Why am I passionate about this?

As an active senior who seeks outdoor adventures and who cringes whenever I hear someone say, “I’m too old to [fill in the blank]…”, I love both writing and reading books with older characters who believe instead, “You’re never too old.” I’m drawn to stories where older folks defy stereotypes and continue to relish new experiences, especially those involving the things I most enjoy: camping, hiking, and climbing. Toss in some fun and laughter and I’m there! 


I wrote

Book cover of Ellie Dwyer's Great Escape

What is my book about?

Ellie Dwyer, 61, is convinced bad luck comes in threes, and not just garden-variety, oh-well bad luck. How many people…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Trailer, Get Your Kicks!

Diane Winger Why did I love this book?

What a great combination – time travel and an adventure in a classic RV!

In my opinion, this book is the best of Nortman’s fun Time Travel Trailer series, combining suspense, nostalgia, and time travel with a delightful trip down memory lane – or I should say, a trip along the original Route 66.

By Karen Musser Nortman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Trailer, Get Your Kicks! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Lynne McBriar swore her vintage trailer would stay in a museum where it would be safe from further time travel. But when a museum in Texas wants to borrow it, she determines that she must deliver it herself. Her husband Kurt convinces her to take it along Route 66 for research he is doing. What starts out as a family vacation soon turns deadly. Travel can be dangerous any time, but when your trip involves the Time Travel Trailer, who knows where (or when) you will end up?


Book cover of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

Diane Winger Why did I love this book?

This story was beautifully written, remarkable, often amusing, and quite moving.

Lillian is an utterly original elderly woman, and her memories of her fascinating and unique life experiences from the 1930s through the 1980s form the basis of this outstanding novel. Witty, charming, vibrant, and moving.

I couldn’t help but cheer her on as she walked through the streets of New York and brought me along on her journey through memories of her life.

By Kathleen Rooney,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NOW A NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER

A love letter to city life in all its guts and grandeur, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.

“In my reckless and undiscouraged youth,” Lillian Boxfish writes, “I worked in a walnut-paneled office thirteen floors above West Thirty-Fifth Street…”

She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy’s to become the highest paid…


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Book cover of The Complete Eldercare Planner: Where to Start, Which Questions to Ask, and How to Find Help

The Complete Eldercare Planner by Joy Loverde,

Trusted for more than three decades by family caregivers and professionals alike, this comprehensive and reassuring caregiving guide offers the crucial information you need to look after your elders and plan for the future.

Being a caregiver for aging parents, close friends and family, and other elders in your life…

Book cover of Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Diane Winger Why did I love this book?

Although I had read this classic many years ago, I decided to revisit it recently and found it even more enjoyable this time around.

Steinbeck’s real-life journey across America drew me into an older era in America and brought a fresh and immersive experience to the reader. Charley, the poodle, was an absolute delight.

By John Steinbeck,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked Travels with Charley as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers

To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light-these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.

With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the…


Book cover of A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Diane Winger Why did I love this book?

This is probably the funniest book I’ve ever read. Who knew hiking the Appalachian Trail could be so hilarious?

These true-life adventures – no, better to describe them as misadventures – will delight everyone from experienced hikers to weekend warriors to armchair adventurers. If you need a lift to your day, this is the book to pick up.

By Bill Bryson,

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked A Walk in the Woods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of "Notes from a Small Island" and "The Lost Continent" comes this humorous report on his walk along the Appalachian Trail. The Trail covers 14 states and over 2000 miles, and stretches along the east coast of America from Maine in the north to Georgia in the south. It is famous for being the longest continuous footpath in the world. It snakes through some of the wildest and most specactular landscapes in America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas.


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Book cover of I Am Taurus

I Am Taurus by Stephen Palmer,

The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.

Each of the sections is written from…

Book cover of So Long, Chester Wheeler

Diane Winger Why did I love this book?

This story is a gem.

Young Lewis is a believable and relatable character and the aging Chester Wheeler is a classic curmudgeon (at first). Their highly unusual cross-country journey in an old RV is an absolute delight, with both the young man and the old man demonstrating that age is not a barrier to friendship and personal growth.

By Catherine Ryan Hyde,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked So Long, Chester Wheeler as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Unlikely road trip companions form an unexpected bond in an uplifting novel about the past-lost and found-by the New York Times and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author.

Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he's roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn't need the aggravation, just the money. The only requirements: run errands, be on call, and put up with a miserable old churl no one else in Buffalo can bear. After exchanging barbs, bickering, baiting, and pushing buttons, Chester hits Lewis with the big ask.

Lewis can't…


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of Ellie Dwyer's Great Escape

What is my book about?

Ellie Dwyer, 61, is convinced bad luck comes in threes, and not just garden-variety, oh-well bad luck. How many people have to flee not one, but two natural disasters? In between the wildfire and the hurricane, her husband of nearly forty years suddenly left her for no reason she could fathom, disappearing from her life without a clue to his whereabouts.

Determined to reinvent her life, Ellie sets out on a journey across the country. Along the way to nowhere in particular, she buys a camper, becomes friends with a remarkable octogenarian, and starts to believe that good luck might also come in threes. Or does it? That depends on how she defines good luck.

Book cover of Trailer, Get Your Kicks!
Book cover of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Book cover of Travels with Charley: In Search of America

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