Walking with Beth

Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend

De: Merilyn Simonds

Narrado por: Merilyn Simonds

Merilyn Simonds's Walking with Beth allows us to eavesdrop on two women, one already a centenarian, talking frankly about what scares us all: growing old. It's a book with a unique take on longevity, full of wisdom, tenderness, joy and the passions that sustain a very long life.

In the spring of 2021, Merilyn Simonds asked her friend Beth Robinson if she’d like to go for a walk. Simonds had just turned 70, still active, still writing, but entering what struck her as a mysterious, even frightening stage of life. Beth, a smart, vibrant woman who’d held a job until she was 99, lived on her own and was as awake to the world as a person half her age. Who better to ask what might come next?

During three years of weekly walks, the conversation between the two women only deepened, as they opened up about their heartfelt passions, the lingering influence of their pasts, and their hopes and fears for the future.

In Walking with Beth, Simonds shares these intimate exchanges, delving into corners of older women’s lives that are rarely seen or spoken about so openly. As Simonds looks forward into a future that seems unknowable, Beth looks back, offering her experience in surviving the later-life blows that batter us all, and more importantly, her wisdom about how to enrich every passing day.

©2025 Merilyn Simonds (P)2025 Random House Canada

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Merilyn Simonds’s gentle, lyrical prose is like a whispered invitation into the most intimate of friendships—that between women of one generation and the next. Each remarkable in her own right, these two women fearlessly, yet tenderly, broach the satisfactions, fears, joys and even humour of aging. A wonderful contemplation." —Michelle Good, author of Five Little Indians