Here are 100 books that Midlife Bites fans have personally recommended if you like
Midlife Bites.
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One of the best parts of reaching middle age (with all the scrapes and scars of the forty-year trip) is admitting that the mess of life is what makes life pretty damned fun. I’m an expert on little but have a whole lot to say. I love reading stories about people being themselves, figuring out what it means to grow and change, and screwing up along the way. I believe the disaster of admitting I’m a mess has been the journey of a lifetime. We’re all just getting from one point to another in the best way we can—imperfections. I’m here to throw a party for the blips along the way.
As a new inductee to midlife, I was excited to read the funny tales of this book. As I age, I feel like a new member of a club that I didn’t necessarily want to be a part of. I didn’t mean to register or apply, but here I am. The author of this book would certainly commiserate because here she is, too.
We are both navigating what it’s like to be in a body that’s older in years than we feel. Likewise, we understand what it means to have a new generation become the louder voice in the room. Navigating aging is a wild ride, and it’s nice to have bedfellows as messy as me punching tickets for the seat next to me.
If nothing else, we can swap stories about creaking knees and complain about gas prices until we reach our destination. I love the humor and naked…
A laugh-out-loud spin on the realities, perks, opportunities, and inevitable courses of midlife.
Laurie Notaro has proved everyone wrong: she didn't end up in rehab, prison, or cremated at a tender age. She just went gray. At past fifty, every hair's root is a symbol of knowledge (she knows how to use a landline), experience (she rode in a car with no seat belts), and superpowers (a gray-haired lady can get away with anything).
Though navigating midlife is initially upsetting-the cracking noises coming from her new old body, receiving regular junk mail from mortuaries-Laurie accepts it. And then some. With…
One of the best parts of reaching middle age (with all the scrapes and scars of the forty-year trip) is admitting that the mess of life is what makes life pretty damned fun. I’m an expert on little but have a whole lot to say. I love reading stories about people being themselves, figuring out what it means to grow and change, and screwing up along the way. I believe the disaster of admitting I’m a mess has been the journey of a lifetime. We’re all just getting from one point to another in the best way we can—imperfections. I’m here to throw a party for the blips along the way.
I loved this book so very much because it’s honest, raw, and so funny. I think that most of us can agree that life is both beautiful and brutal. It’s okay to admit that even the best of times can be rife with bullshit. The events leading up to some of my best memories were disastrous. The author gets that and unabashedly tells her embarrassing, uncomfortable, cringe-worthy, tragic stories.
I felt seen and in good company when reading it. Here’s the thing: I relished cackling over the stories of Ellis and her people because they felt familiar—they felt like my people. Ellis is the funny one in her friend group. I am the funny one in mine. I feel she and I could get into some real trouble together. Even better? We could co-write a killer essay in the aftermath.
The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with a viciously funny, deeply felt collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women.
When Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids; lost parents and lost jobs; powdered onion dip and photographs you have to hold by the edges; dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year; and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women…
One of the best parts of reaching middle age (with all the scrapes and scars of the forty-year trip) is admitting that the mess of life is what makes life pretty damned fun. I’m an expert on little but have a whole lot to say. I love reading stories about people being themselves, figuring out what it means to grow and change, and screwing up along the way. I believe the disaster of admitting I’m a mess has been the journey of a lifetime. We’re all just getting from one point to another in the best way we can—imperfections. I’m here to throw a party for the blips along the way.
Reading this book was like curling up on my best friend’s sofa, a cheap glass of wine in hand, ratty sweatpants snugged around my legs, and an old episode of Sex and the City playing in the background. The overall tone feels like a reel from my head, and I have had to remind myself so often that the author isn’t a close friend.
I love being so engrossed and connected to a work that I feel like I know the main players personally. Realizing that other people think, obsess, and critique how I do was reassuring in more ways than I can describe. I love the conversational tone of this book because it’s light and easy in the best way possible.
DON’T MISS PHOEBE ROBINSON’S COMEDY SERIES EVERYTHING’S TRASH—NOW ON FREEFORM!
New York Times bestselling author and star of 2 Dope Queens Phoebe Robinson is back with a new, hilarious, and timely essay collection on gender, race, dating, and the dumpster fire that is our world.
Wouldn't it be great if life came with instructions? Of course, but like access to Michael B. Jordan's house, none of us are getting any. Thankfully, Phoebe Robinson is ready to share everything she has experienced to prove that if you can laugh at her topsy-turvy life, you can laugh at your own.
