100 books like The Wild Oats Project

I love this memoir because Leslie Morgan is a wise, funny, articulate, sex-positive, feminist BFF, who shares her emotional and sexual journey in the year after divorce and before turning 50 with pride rather than shame as she renounces the drab ex-wife role, dresses alluringly, and dates wildly.

Writing about sex and dating can be a cliché-ridden minefield, but Morgan enlivens the highs, lows, and middles with metaphors that resonate and invite you into the scene. And it’s not just about sex – it’s about the emotional truths that she learns along the way as she demonstrates an enjoyable way for older women to reclaim their sexual mojo and feel valued as an older woman. 

Delightful sexuality in a senior community! What better place to celebrate the different ways that women over 60 can enjoy a happy sex life—with themselves, men, women, or supernatural beings—than in a retirement community during the Pandemic lockdown? 

Stella Fosse skillfully and delightfully weaves stories of confident older women isolated in their cottages, alone or with partners, who know or discover what they want sexually, and find ways to pleasure themselves or others. Although residents are only allowed to wave at each other during their daily masked and distanced walk around the grounds, the more adventurous ones find ways to connect.

The stories all come together and culminate in a joyful post-pandemic unmasking at a romantic ball. Very sweet and positive!  

I love this anthology by women over fifty because it offers such a wide range of truths about our experiences with sex and intimate relationships.

More than fifty essays and poems cover a variety of honest reflections on the exquisite, the good, the not-so-good, and the challenging parts of older women relating sexually to men, to women, and to themselves.

Feelings expressed range from the ambivalence, disappointment, and ecstasy of dating, to the pleasures of being single, to the joy of long-term sex and commitment, to the acceptance of the sometimes sudden movement between these states. Can be read in one or two delicious gulps! 

I recommend this hot and sexy collection of erotic fiction and memoir because for me it doubles as a source of arousal and a mesmerizing glimpse of the range of sexual activities that seniors (mostly hetero, some lesbians, some gay men) imagine and carry out.

From the slow sex of long-term lovers, to hand jobs offered despite arthritic hands or carpel tunnel, to the variety of ways married couples orchestrate hot love-making, to the pleasure of “in-the-meantime” lovers, these stories sizzle and burn. They expand our view of what is sexually possible as we age, and provide an inspiring and stimulating bedside reference for singles and couples of all ages.

To be savored one story at a time, not gulped down as a whole. 

I wanted to read this because the title made me think, "Yes, I want to know what it's like to be in someone else's shoes." And...yes, this delivered. I really enjoyed the journey that Nisha and Sam go on, swapping places. Along with the other supporting female characters, what I read felt so feminist and empowering.

As a reader, I marveled at all of the subtle messages we were given about what it means to truly support other women. This all came in a very fun, entertaining, and page-turning book! Loved!

Despite the title, I think that any gender can draw something from this book. It is the sequel to her phenomenally successful book “How to be a woman”, which quite frankly changed my life and made me decide to have children. This new book can be read as a stand-alone and charts Caitlin’s thoughts on her late 30s and 40s. It begins with her usual hilarious and irreverent tone, speaking about the pressures put on you by children, parents, work, best friends, basically everything. It suddenly becomes very serious in a way I didn’t expect though, and the message of balance is one that is important for anyone to read in this way. I rarely say this and mean it but… it made me laugh and it made me cry.

Jane Fallon does seriously good messed-up families. I’ve read most of her books, but particularly enjoyed this one – the characters aren’t all likeable by any means, but the set-up is great and you’re desperate to find out how things will be resolved. Helen has been having an affair with a married man, Matthew, for four years when he suddenly turns up on her doorstep, announcing he has left his wife and twin daughters; the timing is unfortunate because Helen has just decided she wants to dump him. Rather than doing the sensible thing and knocking the relationship on the head, Helen goes rogue and ends up befriending Matthew’s wife and getting off with his grown-up son (she’s his age, and initially doesn’t know they’re related). Not surprisingly, chaos ensues.

Even though this book has an element of girl-meets-guy-in-Paris, I included it under the title of ‘books set in France that go beyond the rom com’ because it was so refreshing to read about a woman of a ‘certain age’ who comes into her own during a stay in Paris. The protagonist struggles with real-life issues, not the usual Emily-in-Paris dilemmas. Cram knows Paris like the back of her hand and deftly titillates all the senses with her food-inspired passages.

Can a woman be true to herself and her ideals, even while living a lie?

I felt this was the intriguing question posed by the novel Younger, which inspired the popular TV series from Darren Starr starring Sutton Foster. I loved both the book and the series with its personable main character and charming premise.

Recently single Alice desperately needs a job. But nobody wants to hire a forty-something divorcee who’s been out of the workforce for years. With help from her best friend, youthful-looking Alice poses as a millennial and lands a job at a publishing house, where she thrives. Masquerading as a younger woman is filled with excitement and romance but also with peril, and I enjoyed the unexpected complications Alice encountered during her quest to reinvent herself. 

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… show more.