The Best Books for Senior Citizens 2023

Are you looking for something to read this summer? Whether at the beach or beating the heat indoors, it’s always pleasant to have a book – and on top of enjoyment, reading can help you learn new things and keep your memory sharp. Here is our list of some of the best books for seniors:

The Best Books for Senior Citizens 2023: The Short List

Memoirs and Memoir-Writing

For those readers interested in what it is like to live in a different culture, Yaeko Sugama Weldon’s memoir “Cherry Blossoms in Twilight: Memories of a Japanese Girl” should be interesting. Weldon tells her story gently, as it is one full of serious and sometimes frightening issues; she lived through World War II in Japan and all of the events that time in history brought. More than a war story, however, Weldon also relates her simple girlhood before the war and some of her life after it ended.

Another well-reviewed example of a memoir is “Reinventing Myself: Memoirs of a Retired Professor.” Marlys Marshall Styne had been retired for seven years and widowed for six when she began to write this book. She was also depressed, and turned to reflection and writing as a way to feel better and find contentment. Reinventing Myself is a collection of personal essays about that period in her life, and times before. Styne encourages everyone to write, but especially seniors like herself.

The Best The Best Books for Senior Citizens 2023 Can Be in Any Category

If reading memoirs makes you curious about writing your own, there are books available for that purpose too. You don’t have to be an accomplished writer to put your life story in words, whether you want to publish it or only share it with your family. The book “Seniorwriting: A Brief Guide for Seniors Who Want to Write” is also by Marlys Marshall Styne, who uses her own experience delving into memoir to help illustrate specific prompts. It’s likely that you have a lot to share about your experiences, and that your family and others close to you would enjoy reading it. Seniorwriting helps make the task of creating a book from your memories less daunting and more fun.

Fiction

If you enjoy British literature along the lines of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster novels, you might like Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series. Beginning with the book “The Eyre Affair,” the series looks into a world where cloning is real and literature is taken extremely seriously. The series centers on Thursday Next, a woman who is a detective solving literary crimes. English literature, detective work and humor combine in the series, which also includes “One of Our Thursdays is Missing” and “The Woman Who Died A Lot,” to create a popular and fun read.

Fans of Haruki Murakami or other authors who write in both realistic and fantastic genres should know that his latest work, “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage,” is almost out. The book, soon to be released in English, tells the story of the title character, who deals with grief, time travel and dreams that become real. It has already received rave reviews, and sold more than a million copies in its first week of sale in Japan. Booklist calls the novel “Hypnotically fascinating …. a journey of immense magnitude.”

Finally, if you want a good old-fashioned romance, you might turn to Carolyn Brown’s “The Ladies’ Room,” currently a bestseller in the Romance category on Amazon. The story centers on Trudy, a woman who overhears a secret in the church ladies’ room during her great-aunt’s funeral, and her process of rebuilding a home with her childhood neighbor. The relationship that develops between them is at risk because of what Trudy knows – but Romance Reviews Today still says the book is “sure to bring a smile to your face.”

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Pete Blasi