One of the best parts of reaching middle age (with all the scrapes and scars of the forty-year trip) is admitting that the mess of life is what makes life pretty damned fun. I’m an expert on little but have a whole lot to say. I love reading stories about people being themselves, figuring out what it means to grow and change, and screwing up along the way. I believe the disaster of admitting I’m a mess has been the journey of a lifetime. We’re all just getting from one point to another in the best way we can—imperfections. I’m here to throw a party for the blips along the way.
I realize I have said this before (probably in this list), but there are not enough words to describe how much I adore this book. I will die on the hill that has me saying, “Ali Wong is the very best at all things funny.” I am obsessed with the sardonic tone, matter-of-fact truths, and the hilarity throughout the tome written for the comedian’s daughters.
I love how the book covers all the need to know from start to finish about being a woman, being someone you like, being a working mom, and, well, just being. Wong tells it like it is in letters to her girls and, in the process, lets the rest of us know, too. The book is undeniably funny, which is a must for me, but I like that it is also vulnerable in places. I learned lessons, tore up, and felt empowered in equal parts…
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Heartfelt and hilarious essays from the Emmy and Golden Globe Award–winning actress, star of the Netflix original series Beef, and two-time member of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year list
“A collection of letters to her baby girls that are barn-burning reflections on being a working mom, marriage, sex, and more. If you’ve ever wanted to have Ali Wong’s signature voice in your head for 200-plus pages, now’s your chance.”—Glamour
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Variety, Chicago Tribune, Glamour, New York
I love to make people laugh and cry and I love to read novels like this too, as I find they reflect life’s ups and downs so well. I like to read books that take me by the hand into a character’s world and leave me with more compassion and understanding towards the human race. As well as my novel called Are My Roots Showing?, I have done lots of stand up comedy and have some funny films on my YouTube channel (search Karola Woods) that I hope you can enjoy too. I studied physical theatre, mask and clown at Jacques Lecoq Theatre School in Paris.
This is a chatty and intimate fly-on-the-wall book look at everyday things through the lens of aging and mortality.
Nora Ephron makes the bittersweet mix of chattiness and philosophy seem so easy. The engrossing, snippet-write-ups of her friends, family, and career in New York give you a vivid snapshot into her heart and soul.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Here is the beloved, bestselling author of I Feel Bad About My Neck at her funniest, wisest, and best, taking a hilarious look at the past and bemoaning the vicissitudes of modern life—and recalling with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn’t (yet) forgotten.
In these pages she takes us from her first job in the mailroom at Newsweek to the six stages of email, from memories of her parents’ whirlwind dinner parties to her own life now full of Senior Moments (or, as she calls them, Google moments), from her greatest career flops to her…
As I’ve reached middle age, I’ve found that many books about this period are about trying to regain lost youth or the hardships that aging can bring. I want to read more books about women who have lived through some things and are more powerful (and funnier!) because of it. In my writing, I try to highlight the stories of women with a little bit of history behind them and show that a long life–if we’re lucky–is also a full one. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
Family life doesn’t get easier as you age. Having older parents and young adult children who all need something from you can be exhausting. Throw in your own changing body and a well-seasoned marriage; even a week in Cape Cod can’t fix it all.
This book is funny, sad, and slightly too realistic. (It's especially so since the daughter in the book has the same name as my daughter!) But reading can give a different perspective, and reading really great writing can give you something else altogether.
Discover the joyful summer read from the bestselling author of WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS, perfect for fans of Marian Keyes and Nora Ephron
'Sandwich is joy in book form. I laughed continuously, except for the parts that made me cry. Catherine Newman does a miraculous job reminding us of all the wonder there is to be found in life.' ANN PATCHETT, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake
'A holiday reading gem for summer' STYLIST
'Funny, wise, poignant and beautifully written' NINA STIBBE, author of Love, Nina
As many of my novels are set in Japan, I try to read as many Japanese authors as I can. Firstly, they offer great insight into the Japanese psyche and Japanese culture, and secondly, they are extremely enjoyable reads. My main series is the Reiko Watanabe/Inspector Aizawa novels, crime thrillers set in 1930s Japan, and while only one of these books takes place during that era, I feel they all provide a great springboard into Japanese crime fiction, a genre that hopefully gains more notoriety in the West.
One of the best Japanese crime novels, this is the story of four women trapped in suburban hell, seeking to escape their empty lives. When one of them murders her husband in a fit of rage, they collude to dispose of his body, gradually sinking into a criminal netherworld.
