The team at Kessingland Library share some of their favourite stories featuring older main characters. Browse our staff picks and pick up a copy from your local library.
Want more suggested books? Take a look at our recommendations or explore more of the National Year of Reading campaign.
The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared
Jonas Jonasson
Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn’t want to begin. His one-hundredth birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not…
Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police.
As his escapades unfold, Allan’s earlier life is revealed. A life in which – remarkably – he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.
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How To Age Disgracefully
Clare Pooley
Daphne knows that age is just a number. She also knows that society no longer pays her any attention – something she’s happy to exploit to help her hide a somewhat chequered past. But finding herself alone on her 70th birthday, with only her plants to talk to and neighbours to stalk online, she decides she needs some friends.
Joining a Senior Citizen’s Social Club she’s horrified at the expectation she’ll spend her time enduring gentle crafting activities. Thankfully, the other members – including a failed actor addicted to shoplifting and a prolific yarn-bomber – agree.
After a tragic accident, the local council threaten to close the club – but they have underestimated the wrong group of pensioners – and with the help of a teenage dad and a geriatric, orphaned mongrel, the incongruous gang set out to prove it.
Mrs Harris goes to Paris
Paul Gallico
Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth London charlady who cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich. One day, when tidying Lady Dant’s wardrobe, she comes across the most beautiful thing she has ever seen in her life – a Dior dress. In all the years of her drab and humble existence, she’s never seen anything as magical as the dress before her and she’s never wanted anything as much before.
Determined to make her dream come true, Mrs Harris scrimps, saves and slaves away until one day, after three long, uncomplaining years, she finally has enough money to go to Paris. When she arrives at the House of Dior, Mrs Harris has little idea of how her life is about to be turned upside down and how many other lives she will transform forever.
Always kind, always cheery and always winsome, the indomitable Mrs Harris takes Paris by storm and learns one of life’s greatest lessons along the way.
Elizabeth is Missing
Emma Healey
‘Elizabeth is missing’, reads the note in Maud’s pocket in her own handwriting. Lately, Maud’s been getting forgetful. She keeps buying peach slices when she has a cupboard full, forgets to drink the cups of tea she’s made and writes notes to remind herself of things.
But Maud is determined to discover what has happened to her friend, Elizabeth, and what it has to do with the unsolved disappearance of her sister Sukey, years back, just after the war.
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Jesse Q. Sutanto
Self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective’ work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).
But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things.
Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands – Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Kathleen Rooney
She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy s to become the highest paid advertising woman in the country. It was a job that, she says, in some ways saved my life, and in other ways ruined it.
Now it s the last night of 1984 and Lillian, 85 years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party. It s chilly enough out for her mink coat and Manhattan is grittier now her son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowl but the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily.
On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak, illuminating all the ways New York has changed and has not.
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout
Olive Kitteridge is a complex woman. Described by some as indomitable and by others as compassionate, she herself has always been certain that she is absolutely right about everything. A retired schoolteacher in a small coastal town in Maine, as she grows older she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life.
Through different narratives, telling the triumphs and tragedies of those around her, and spanning years, Olive’s story emerges. We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and a young man pained by loss – whom Olive comforts by her mere presence, while her own son feels overwhelmed by her sensitivities.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Rachel Joyce
When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other.
He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else’s life.
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman
Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots – joggers, neighbours who can’t reverse a trailer properly and shop assistants who talk in code.
But isn’t it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so?
In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible…
Travels with My Aunt
Graham Greene
Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at what he supposes to be his mother’s funeral.
Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, his dahlias and the Major next door to travel her way, Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay.
Through Aunt Augusta, a veteran of Europe’s hotel bedrooms, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society: mixing with hippies, war criminals, CIA men; smoking pot, breaking all the currency regulations and eventually coming alive after a dull suburban life.
The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club
Faith Hogan
When Elizabeth’s husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, the only person she can turn to is her friend, Jo. Soon Jo has called in her daughter, Lucy, to help save Elizabeth from bankruptcy.
Leaving her old life behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start. As life slowly begins to return to normal, these three women, thrown together by circumstance, become fast friends. But then Jo’s world is turned upside down when she receives some shocking news.
In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish Sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. As well as conjure a fundraising plan for the local hospice that will bring the whole community together.
The Busy Body Book Club
Freya Sampson
The members of St Tredock Book Club disagree on everything, from the books they read to the biscuits they eat. For book club organiser Nova Davies, who’s new to the Cornish seaside village, the digestive vs shortbread debate is just the start of her problems.
Under Nova’s watch, £10,000 is stolen from the much-loved community centre. When book club member Michael disappears and a dead body turns up at his house, it seems clear who the perpetrator is. But the book club has their own theories.
Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael’s been framed, while romance fanatic Arthur believes there’s a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi reader Ash thinks dark forces are at play. Meanwhile, Nova’s just trying to keep them out of trouble. Soon the book club becomes very busy indeed.
Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love
Marianne Cronin
Eddie Winston waited all his life for the love of his life to leave her unhappy marriage. She never did. Now in old age as a volunteer in a charity shop sorting out donations from the living and the dead, Eddie discovers a stash of unsent love letters.
He resolves to track down and hand them to the person for whom they were intended. Meanwhile, Bella, a spiky young woman overcoming her own private tragedy, decides it is Eddie Winston himself who deserves to finally find love.
As Bella helps Eddie and Eddie helps, well, everyone, an astonishing, soul-stirring story unfolds, of how opening your heart can lead to unexpected friendship, fulfilment and finding yourself.
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