Books

Elizabeth White was a high-achieving professional when financial catastrophe hit in her 50s. Her unflinching account of downward mobility, shame, and survival is essential reading for the millions of older women navigating economic insecurity — and a practical call for structural change.

Registered dietitian and journalist Christy Harrison dismantles diet culture — the harmful system that profits from women’s food anxiety — and presents intuitive eating as a radical, evidence-based alternative. Especially relevant during menopause when diet-culture pressure often intensifies.

Professional trustee and executor Marguerite Lorenz reframes “success” for the second half of life: not how long you live, but how well you live when you can no longer do everything on your own. Drawing on real client experiences, she blends story chapters, reflective exercises, and practical guidance on quality of life, estate planning, care preferences, and honoring your wishes. A clear-eyed, dignified manual for preparing to live well at ninety and beyond.

Drawing on more than twenty years as a professional trustee and executor, Marguerite Lorenz recasts estate planning as an act of love rather than paperwork — the difference between leaving your future to luck and keeping control of it. With warmth and candor she walks readers through wills, trusts, powers of attorney, advance directives, care preferences, and legacy, showing why planning ahead is one of the greatest gifts you can give the people you love.

Essays on creativity, beauty, purpose, and power for women after sixty. Featuring profiles of trailblazing women and questions for reflection, Rock On invites readers to reignite their creative spark, advocate for better healthcare, make confident money choices, and live out loud.

A practical and emotional guide for women who find themselves suddenly single after 50 — whether through divorce, widowhood, or the end of a long-term relationship. Addresses finances, housing, identity, dating, and rebuilding a life.

Suze Orman’s complete guide to retirement planning for those in the critical pre-retirement decade. Covers Social Security, Medicare, 401(k) strategies, and how to make your money last as long as you do.

Suze Orman addresses the financial challenges unique to women — pay gaps, caregiving breaks, longer lifespans — with a concrete action plan for retirement, savings, and financial independence.

Lynette Reiling’s guide to the second half is built on William Bridges’ three-phase model of transition — the ending, the disorienting middle, the new beginning — and is meant to be read years before you think you need it. The middle gets the most attention and the most useful writing: the stretch Bridges called the Neutral Zone, where, as Reiling puts it, “I am no longer who I was, but do not yet know who I will become.” Eleven “script writing” tools follow, with questions and exercises for putting yourself back at the center of your own life. Practical rather than inspirational, and several readers describe working through it in groups.