Books

National Geographic explorer Dan Buettner identifies the world’s longevity hotspots and distills the common factors: diet, movement, purpose, community, and stress reduction. A fascinating and actionable roadmap for thriving in the second half of life.

Two of the world’s great spiritual leaders — the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu — spend a week together reflecting on how to find joy despite suffering, hardship, and the realities of aging and death. Profound, warm, and genuinely life-changing.

The remarkable story of the Nun Study — a decades-long research project on 678 Catholic sisters — which revealed the factors that protect against Alzheimer’s and promote extraordinary longevity. Purpose, education, positive emotion, and community emerge as key.

A compassionate guide for women navigating the emotionally and physically demanding role of caring for aging parents while also managing their own midlife transitions. Addresses the guilt, grief, and grace of the caregiving season.

Surgeon Atul Gawande explores how modern medicine fails aging people and dying patients by prioritizing survival over wellbeing. A profound examination of what a good death and a good old age actually look like — and what we can do to achieve them.

A young neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer reflects on what makes life meaningful. Devastating and beautiful, this book about mortality and what it means to live well is essential reading for anyone grappling with aging, illness, or loss.

Cardiologist John Day and his wife journeyed to a remote Chinese village where virtually no one has heart disease, cancer, or dementia. The seven longevity principles they discovered offer a compelling blueprint for healthy aging.

Dr. Sara Gottfried presents her epigenetics-based program for reversing biological aging through targeted nutrition, supplements, exercise, and stress management. A practical guide for women wanting to take control of how they age.

Barbara Walker reclaims the ‘crone’ archetype from its derogatory associations, presenting the post-menopausal woman as a being of power, wisdom, and spiritual authority in pre-patriarchal traditions. A foundational feminist text on aging.

100 recipes drawn from the world’s longest-lived communities — plant-forward, flavor-rich, and proven to support longevity. A practical guide to eating the way the world’s healthiest older women actually eat.

Joan Price’s most recent guide to sex and intimacy after 60, covering solo sex, partnered sex, dating apps, communication, and the full landscape of older adult sexuality with warmth and expertise.

Tufts University researcher Miriam Nelson presents compelling evidence that strength training reverses bone loss, muscle loss, and metabolic decline — the landmark study that convinced mainstream medicine that older women should lift weights.

Classical Stretch creator Miranda Esmonde-White presents her method for reversing the physical signs of aging through daily eccentric muscle work. Accessible to any fitness level and particularly effective for the joint and muscle changes of menopause.

Eckhart Tolle’s landmark guide to living in the present moment. For women in midlife navigating anxiety about aging, health, and the future, Tolle’s teachings offer a powerful framework for finding peace in the only moment that exists.

A fascinating history of the public health innovations — vaccines, clean water, seat belts, pasteurization — that doubled human life expectancy in the 20th century. Puts the remarkable longevity of today’s older women in inspiring historical context.

Nora Ephron’s wickedly funny essays about the indignities and joys of getting older as a woman. From bad hair days to the terrors of the medicine cabinet, she makes aging not just bearable but hilarious.

Longevity physician Peter Attia reframes medicine around the goal of not just living longer but living better — with chapters on cardiovascular disease, cancer, metabolic health, and cognitive decline that are particularly relevant to women in midlife.

Dr. Gundry explores how to grow older without getting old, focusing on gut bacteria, plant-based nutrition, and the surprising enemies of longevity. Practical strategies for thriving in the second half of life.

Journalist Margaret Webb sets out to run a marathon at 50 and discovers a world of women athletes defying aging. Packed with science and inspiring stories proving fitness peaks are not behind us.

The science of how exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle choices can reverse the biological clock. A doctor and his patient make the compelling case that most of what we think of as aging is actually decay from disuse — and it is reversible.