I loved it for its crisp and taut prose, solid and relatable characters, dense and fast-paced plot, and heavy themes of urban isolation and aimlessness.
Winner of Japan's Grand Prix for Crime Fiction • Edgar Award Finalist • Nothing in Japanese literature prepares us for the stark, tension-filled, plot-driven realism of Natsuo Kirino’s award-winning literary mystery Out.
This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot’s ringleader, but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning,…
I wholeheartedly believe that embracing your geeky side is an important part of life and self-discovery. When romance novels incorporate nerdiness, it gives characters (and therefore readers) the ability to understand themselves and what they want on another level, and to gain the courage to pursue what they want. I know that my own forays into TTRPGs, LARPing, Ren Faires, and other such interests have helped shape me as a person. I’m more confident and embodied because I embrace my inner geek, and I want that for my characters and my readers, too. That’s why I want to read and write as many of these stories as possible!
RPGs and romance novels are two of my greatest passions in life, and this book perfectly combines the two. It’s not often that a book feels so realistic and relatable and yet swoony and exciting at the same time, but this book nails the combination.
And bonus points for featuring more mature characters and for integrating the families so expertly. Both main characters are walking green flags, which is so refreshing!
From Cathy Yardley, author of Love, Comment, Subscribe, comes an emotional rom-com about two middle-aged gamers who grow their online connection into an IRL love story.
Maggie is an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit. But when her college-aged son makes her a deal―he’ll be more social if she does the same―she can’t refuse. She joins a new online gaming guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So that nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch.
Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an emotional outlet from his family drama caring for his aging mother while…
I wrote my first romance with >40 characters in my mid-forties. It wasn’t like I never saw people of my age in the genre, but I have to say they were (and are) still rare, especially in traditionally published books. I love to see how people navigate what partnership looks like when people are established and their conflicts and experiences have changed. Elder care, relationships with adult children, fighting age-related stereotypes and discrimination: these are just a few of the nuances that set these types of books apart. But you still get that delicious well of emotion and the satisfaction of a happy ending.
This book is a celebration of many things: embracing your visible markers of age, seeking a new kind of relationship with an adult child, and the fabulous music of the 80’s and 90’s.
Any person from Generation X will absolutely see pieces of themselves and their friends in the characters in this book. Originally college friends, our couple finds themselves both back in New York and via a series of missteps and then some forced proximity (not only do they have to work together, they have to work for his daughter), they fall gloriously in love.
“Get ready to embrace the force that is Lela Bennett in this sassy, funny romance that will suck you in right from the first wedding crasher moment!” –Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Avery Flynn
Everything went wrong. And then she went gray.
At 47, newly divorced makeup artist Lela Bennett is dreading her next steps. Dating. Meeting people. Not letting herself go. But then she runs into Donovan James and tries something different—sleeping with her sexy crush from college. Unfortunately, in a post-orgasm stupor, Lela confesses she was in love with Donovan all those years ago. He…
My novel Nourishment is loosely based on stories I was told about the war by my parents who lived through it. My mother was a firewoman during the Blitz and my father was in Normandy after the D-Day landings. They married during the war. I wish now I’d written down the stories my parents used to tell me. There was always humour in their stories. My parents could both see the absurdity and the dark comedy that can sometimes be present in wartime situations, especially on the home front, and I hope some of that comes through in Nourishment.
Patrick Hamilton has a wonderfully simple and direct style, and is always utterly compelling, no matter if he’s writing about ordinary people going about their daily lives. This wartime novel seems to happen a long way from the war itself, though it is set in Maidenhead, which was far enough away from the capital to be thought safe for evacuees. We spend our time with a wonderfully cliquey and gossipy set of boarding house tenants who constantly compete with each other and have their own little wars and conflicts. Like many of Hamilton’s novels it has a theatrical quality, reading it is almost like watching actors performing on a stage. Indeed, one of the characters is an actor, and theatre provides a note of redemption in this beautifully bleak novel.
As World War II drags on, the lonely Miss Roach flees London for the dull but ostensible safety of a suburban boarding house in this comically rendered “masterpiece” from the author of Gaslight (The Times Literary Supplement)
England in the middle of World War II, a war that seems fated to go on forever, a war that has become a way of life. Heroic resistance is old hat. Everything is in short supply, and tempers are even shorter. Overwhelmed by the terrors and rigors of the Blitz, middle-aged Miss Roach has retreated to the relative safety and stupefying boredom of…
