Here are 64 books that The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village fans have personally recommended if you like
The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village.
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As one of Australia’s bestselling observational comedy authors, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to write about the fact that I’ve recently become my parents’ go-to expert on just about everything. From solving technological dilemmas to coaching through society’s ever-changing correctness and reminding them to eat their greens, the elders in my life have inspired me to look at the funny side to aging, and to explore how a middle aged child sometimes crosses over from being helpful to just plain interfering.
Okay, so this book is predominantly about the struggles of a boy going through puberty but its depiction of the magnetic older characters of Bert and Queenie in the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home are among the funniest scenes in the book.
Of every book I’ve ever read, it remains one of the most hilarious and if you’ve read it previously, it’s well worth another visit.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I prefer stories of older characters, who, instead of saying “my best years are in my past,” choose new paths of self-discovery. I see these late-life transformations as quiet odysseys. Because, as we age, we grow more and more invisible. We lose our loved ones, our physicality, sometimes our memories. But then, when is there a better time to become a hero than when you are on the cusp of losing everything? Each of these books explores characters who start new journeys in later life. They find self-worth again, or maybe even for the first time. Now THAT is a good story.
Ah, the first sentences, “Ove is fifty-nine. He drives a Saab.”
Ove’s story is written without excessive embellishment (and I’ll admit that I often enjoy books with rich and poetic language), but it is so impactful. Backman’s economy of language supports the adage of ‘actions speak louder than words.’
Ove is on a path of self-discovery. He begrudgingly becomes immersed in his community; the grumpy old man becomes an unlikely hero. I saw my grandfather in this stoic character, both stern and unwittingly funny. Supporting characters are so well developed, that I saw in them, too, people I know—my immigrant neighbor, my mother suffering from Alzheimer’s...
A Man Called Ove, feels real. It is a believable portrayal of kindness in this world, when we need it the most.
'A JOY FROM START TO FINISH' - Gavin Extence, author of THE UNIVERSE VERSUS ALEX WOODS
There is something about Ove.
At first sight, he is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots - neighbours who can't reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d'etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents' Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets.
I do not have bipolar disorder like my father did and other relatives do, but have dealt with OCD, anxiety, and depression off and on from age thirteen forward. Throughout my (and my father's) mental illness journey and in the course of writing WWMF, countless hours have succumbed to the duties of researching and exploring bipolar and other mental illnesses. I am not a medical expert but I do think my compass and intentions point true on bringing light to these realities of life. If you disagree with my selections, commentary, or something you find askance in WWMF, please tell me! We all learn from discussion and dialogue.
Though her style has always struck me as danger-close to tabloid and disjointed, nobody ever said those traits couldn't result in coffee-through-nostrils hilarity and knockout via punchline.
Fisher's particular brand of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll certainly didn't help with her bipolar management. All the same, her unhinged lifestyle did deliver a bevy of dramatic and somewhat instructive anecdotes.
She captures the chaos with such wit and bite in Postcards from the Edge and Shockaholic, but if you have to choose just one book, go with Wishful Drinking.
In WISHFUL DRINKING, Carrie Fisher tells the true and intoxicating story of her life with inimitable wit. Born to celebrity parents, she was picked to play a princess in a little movie called Star Wars when only 19 years old. "But it isn't all sweetness and light sabres." Alas, aside from a demanding career and her role as a single mother (not to mention the hyperspace hairdo), Carrie also spends her free time battling addiction, weathering the wild ride of manic depression and lounging around various mental institutions. It's an incredible tale - from having Elizabeth Taylor as a stepmother,…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As one of Australia’s bestselling observational comedy authors, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to write about the fact that I’ve recently become my parents’ go-to expert on just about everything. From solving technological dilemmas to coaching through society’s ever-changing correctness and reminding them to eat their greens, the elders in my life have inspired me to look at the funny side to aging, and to explore how a middle aged child sometimes crosses over from being helpful to just plain interfering.
Quirky, original, and featuring very engaging characters, this very funny read has the added bonus of being set in a fascinating location – India.
Exploring the quirks of falling in love later in life, this book is part holiday from hell, part love story, and full of heartwarming anecdotes that will sound very familiar to a lot of readers.
Now a major motion picture starring Jude Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith.
