The Middlepause: on turning fifty - Hardcover

'Women do a lot of things to mark turning fifty. Go to a resort! Have a bang-up party! Far, far better: read The Middlepause.' Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman 'Emotionally honest.' -- Tom Gatti New Statesman 'This tender and thoughtful book calls for an 'invisible revolution' in our attitudes to women's ageing. In a deeply personal meditation Benjamin places body knowledge and luck alongside grieving and family history; intimate reflection with literary exemplar; communion with ghosts sadly close to the painful real. The Middlepause is a wise, lucid and beautiful plea for more candid discussion of the time-wrought transformations of the female body.' -- Gail Jones, author of A Guide to Berlin 'We are not supposed to beguile, we the middle-aged women. But with The Middlepause, Marina Benjamin does that: she beguiles and entrances with a lyrical, thoughtful, erudite, and always lucid exploration of the middle years of her life, and what they mean to her, and what middle-aged women mean to society.' -- Rose George, author of The Big Necessity 'Beautifully written and so thoughtful, The Middlepause made me think about fleeting time and what is important to me. I couldn't put it down.' -- Amy Jenkins, author of Honeymoon and creator of This Life 'Intimate, open-hearted, clever and kind, this book is a companion which, by naming the shadow fears, finds the truer gold.' -- Jay Griffiths, author of Kith 'A candid and beautifully written "wrinkles and all" meditation on the middle years with all their dilemmas and challenges ... [Marina Benjamin] seeks a new vision of how to be middle-aged happily and harmoniously without sentiment or delusion.' -- Caroline Sanderson The Bookseller 'Beautifully composed and intensely sympathetic, The Middlepause: On Turning Fifty is wry, personal and intimate, while still being something of a road map for others.' -- Viv Groskop The Sunday Telegraph 'Both a deeply personal reflection and an elegantly philosophical navigation of the transitions, changes and challenges of growing older, The Middlepause is written with candour and cosmopolitan wisdom. An essential companion for women who want to journey forward with grace and confidence.' Caroline Baum, Booktopia 'Deeply moving and gorgeously written ... Marina Benjamin leads us on a journey into the heart of age-ist darkness, then upwards into a light of self-understanding as she faces that most difficult of all challenges - not death but getting old.' -- Margaret Wertheim, author of Pythagoras' Trousers 'A 21st-century meditation on middle age ... The Middlepause is erudite, with a lengthy list of notes and ideas for further reading, but it is also personal - part memoir, part unflinching travelogue through the unsettling physical and mental challenges of the menopause ... Honest and uplifting.' FT 'Lucid and sophisticated ... A restrained but wonderful guide to the convulsive changes of 50 and over ... This is a book that yields valuable insights on almost every page.' -- Melissa Benn The Guardian 'Benjamin takes us into her inner world - it's instructive, and very moving.' -- William Leith Evening Standard 'A candid look at what it means to be 50 today ... Warm, wise and beautifully written.' Good Housekeeping 'Benjamin has conjured something philosophically poised and poetic from an unlikely subject, as much about the sanctuary of place and coming to terms with time, seasons and life's cycles, and all rendered with clarity and calm.' Saturday Age 'An honest mid-life reflection ... In this elegantly written, extended essay, [Marina Benjamin] explores what it means to have lived for half-a-century, and contemplates what may be left in perhaps another half-century.' The Jewish Chronicle 'A personal meditation on the losses and gains of facing the middle years ... [Marina Benjamin] offers hope and heart to others facing the same life transition.' Irish Examiner 'Benjamin combines personal experience with more objective scientific and historical accounts of ageing ... Elegantly written.' Prospect 'This is a measured and beautifully written critique of menopause and middle age that pre-, mid-, and postmenopausal women will find eminently relatable, and that those who love and care for them will likewise appreciate.' Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In a society obsessed with living longer and looking younger, what does middle age nowadays mean? How should a fifty-something be in a world ceaselessly redefining ageing, youth, and experience? The Middlepause offers hope, and heart. Cutting through society's clamorous demands to work longer and stay young, it delivers a clear-eyed account of midlife's challenges. Spurred by her own brutal propulsion into menopause, Marina Benjamin weighs the losses, joys and opportunities of our middle years, taking inspiration from literature and philosophical example. She uncovers the secret misogynistic history of HRT, and tells us why a dose of Jung is better than a trip to the gym. Attending to ageing parents, the shock of bereavement, parenting a teenager, and her own health woes, she emerges into a new definition of herself as daughter, mother, citizen and woman. Marina Benjamin suggests there's comfort and guidance in memory, milestones and margins, and offers an inspired and expanded vision of how to be middle-aged happily and harmoniously, without sentiment or delusion, making The Middlepause a companion, and a friend.