Beth's SNT Bookshelf

By Shari Graydon, author / editor (Vancouver and Berkeley: D&M Publishers, 2011)

Books about aging often sound alike.  Too many deal with sickness, loneliness, poverty and a sense of bewilderment. Shari Graydon’s perceptive collection of stories, essays and poems by Canadian women, from their 50s to the 80s, also recognizes the many problems related to middle and old age. The authors express a diversity of voices—middle-aged, senior, straight, gay, Native, maternal, analytical, sentimental, political.

But what sets this book apart is that Graydon and her writers understand that good things can happen, too.

Now, she says, “We see differently and know better…we have the capacity to honor and celebrate others, and occasionally, even ourselves.”

Women growing older are not all on their way to Alzheimer’s and worse.

One writer, bored with her life, started driving huge trucks with her husband. Another tells of her battle against sexism in the workplace and violence against women, a fight she continues as she ages, adding, “In these days, more than ever, I believe we need the wisdom of aged women.” Still another proudly declares that “women are beautiful in multiple and varied ways.”

Or as the French novelist Collette once wrote in her later years, “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I had realized it sooner.”

Shari Graydon is an award-winning women’s advocate, veteran print and broadcast journalist, and bestselling author of two media literacy books for youth. Past president of Media Action, a nonprofit group promoting gender equity through media analysis, she lectures frequently about media and body image issues from her home base in Ottawa.