Book review: Older & Bolder Life after 60

And just like many other times in your life, being older brings its own set of challenges.

It wasn't that long ago that a woman who crossed that threshold of the 60th birthday was considered not "older" but "old", good for nothing but retirement, hopefully living a genteel life, knitting matinee jackets for grandchildren, disconnected from society and waiting for a dignified ending.

For the first time in history women can expect to live for another three decades after their 60s and according to author Renata Singer, the drab existence of the older female is no longer an option for this up-beat generation of women.

In her new book, Older & Bolder Life after 60, Renata demonstrates how the last third of a woman life can be inspiring, productive, joyful and inspirational.

During 2012 and 2013, Renata interviewed 28 women aged between 85 and 100. The women were from varying backgrounds, different economic circumstances, educated and not so educated, widowed and married and with a wide range of life stories.

"If you're 60 and a Japanese woman you can now expect to live the longest, to eighty-seven on average," writes Renata. "For Australian women it's eighty-five; women in the United Kingdom eighty-three; and those in the United States, eighty-one."

One of the things all of the women Renata interviewed had in common was their refusal to sit around waiting for life – or death – to happen to them.

"The women showed me that there is so much more to learn if I'm lucky enough to have those extra years to live," said Renata.

Working, money, living well, sex and remarriage, technology, keeping up appearances and love and loss are all covered in this book which not only gives us a snapshot into the lives of these 28 women, their achievements, fears, goals, life gains and losses, but it calls to all of us, no matter how old we are, and tell us that life is for living. It doesn't stop when we reach a certain age.

However, Renata agrees that ageism is still alive and well, both in our own psyches as well as those of employers and society.

"In the 1950s if you were a woman and worked you were stealing the jobs of male breadwinners. Today if we want to stay working we are adding to youth unemployment," she writes.

Among the extraordinary women, Renata interviewed were former Queensland first lady, Lady Florence Bjelke Petersen; Australia's first celebrity chef, Margaret Fulton; anaesthetist Dr Jean Allison; 100 year-old Dodo Berk, Australia's oldest university graduate; Dr Elisabeth Kirkby and artist Masuko Yamamoto.

Thought provoking, challenging, often funny and poignant, Older & Bolder Life after 60 is a must read for all women (and men) who are approaching or have passed that milestone of their 60th birthday.

Renata Singer is a writer, community activist and educator who divides her time between Melbourne and New York. She is a woman who loves to get things done. After working with disadvantaged women, she co-founded Fitted for Work an Australian non-profit that helps women get back into the workforce. She has been a community worker, teacher, a publications officer for Oxfam and a member of the Workcare Appeals Tribunal. She divides her time between New York and Melbourne.

Older & Bolder Life after 60 is published by Melbourne University Publishing and is available from August 1. $34.99 or $14.99 as an E-book, www.mup.com.au