When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the…
I’m Heather Smith and I love writing. I love Accounting and AccounTech. I gratefully sit at the Ikigai inflection point, where my profession, passion, vocation, and mission intersect, and I can use my explanation skills to empower others in the accounting industry. Ikigai is a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living. Believing Accountants don't save lives, Accountants save livelihoods; I use my superpower of explanation to educate the accounting profession about accounting technology and modern accounting practices. I do this through many channels including my latest book Xero for Dummies, 5th edition.
This book provides entrepreneurs with a practical, user-friendly guide to understanding their businesses' numbers. Being a Chartered Accountant, I often see entrepreneurs who have the drive, ideas, and passion for their businesses, but fall short when it comes to the numbers. I recommend this book to anyone who is working to create a business they love but needs a little help with the numbers. With no jargon, and easy-to-follow guidance, you'll discover how you can grow your business.
Break free from the 'time for money' treadmill and build a business that works for you!
Too many business owners work too many hours for not enough pay. They don't have time or the energy for family, friends, hobbies and relaxing. If they don't work, they don't get paid. You may think you own a business but, if these points ring true for you, chances are you actually own a job.
In The Profits Principles Steven Briginshaw draws on his vast experience as a chartered accountant and business mentor to show exactly what you need to do to...
I'm a shameless people-watcher. There's nothing I like better than sitting in a cafe, or an airport, or on a bus, and observing the people I see (and yes, I admit, eavesdropping on their conversations). What are they wearing and what does it say about them? Who are they with, and what's their relationship? What are they saying to each other - and what are they not saying? So it's not surprising the most important element of a book for me is the characters, and my favourite characters are women who are a little bit different, who don't fit the mould - because you just never know what they'll do.
I love a good page-turning thriller, but to keep my interest, there has to be more than thrills and spills – I want characters I care about too.
The heroine here, unusually, is a teenage girl, who’s funny, smart, and stroppy, but at the same time vulnerable and scared. She teams up with a nosy elderly lady who proves to have hidden depths and as they find themselves in a terrifying situation and tackle some seriously bad villains, I was rooting for them all the way.
'FAST PACED AND GRIPPING BUT WITH A HEART OF PURE GOLD' HARRIET TYCE 'BEGINS AT THE SPEED OF A RUNAWAY TRAIN ... PROPULSIVE PAGE-TURNER' VASEEM KHAN 'GO RUBY! WHAT A HERO!' FIONA ERSKINE
It takes a village to save a child in this pulse-pounding standalone thriller from the acclaimed author of The Man on the Street.
It wasn't her dad they were after. It was her.
Ruby Winter is surprised when her reclusive father invites a stranger into their house. She eavesdrops on their conversation and is alarmed when she hears a fight break out. She dashes into the kitchen…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I'm a British author, a USA Today bestseller, scribbling stories since I was 13 but became a published author in the 1990s when I was 40 with a retelling of the King Arthur legend set in the post-Roman 5th century. I then wrote two novels concerning the pre-Norman Conquest era, and am currently writing a cozy mystery series set in the 1970s. I also love tall ships and the sea, particularly the Golden Age of Piracy (diverse subjects, I know!) I enjoyed the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, wanted to read something similar – fun, fantasy, and for adults, but couldn’t find anything... so wrote my own.
Maybe not a 'murder mystery' in the typical sense of Agatha Christie, but this is a delightful, cozy read, ideal for an afternoon snuggled before a blazing fire (wine and chocs to hand) or for lazing on a sunny beach (plus wine – maybe not the chocs). As someone living in a small Devonshire village I look forward to our annual summer show (hopefully without a corpse hidden anywhere!) I thoroughly enjoyed the rural background of this delightful little tale. Don't take the murder-to-solve element too seriously, instead, enjoy the lives of charming and quirky English Cotswolds’ characters, and the events that unfold around them in this, the first, of a highly enjoyable series. We need more entertaining cozy mystery novels like this series!
When Sophie Sayers inherits a cottage in a sleepy English Cotswold village, she's hoping for a quieter life than the one she's running away from.
What she gets instead is a dead body on a carnival float, and an extraordinary assortment of suspects.
Is the enigmatic bookseller Hector Munro all he seems?
And what about the over-friendly neighbour who brings her jars of honey? Not to mention the eccentric village shopkeeper, show committee, writers' group and drama club, all suspiciously keen to welcome her to their midst.
