by Liz Byrski
Belly Dancing for Beginners
Gayle and Sonya are complete opposites: one reserved and cautious, the other confident and outspoken. But their very lives will converge when they impulsively join a belly dancing class.
Marissa, their teacher, is sixty, sexy, and very much her own person, and as Gayle and Sonya learn about the origins and meaning of the dance, much more than their muscle tone begins to change.
Food, Sex & Money
It’s almost forty years since the three ex-convent girls left school and went their separate ways, but finally they meet again.
Bonnie, rocked by the death of her husband, is back in Australia after decades in Europe, and is discovering that financial security doesn’t guarantee a fulfilling life. Fran, long divorced, is a struggling freelance food writer, battling with her diet, her bank balance and her relationship with her adult children. And Sylvia, marooned in a long and passionless marriage, is facing a crisis that will crack her world wide open.
Together again, Bonnie, Fran and Sylvia embark on a venture that will challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves – and give them more second chances than they ever could have imagined.
Gang of Four
She had a husband, children and grandchildren who loved her, a beautiful home, enough money. What sort of person was she to feel so overwhelmed with gloom and resentment on Christmas morning?
They have been close friends for almost two decades, supporting each other through personal and professional crises – parents dying, children leaving home, house moves, job changes, political activism and really bad haircuts.
Now the ‘gang of four’, Isabel, Sally, Robin and Grace, are all fifty-something, successful … and restless.
NON-FICTION FROM LIZ BYRSKI
Getting On: Some Thoughts on Women and Ageing
Published as an ebook by Momentum Books
Why are we so obsessed with staying young?
In a culture that advocates the pursuit of endless youth and physical beauty how can we embrace the reality, the pleasures and the rewards of getting on? And what does the ‘fight against ageing’ mean when all women must eventually face the double-standard of ageism and sexism?
Once past fifty, older women begin to sense that they have become invisible. From the visual displays in the mall to the pages of magazines and the television screens at the heart of our homes, young women with perfect skin, bouncy, enhanced breasts, pouting lips, long straight hair and perfect teeth gaze down on us.
The ageing population is traditionally viewed as a problem; a drain on financial resources, health, housing and community services and a burden on younger generations. But living longer and living well are the triumphs of a civilised society. It is also the future that all generations want for themselves.
Can we change the conversation on ageing? Getting old is tough, but it’s also an opportunity to celebrate how far we have come and to shape a different future. In this essay, Liz Byrski examines the adventure of growing old in the twenty-first century: the new possibilities, the joy and the sorrow of solitude, the reality of grief and loss and the satisfaction of having travelled so far.
First published 2014 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Liz Byrski 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781743518281
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group
Cover design by Nada Backovic
Cover images: Shutterstock, © Jinny Goodman/Arcangel Images
The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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