Reading can open us and prepare us for multiple life paths and stages such as old age, even before reaching an advanced age. There are fiction and non-fiction books written or starring older people that allow us to obtain different perspectives on this group, often made invisible by the mainstream and cultural industries. Next, we review the 6 books that we should all read before reaching adulthood.
Anna Freixas summarizes in I, old woman the three fundamental principles that should govern the lives of older people: freedom, justice and dignity. This book focuses on the rights that this new generation of older women must demand to preserve their dignity and vitality. The author sets up a series of “survival notes”, highlighting the daily situations of rejection and discrimination that this social group has to face.
Centenarian Allan Karlsson escapes from the residence on his birthday. The coincidences of fate cause him to acquire a suitcase with millions of crowns in cash while he tries to escape. Thus begins this fun work by Jonas Jonasson, a hymn to the pleasure of living, freedom and rebellion, through the adventures of a character with a lot to say who has turned the country upside down.
Javier Yanguas describes the aging of the population as one of the greatest challenges of our society. Steps towards a new old age is a book that addresses a new way of understanding maturity, the need to adapt our lifestyles and coexistence between generations or the fight against problems such as isolation and unwanted loneliness.
The Old Man and the Sea is already an Ernest Hemingway classic. This novel with fantastic overtones tells the story of an old Cuban fisherman who enters the waves of the Gulf to face the toughest battle of his life against a giant fish.
In Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez traces the story of unrequited love between Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza. Misfortune and melancholy intermingle with the happy springs of this novel with mythical and legendary points, about lovers who manage to overcome the passage of time.
Himmler’s Cook is an acid novel that has the great events of the 20th century as a backdrop. The protagonist of it is the owner of a restaurant in Marseille who, at 105 years of age, breaks the taboo of sexual desire in old age. The men in her life and the thirst for revenge against her enemies are the main plots of this work by Franz-Olivier Giesbert.