If you love M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, you'll…
I freely admit to reading romances―"Nurse Janes," as one of my teachers used to call them―whenever I need a break from heavier material or just from life. While I have some favorite authors (who doesn't?), I do not limit myself to any particular era or style of romance. To me, romance has many shades and flavours, and I enjoy them all. Believe you me, choosing just five to recommend was no piece of cake.
I was pleasantly surprised at how sweet and truly romantic Will North'sWater, Stone, Heart turned out to be. I wandered lazily through the Cornish countryside with the main character, meeting quirky locals, becoming fascinated by the mystery of the artist who had settled in a seaside village. And at the conclusion I felt comfortably satisfied. A lovely read. Who says men can't write romance?
Forty year-old Nicola Rhys-Jones is a woman in hiding. Fleeing an abusive husband, she finds refuge in Boscastle, a village on the rugged coast of Cornwall, England. Andrew Stratton is an American professor of architectural theory. Shocked out of his academic bubble when his ambitious wife leaves him, he signs up for something tangible: a course in the art of stone wall-building—in Boscastle.
From the moment they meet, Nicola and Andrew are attracted to each other, but at daggers drawn. Nicola, sexy yet sarcastic, is an expert at fending off men. In Andrew, she meets her match: quick-witted, funny, yet…
When I start a new book, my aim is to write something completely different from what I’ve written before. It’s challenging, but also important to keep things fresh. To me, a blank slate before each story is thrilling. To start with nothing, and end with something wholly original. This Never Happened, my third book, began with a feeling we’ve all had before: the feeling of not belonging. I asked myself, “What if I really didn't belong here, but was meant for somewhere else entirely?” From there, I created a character who grows increasingly unsure of his own identity and reality, themes that are also present in my selection of books below.
A man is driving to some oceanside cliffs to end his life. On the way, he stops for a night at a B&B in a small fishing village. He meets a girl, who has disappeared in the morning, and the man thinks, “What the heck. I’ll just stick around here and pretend I’m the girl’s boyfriend (who no one in the village has met before) and wait until she returns.” The villagers grow increasingly suspicious (about everything, it seems) and the man is soon caught in an uncontrollable deception of his own making.
This is a really odd, really well-written Gothic tale by an author I’d never heard of (who doesn’t seem to have written anything before or since), but I picked it up because its vagueness intrigued me. It’s the interplay of the main character trying his best to pretend he’s someone he’s not, for reasons even he’s…
A gothic tale of dark longings and fragile fantasies 'I used to look across the street from my window through the windows of others, but none faced me directly so I could never see more than thin slices of rooms. People appeared from time to time, like pearl divers, briefly coming back to the surface for a breath of air...I was in love with life after dinner, beyond windows that weren't mine, of people I didn't know' As a young man drives hard through the night to reach the sea, he is stopped by the harsh wind and by a…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
As a cozy-style mystery writer, I get to live in a world where I know that everything will work out as it should in the end. I look for this in the books that I read and recommend. Do they give the reader something interesting to ponder as they go along with the sleuth (amateur or “real detective)? My father was a police captain, and I grew up looking at things through the eyes of “the law”, I admit. Most people find comfort reading about a small town where nothing will go too wrong. The bad stuff and the bad people are kept at arm’s length, and all is well.
Written in the style of M.C. Beaton, this book is a perfect English murder mystery.
The idea of a village fete itself has always been alluring to me. I put myself in the story and I’m right at home in the village and celebration at Berrywick House. I blame my British DNA. As in any good cozy, the most irritating member of the community ends up dead, and no exception here.
The main character, Julia, is not only concerned with a murder—or two, but she’s also afraid their peaceful village will be forever ruined. Like all great amateur sleuths, she gets involved. Bird paints a picture of a perfect English village. Add a dog, her Labrador, Jake, and well, sign me up.
Julia Bird can’t wait to attend the annual village party at the local stately home, with its tea tents, cake stalls, and… dead body in the maze?
The annual village celebration at Berrywick House is underway, complete with over-decorated cake stalls, fiercely contested flower competitions, and even a maze for the disappointed losers to hide in. Julia Bird, now a well-known – even notorious – member of the community, with her trusty Labrador Jake, has thrown herself headlong into the festivities. But her reputation for adding drama to any event stands up yet again when she discovers a dead body…
