.

I love many of the kids' books by Dick King-Smith.

The Stray is about a sweet little old lady and a stray dog. A charming story.

>17 nrmay: Nothing against heart-warmers, but the "poor, little old lady saved by plucky kids" trope has rubbed pretty thin over the years. Still, Henrietta is bored with the old folks home and has enough spunk to ditch it. I wish we lived in a time when old people were seen as wise advice givers instead of victims of senility, poverty, or infirmity.

The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye by A.S. Byatt.

The woman in question here is perhaps just late middle-age but she definitely feels as if she's aging

>3 Tess_W: I'm about to read Vera for a book group meeting in January. Looking forward to it.

>12 perennialreader: I like that!

Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym