Oldster Bookshelf #8

Readers,

Welcome to the 8th edition of The Oldster Bookshelf.

This edition includes ’s spotlight review of The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by , published last month, as well as an interview I recently did with Philyaw.

The First Lady Freeman review, the Philyaw interview, and all of the book listings are down below, past this set of reminders. ⬇️

Please keep these caveats about The Oldster Bookshelf in mind:

• I will likely not have read most of the books I feature in Oldster Bookshelf. I have only one brain, and it is very busy editing Oldster and . I will have read descriptions of the books, which have come to me via the authors and their publicists, or people other than the authors recommending them to me, or via the ether.
• I will not be able to feature or respond to everyone who emails me at the submissions email, oldsterbookshelf@gmail.com. I will feature only those books that sound like they’ll be of interest to Oldster readers. Please be understanding about this.
• Please be patient, as I will only be able to feature a limited number of books per installment. If your book isn’t in this edition, it’s possible it could show up later. But I cannot go back and forth about it over email, or even respond to most emails. I am too busy with everything else I’m publishing. Thank you for understanding.
• Scroll to the bottom of this post for instructions on submitting your book for consideration. ⬇️
• Check out the whole series…

Oldster is a lot of work and runs on , and pays essayists, interviewers, and reviewers. You know what to do…

Spotlight Review of The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw

by

If I can be so bold as to make a proclamation for 2026, it’s that: This is the year women shed shame.

The proclamation “Shame must change sides” should be every woman’s rallying cry.

This from Gisèle Pelicot’s experience being repeatedly drugged and raped with her husband making the arrangements, detailed in her memoir, A Hymn to Life. Then there’s Belle Burden suffering financial abuse from a husband concerned with only his bank account in Strangers. And even Lena Dunham’s recounting of all she endured as a young woman in the entertainment industry in Famesick. There’s no shortage of women being (incorrectly) shamed out there as a method of control.

Deesha Philyaw’s debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, is the perfect companion novel to ALL of these true life stories.

First Lady Freeman, Sharisse, is married to an older, very successful pastor of a mega-church in Georgia. She has a life that is filled with “blessings”—a beautiful daughter, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, a fulfilling sex life and a closet-full of gorgeous clothes. However, the biggest thing she wants, or thinks she wants, is to belong in the esteemed world of the First Ladies of the Black mega-churches across the South. The vehicle to get there? Be asked to participate, and then to win the First Lady USA Pageant.

The problem with this desire is her background and upbringing. She is from the wrong side of town. She grew up with no father and a mother who tragically passed away when she was a teenager. The aunt who raised her (with love BTW) had substance abuse issues. Her best friend growing up is a spiritual, but religion-less lesbian. And so on. No amount of earning a degree at Yale University, starting her career in New York City or doing every good deed she can find was ever going to overcome that in the eyes of the church ladies.

This book goes on to take you on a WILD ride full of twists no one could predict. And at its heart, there’s this poor woman, who just wants to belong. And to shed the shame she’s been assigned by small-minded people, who honestly strike me as being scared of losing their own little patches of power. It’s a story of love and value and what it means to fit in, which is eye-opening to these characters. Plus, the twists and turns fly at you to the very last page.

The Gods of book-timing really knew what they were doing with this one. Perhaps this is the year, the era, the time to stand up and lob the shame back to the small-minded, judgemental men and women who inflict it. Or be inspired by the women who do exactly that.

This concludes Lisa Marsh’s spotlight review of The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman.

An interview with The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman author Deesha Philyaw…

by

I’m a big fan of Deesha Philyaw’s body of work. With satirical humor and great humanity, she casts a jaundiced eye upon the Black church and the ways its dynamics affect women, and their relationships to one another.

I loved both her satirical new novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman—which to me felt sort of like a Black, feminist cousin to The Righteous Gemstones on HBO but with more to say—and her 2020 short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies—which won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and was a Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award.

I’m also a fan of Ursa Story, Philyaw’s short-fiction-focused podcast with , produced by Longreads founder and Oldster contributor .

I had a nice chat with Philyaw (who, by the way, took The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire in 2022). And you can watch our conversation about the book here. ⬇️

Alright, with no further ado, I give you the eighth edition of the Oldster Bookshelf, with something for just about everyone. Under each cover image is the author’s preferred buy link.

The Oldster Bookshelf #8:

The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia by Robert Kolker

Published by September 29th by Doubleday

“From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road comes the heart-wrenching journey of a family facing an unthinkable destiny, whose flawed genetic code might hold the long-sought key to a cure for dementia.

In the idyllic American town of Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania, there lived a family with nine siblings, the youngest a girl named Barb. As the older children headed off to college and started their lives, only Barb was home to see their beautiful, still-young mother fall under a gothic spell, changing into someone she didn’t recognize: withdrawn, neglectful, uncaring. Thus begins The Vanishing Family, journalist Robert Kolker’s heartbreaking follow-up to his beloved Hidden Valley Road. This family, we learn, has a genetic mutation that causes dementia, but with an especially cruel twist. As early as their forties, formerly loving parents and hard-driving executives will lose their jobs, have affairs, take up drinking—shed all inhibitions and sense of responsibility—and become people their families hardly know. Their former personalities seem to vanish—and there is a fifty-fifty chance that it will happen to their children, too.

The Vanishing Family unfolds with dramatic intensity as the siblings begin to realize that what happened to their mother is happening to them: first one, then two, three, four, and more begin to change. Sue, in search of a calling, finds her place in caring for the others. Barb sets out to find a cure. Alongside their story, Kolker weaves in the dramatic scientific fight against dementia; after decades of blind alleys, this family’s rare form of FTD (frontotemporal dementia) might lead to a breakthrough in the prevention and treatment of all dementia—including the scourge of Alzheimer’s disease. Moving, intimate, unexpectedly hopeful, The Vanishing Family is an enthralling narrative about one family’s fate, and a medical detective story that speaks to all of us who fear losing ourselves at the end.”

Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy by Kerry Kennedy

Published October 13th by HarperOne

“When her husband Robert F. Kennedy was killed in 1968, Ethel Skakel Kennedy—then pregnant with their eleventh child—drew national attention for her grace, dignity, and resolute commitment to furthering his work in human rights, even in her grief. But as her daughter Kerry witnessed, Ethel was so much more than a dutiful wife and keeper of Robert’s legacy of service. She was courageous, curious, compassionate, boisterous, and witty, always guided by faith and an instinct for speaking truth to power.

Kerry delves into her own memories, her family’s recollections, and her mother’s private papers, describing: Ethel’s family’s journey from a working-class Chicago background to life in tony Greenwich, Connecticut; Ethel’s fairytale romance with Kerry’s father RFK—a courtship that inspired a Taylor Swift song half a century later; How the bold, athletic Ethel quickly became “more Kennedy than the Kennedys”; The years on the famed family properties in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and the Hickory Hill estate in Virginia, where Kerry and her ten siblings grew up amidst presidents and politicians, Olympians and Hollywood stars, and a rambunctious menagerie of pet animals; Moments of pain and loss—RFK’s death just five years after that of his brother; and the tragic deaths of two of Kerry’s siblings; Ethel’s unflagging commitment to global human rights causes that carried on through the decades

Co-written with Maryanne Vollers, Ethel Kennedy inspires us to reject cynicism and to live bigger and bolder. The book includes 24 pages of color photographs.”

Switzy: A Novel by Emma Cline

Published September 8th by Random House

“A mesmerizing portrait of an aging man’s last pilgrimage, from the award-winning author of The Girls and The Guest.

A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.

A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable. This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.

His final destination is Zurich. David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.

As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving.”

Ed. note: I feaking loved this book. - SB

Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger

Published October 6th by Hanover Square Press

From the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife. “Alba DeTamble has never lived a life in order. Born with the same rare Chrono-Displacement Disorder as her father, Henry DeTamble, Alba is an involuntary time traveler: she slips unpredictably through decades, carrying the weight of a future she can witness but cannot change. Yet she strives to maintain a normal life: as a gifted violinist, Alba finds refuge in her music, as well as her tight-knit community of artists and activists who fight to take care of each other in an increasingly unstable world.

As she dips in and out of time, Alba is haunted by secrets she must keep from those she loves most, including Zach, her safe, supportive anchor in the chaos. Her journey takes her from the riot-torn Chicago streets, to the eerie, timeless “Yellow House” – where she meets Oliver, a handsome fellow time traveler – to the digital corridors of the Museum of Lost Souls, a virtual sanctuary of forgotten memories and lost artifacts. Curating the museum is Isadora, Alba’s mysterious stepsister and an increasingly unsettling presence in their family – whose fate may be intertwined with Alba’s in more dangerous ways than she knows.

At once intimate and sweeping, Life Out of Order is a kaleidoscopic tale of love, resilience, and hope amid our fractured world where time itself is the greatest adversary. With every leap through the years, Alba is forced to reckon with the choices that define her, the people she cannot bear to lose, and the question that haunts every time traveler: can you ever truly belong to the present?”

POW! When UK Punk Went Pop by

Published August 18th by Trouser Press

“POW! is the fascinating memoir of a precocious English teen in the early 1980s who published a music magazine, interviewed many of the era’s top artists, befriended rock stars, ran a record label, appeared on television, played in a band and found first love—all at the same time.

In this sequel to his Boy About Town (2013), Tony Fletcher‘s incredible adventures in the world of British post-punk make for a compelling adventure of highs (an exclusive interview with Paul McCartney, friendship with Paul Weller of the hugely successful Jam, playing to huge audiences, discovering love and sex) and lows (heartbreak, learning the financial challenges of running a label the hard way, the collapse of his band). Despite the passage of time, he summons up all the enthusiasm he felt for the music and women he loved and marvels at the incredible experiences he had as a hard-working young striver.

The generation raised on MTV, the New Musical Express and bands like Madness, Wham!, the Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Killing Joke will love reading this inside view of a knowledgeable fan who got to know them all.”

Tony Fletcher wrote “Older and Slower, but Smarter and Stronger” for Oldster.

That May Not Mean What You Think: Stories by

Published in April by North Western University Press

“A visionary and profound new collection from innovative author Elizabeth Crane.

Throughout her body of work, Elizabeth Crane’s literary vision has always been singular and innovative, twisting form and bending reality into new universes. Her latest collection, That May Not Mean What You Think, explores themes of aging and youth, gender and discrimination, and sex and love.

In ‘Training Module,’ Crane takes the structure and protocol of workplace harassment prevention training and turns it on its head; ‘The Box’ tells the story of a woman trying to recover from divorce with the help of a literal unicorn; and ‘The Youngs’ follows a group of teenagers experiencing loss for the first time, clinging to the belief that they’ll live forever. Across these delightfully weird and disarmingly truthful stories, American culture is refracted through humor and heart, asking readers to consider their complicity and to imagine new possibilities of participating in a better future.”

Elizabeth Crane wrote “Portrait of an Old Lady” for Oldster, and took the Sober Oldster Q&A.

Bread of Angels: A Memoir by

Paperback published September 15th by Random House

“‘God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper,’ writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. A post–World War II childhood unfolds in a condemned housing complex where we enter the child’s world of the imagination. Smith, the captain of her loyal and beloved sibling army, vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises, and searches for sacred silver pennies.

The most intimate of Smith’s memoirs, Bread of Angels takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave, and Easter.

She leaves it all behind to marry her one true love, Fred Sonic Smith, with whom she creates a life of devotion and adventure on a canal in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Here, she invents a room of her own, a low table, a Persian cup, inkwell and pen, entering at dawn to write. The couple spend nights in their landlocked Chris-Craft studying nautical maps and charting new adventures as they start a family.

A series of profound losses mark her life. Grief and gratitude are braided through years of caring for her children, rebuilding her life and, finally, writing again—the one constant in a life driven by artistic freedom and the power of the imagination to transform the commonplace into the magical, and pain into hope. In the final pages, we meet Smith on the road again, the vagabond who travels to commune with herself, who lives to write and writes to live.”

The Mother-In-Law Book Club by

Published October 13th by Dutton

“On the plane to Durham for her next big gig, traveling consultant and soon-to-be divorcée Andi gets into an argument about the impossible expectations of mothers-in-law that will change her life forever. When her seventy-something adversary unexpectedly extends an olive branch invitation to her book club, Andi does something completely out of character: she says yes.

This social circle is delightfully feisty, gossipy, and also hopelessly clueless about how to navigate frayed relationships with their adult children. Andi spends evenings doling out advice to her new coterie of retired friends, helping to repair generational divides.

As the weeks and months go by, Andi has a quiet revelation: life in Durham just fits. The book club members love her, the company loves her, and after a whirlwind romance with a handsome professor, she’s fairly certain her new beau loves her, too. It’s all going great . . . until her past comes walking through the door. Andi must decide what happiness really looks like–and she just might need the wisdom of her new friends to figure it out.”

The Cost of Care by

To be published October 27th by Algonquin

“From the New York Times bestselling author of The Shift, this richly drawn portrait of four nurses in four different sectors of our broken healthcare system reveals where solutions are actually possible—to make care about people rather than profits.

Theresa Brown worked as a oncology nurse for years before finally burning out, but instead of leaving the healthcare system behind entirely, she set out to find places where it’s actually working. She embedded with nurses in four key areas of care that cover the human lifespan—a maternity center in Pittsburgh, a primary care facility in Portland, an elder care home in Denver, and hospice services in the midwest and in Connecticut—and came back with gripping, and often deeply moving, on-the-ground stories of patient-centered care. Taking us into the daily lives and the exhausting yet rewarding shifts of these four practitioners, Brown gives readers a rare window into what kinds of healthcare facilities are actually doing things well, taking care of patients, keeping things affordable, and supporting staff.

Even as the system feels like it’s crumbling around us, Brown reveals scalable solutions and reminds us that there’s still hope—all through the eyes of the people we know keep the whole thing running: nurses.”

Narcissi: A Novel by Babette Fraser Hale

Published October 15th by Winedale Publishing

“Cole Burnett, a Texas novelist, is the kind of man whose need for freedom should send lovers running in the opposite direction. But he has a lanky charisma and the gift of listening, rare enough at any time. The women he encounters in Narcissi, a novel-in-stories, find his attention compelling, and they all get hurt, or cause hurt. But hurt is never the whole story.

Each woman brings her own complicated life into her time with Cole, conflicts with husbands, traumas survived, needs postponed, children. And children grow up with questions. Burnett understands that loneliness compels him toward the women he meets—whether in a tavern, like Amelia; or a street dance, like Stephanie; or a hotel event, like Lorna. And others he connects with while working, like Dolly, Elsa, Trish and Gladys.

None of them quite reaches where the loneliness resides, where whatever’s missing pushes him to keep moving, to write more, to find a purpose for his future. Later, after the death threat, traveling becomes a way to stay alive.”

When Things Get Personal: A Philosophical Guide to Conflict by

To be published October 27th by Princeton University Press

“We’re all imperfect. Good relationships require seeing each other through these imperfections—distinguishing what is signal, and what is noise. But sometimes we mistake noise for signal—or worse, signal for noise. And even when we get things right, the other person can be getting them wrong.

In When Things Get Personal, Mark Schroeder shows that the better we can learn to tell the difference between signal and noise in our relationships, the better we can predict and avoid everyday misunderstandings that, if left unchecked, can lead to “discord”—fundamental, sometimes chronic failures to see eye to eye that lead us to take things personally that we shouldn’t, to treat others in ways that they take personally, to abandon relationships that are worthwhile, and to stay in relationships that we’d be better off without.”

More than a MILF: Sex and the Aging Female Body, a nonfiction anthology edited by

To be published October 24th by Off Topic Publishing

“More Than a MILF is the only nonfiction literary anthology in recent years to zero in on sex in relationship to aging female and nonbinary bodies.

A 70-year-old psychotherapist in Australia hires an escort. When he doesn’t give her what she asked for, she emails him to request a refund…A middle-aged woman in Montréal becomes obsessed with the cougars of Tiktok and the young hockey player they are yearning for…A teacher in their fifties reflects on decades of queer sex and concludes that they would rather eat cheese…

Featuring thirty-one diverse writers, this collection both celebrates pleasure and interrogates why so much shame and pain still haunt the terrain.”

The Innocents: The Untold True Story of My Family in The Holocaust by Sharon Ring

Published October 6th by Harper Perennial

“A fresh, unforgettable, and deeply personal true story of World War II, the Holocaust, and the Third Reich that brings to light the vile Nazi policy under which Germans with Jewish ancestry were persecuted and condemned to death—including two young children from an ordinary working-class Christian family whose lives were forever torn apart.

It all started with the discovery of a manuscript, hidden away in a box in a house in Norfolk, England, unread for more than thirty years—a discovery that propelled journalist Sharon Ring to learn more about her mum Edie and uncle Heini and their past. The Innocents is her dramatic and deeply moving account of these siblings and the horrors they endured through World War II and the Holocaust.

Heini and Edie, aged 9 and 5, grew up in Berlin during the Third Reich. Though they were raised as Christian, under the Nuremberg Laws, the siblings were classified as “Mischlinge”—“Michelinge”—hybrid, mixed blood, mongrels because they had two Jewish grandparents. As Mischlinge, they were subject to the same degradations and cruelties as other Jews and were eventually condemned them to death. There were thousands of “Mischlinge” like Heini and Edie across Germany and Europe, yet their tragic experiences within the historical record of the Holocaust have largely remained untold.”

No Red Lights: Reflections on Life, 50 Years in Venture Capital, and Never Driving Alone by Alan J. Patricof

Published in 2022 by Post Hill Press

“One of Business Insider’s ‘5 Best Leadership Books I Read This Year’ for 2022. A look back at entrepreneurial growth and venture capital in the last half century by one of the leading figures in the industry.

Extensive media and online coverage of the business arena, news of start-ups, mergers, and deals are familiar headlines these days. But that wasn’t always the case. The early years of venture capital were a far cry from today’s very public dealings. Alan Patricof, one of the pioneers of the venture arena, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the past fifty years of the industry. From buying stock in Apple when its market valuation was only $60 million to founding New York Magazine to investing in AOL, Audible, and more recently, Axios, his discerning approach to finding companies is almost peerless.

All of Patricof’s investments—from Xerox to Venmo—share certain qualities. Each company had sound product with wide appeal, the economics were solid, and the management team was talented and committed to seeing their visions come to fruition.”

The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers by Micheal Leahy

Published in 2017 by Harper

A spotlight review by Samuel Masket, MD

by

Most typically I eschew reading pure sports related books as they often idolize individual physical achievement while ignoring important personal issues and socio-political events of the time. Not so with The Last Innocents. The title is descriptive of the Los Angeles Dodgers of the 1960s. By most measures they would be considered a very successful franchise during that era, winning World Series titles in 1959, 1963, and 1965 while being competitive in several other years.

However, as a microcosm of the era, there were many issues under the surface that would become manifest in due time. For baseball fans of a certain age, the names of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills, Wes Parker and others will conjure up memories of triumphs on the field. But the author, Michael Leahy, provides a great deal more with respect to the challenges that faced the players both on and off the field in times of social turbulence.

One player in particular, Maury Wills, the shortstop, was considered more than others. Although an accomplished infielder and ultimately a record setting base stealer, he languished for many years in minor league baseball owing to his inability to hit right-handed pitching. Eventually he learned to switch hit, resolving much of his batting problem, allowing him to become a genuine major leaguer and the league’s Most Valuable Player for the 1962 season.

But Wills, as a Black man, was chronically plagued by racism, likely in part due to the insensitivities of the Dodger organization. The team held spring training in Vero Beach, Florida, a highly segregated Southern city. Players of color were greatly limited as to where they could live and dine, as were fans of color limited to very poor seating far down the foul line in the outfield. Furthermore, Wills allegedly had a romantic relationship with a regular Dodger Stadium attendee, Doris Day; the Dodger organization directly discouraged Wills from fostering the relationship.

But racism wasn’t the only challenge that Wills faced annually. As we note today, professional athletes are paid vast sums of money; that was clearly not the case prior to the 1970s as athletes were “owned” by their teams; they could not meaningfully negotiate contracts and had to accept what was offered and only for a single year. Should they refuse the contract, they had no choice but to retire as they could not play for another team without being traded by the owner. This principle known as the “reserve clause” was challenged by Curt Flood, a player for another team, in 1969 and upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1972.

Later, in 1975, it would be stricken down, allowing for “free agency”, giving athletes the ability to bargain with management. But Wills had no such opportunity and the Dodger’s General Manager of the times, Buzzy Bavasi, as the agent for team owner, Walter O’Malley, was a master at “tricking” the players into accepting contracts for far less than their value to the team. Wills, in particular, was vastly underpaid. He was ultimately traded to another team and later developed personal problems related to substance abuse. To their credit, the Dodgers provided assistance for him during his troubled times.

Among other teammates of that era, Wes Parker also proved to be a person of complexity. Born to a well-to-do Los Angeles family residing in posh Brentwood, he had chronic self-doubt primarily owing to a difficult childhood relationship with his father. This issue would plague him chronically until he had an epiphany and realized that playing baseball was his potential savior. He developed a keen work ethic, honed his fielding skills, and became the consensus best fielding first baseman in the history of the game, albeit always plagued by self-doubt. Other members of the team were also characterized and their lives on and off the field analyzed. Without hesitation, Sandy Koufax, considered the most dominant pitcher of his era occupies a good portion of the discussion.

Naturally, as it is a sports related book, the author relates anecdotes of important game losses as well as victories and their heroes. But the book is far more than moments of glory and agony. For baseball fans of a given demographic, the book will educate as well as titillate.

This concludes Samuel Masket’s spotlight review of The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers by Micheal Leahy.

Before Tomorrow: A Memoir by

Published in May by Opal Road Publishing

“At 65, Deb Hazlett sold most of what she owned, bought an Airstream, learned to tow it herself, and set out alone across America. She wasn't chasing a bucket list. She had reached a point where staying still no longer felt like living. What followed was not the adventure she imagined.

There were mechanical failures, mountain passes, storms, lonely nights, unexpected friendships—and the practical realities of learning to live on the road alone. But somewhere along the miles, something else began to change. After a lifetime of looking outside herself for permission, Deb began learning to trust her own voice.

Before Tomorrow is a candid, sometimes humorous memoir about solo travel, independence, aging, and discovering that choosing your own life doesn't come with an expiration date.”

Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World by Ann Tashi Slater and Edith Lutnick

Published in September, 2025 by Balance

“Blending philosophy, family history, spirituality, and memoir, Traveling in Bardo draws on the Tibetan Buddhist idea of bardo—the transitional states of existence—to explore uncertainty and change in friendship and marriage, children and parenting, identity and aging. Located where Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking meets The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, Slater’s debut book illuminates a new path to finding meaning and happiness in an impermanent world.”

“How can we become more accepting of change? … Knowing we may or may not have tomorrow, how can we embrace life fully now? These are the questions that Slater asks and so beautifully answers in Traveling in Bardo.” – from the foreword by Dani Shapiro.

Unbuckled: Poems by

To be published October 20th by University of New Mexico Press

“The third collection from John A. Robertson Award– and Pushcart Prize–winning poet David Meischen, looking at the joys, the struggles, and the contradictions of aging.

In this gorgeous assembly of poems, award-winning poet David Meischen candidly examines how spirit defies both age and time, even when it cannot defeat either. Meischen’s poems investigate the ways sexual desire changes as we age, the grief of losing those close to us, and the oddness that comes with being young in spirit while trapped in a body no longer young. Rooted firmly in the Southwestern desert, these poems also travel to Russia and Germany, carrying a note of urgency in their exploration of a life well lived. Unbuckled is a collection full of vibrancy, hope, and gratitude.”

20 Over 60: An Anthology edited by and

Published October 6th by Regal House Publishing

“As Madeleine L’Engle once observed, “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” In 20 Over 60, editors Beth Weinhouse and David Galef showcase twenty brilliant short stories by authors over sixty—including luminaries such as Paul Theroux, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jane Gardam—offering a wide-ranging portrait of life in later years: vibrant, unexpected, and full of humor, wisdom, and surprise.

Readers will encounter a retired couple whose hobby is stealing peppermills from restaurants, a woman juggling both her husband and ex-husband in the same hospital, a futuristic nursing home whose designers become its unhappy residents, a woman of a certain age navigating the perils of online dating, and a grandfather helping his granddaughter scatter her mother’s ashes.

Smart, skillful, and often hilarious, these stories celebrate the full spectrum of experience, proving that life after sixty is as rich and alive as ever.”

That’s Where You Come In: Poems by

Published October 6th by University of Chicago Press

“A meditation on loss and love.

The poems in That’s Where You Come In address the loss over time of friends and family. And yet several figures return, ghost-like, to make appearances in the speaker’s life: an uncle, a mother, a father, and close friends. Even a favorite dog returns to take the poet out to dinner in the afterlife. Despite the collection’s focus on these losses, the book has a central thread of new love; many of these love poems are set in the urban landscape of New York City, capturing its streets, characters, and institutions.”

The Invisible List: One Passiong a Year, Every Year by

Published September 22nd by Harmony

“Transform hobbies to habits in this guide to pursuing the things you never thought you had time for, right now.

We all have an ‘invisible list’ of things that we say we’ll do when we finally have the time: learn guitar, take up tennis, write a book, plant a butterfly garden. But life—jobs, families, the obligations of being a person—always gets in the way. The Invisible List is a blueprint for making those goals real. And the first step? Giving yourself permission.

From educator and civic entrepreneur Ravi Gupta comes a bold, inspiring approach to resurrecting your passions, no matter how limited your time or money. After realizing that he had stopped doing anything for the sheer love of it, Gupta shifted course and decided to dedicate a full year to becoming competent in one of his long-deferred hobbies. No quitting allowed. It soon became a yearly pursuit that has included taking on screenwriting, surfing, and powerlifting—and has led him to find new friends and a new focus and to discover that he is never too old to learn new things. Drawing on his successes as well as setbacks, Gupta shares how to create and fulfill your own invisible list, introducing concepts like:

• THE LAUNCHPAD: a building-block skill that gets you in shape for more challenging years
• THE ANYWHERE, ANYTIME: an easy-to-access, affordable, and practical pursuit
• THE MENTAL MARATHON: a mind-sharpening hobby that grows your memory
• THE BIG ONE: something that takes a lot of time and resources—not impossible but requires planning
• THE GIVEBACK: an undertaking that builds community, empathy, and relationships

Part memoir, part guidebook, part manifesto, The Invisible List illustrates how to create a life worth living.”

The Card Party and Other Stories by

Published September 8th by High Frequency Press

“Three novellas. Three women. Three lives filled with history and passion. They may be old but they are not done living yet. Despite their traumatic Jewish pasts, the women in these stories-raucous, feisty, outrageous- seize life in an irrepressible bear hug. Rosie from her hole-in-the wall surplus store is girding herself to take on the neighborhood Goliath, Grossman, the Discount King, who dominates with his imposing physical size, power and money.

After eighteen years Martha has prevailed on her husband to bring home his prodigal brother, the one who brought them to the brink of total ruin. As Martha prepares for his arrival she is already plotting how to manage the inevitable family tensions. When Minke dies she refuses to leave the home of her friend Gizi, where she and her gang of five spent four days a week playing gin rummy, eating strudels and gossiping about who was shtupping whom, who was on the verge of bankruptcy, and who of the next generation made good and who had gone to the devil. But even for Minke, the obdurate, time is running out.”

The Traveler’s Path: Finding Spiritual Growth and Inspiration Through Travel by

Published in March, 2025 by‎ Reformed Journal Books

“Travel shapes our identity, from ancient spiritual journeys to the modern movement of people across the globe. In his latest book, Douglas J. Brouwer, a pastor, scholar and lifelong traveler, invites readers to reflect on the profound, transformative power of travel in all its forms.

With over 40 years of pastoral ministry in the U.S. and Europe, Doug shares personal stories from his own life, from childhood road trips to leading mission teams, study tours, and pilgrimages. Whether serving international congregations in Zürich, Switzerland, and The Hague, Netherlands, or walking solo along the Camino paths of Spain and Portugal, his journeys reveal how travel reshapes our understanding of ourselves, others, and the divine.

The Traveler’s Path challenges readers to go beyond tourism and embrace the spiritual dimension of travel. Through his compelling stories, Doug sparks readers’ own memories of travel, or hopes for future travel, making this an ideal choice for individual reading or small-group discussion. Doug also offers readers a free, downloadable discussion guide to help spark spirited conversations.

In these chapters, Doug explores how even the most ordinary trips can teach us humility, foster empathy, and reveal deeper truths about belonging and purpose. Part memoir, part spiritual guide, and part travelogue, this book invites readers to view travel as a sacred act, where every journey becomes an opportunity for transformation. With warmth and wisdom, Doug inspires us to move beyond our comfort zones, reminding us that the road itself can lead us home.”

Douglas Brouwer took The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.

The Great Remembering: Powerful Ancient Practices—And the New Science Bringing Them Back by

To be published October 20th by Author’s Equity

“What if the most powerful solutions for the crises of modern life are actually found …in our past? We see it in headlines, in trendlines, in our own lives: We’ve never been more anxious, more divided, or more lost.

The problem isn’t that we lack solutions. It’s that we abandoned the ones that actually worked. For thousands of years, across every culture on earth, humans built sophisticated “wisdom systems” to meet our deepest needs—rooted in physical challenge, sensory immersion, communal ritual, and belonging. But in our pursuit of progress, we dismantled them.

In The Great Remembering, June Cohen—co-creator of TED Talks and Masters of Scale—time travels across cultures, continents, and centuries to investigate what we left behind: Wisdom systems for communal awe and communal grief. Practices like the sauna, the festival, the epic physical challenge.

What cutting-edge neuroscience, cell biology, and psychology are now confirming is as surprising as it is obvious: These practices weren’t primitive. They were sophisticated solutions to the oldest human problems. And the science is finally proving why they worked.

The mental health crisis. The climate crisis. The crisis of social division. The rise of AI challenging our way of life. At every rupture like this, humans have looked to the past to find their way forward.”

Your Good Death: Why End-of-Life Healthcare Is So Difficult and How to Make it Work for You by Karen Lufty Spencer, PhD

Published September 1st by Regalo Press

"Speaking to readers who are struggling to navigate end-of-life healthcare, Your Good Death presents both personal stories and research-based strategies capable of shaping key questions that could revolutionize the course of their care—even while healthy.

While most Americans say they prefer to die at home, only about a third will experience that outcome. One in four people find themselves caregiving, and the pressures are only increasing as our population ages and healthcare costs rise. Based on a decade of research, Karen Lutfey Spencer shows how our medical and cultural systems have hidden defaults that can conspire to prevent patients and families from having the kind of care they prefer.

Readers will learn about different types of end-of-life care, especially palliative care and hospice, which are too often subject to damaging myths. They will learn how their own knowledge can operate alongside of—not subjugated to—medical expertise. They will gain information about caregiving that can help them lay groundwork in advance of an emergency. Dr. Spencer identifies inflection points where readers can pause and ask themselves key questions, which she helps them articulate. When readers understand the challenges that come with navigating end-of-life healthcare, they and their families will be better able to manage the process.”

To be considered for a future edition of the Oldster Bookshelf, you can email me at oldsterbookshelf@gmail.com with the following:

1. A press release.
2. A brief synopsis of the book.
3. A brief bit on your background as an author and how you came to publish it.
4. A cover image.
5. Your preferred buy link.

***You’ll be making my life easier if you keep it all short and sweet.

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