The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg

A midlife fiction book recommendation

When I read a novel, I want to learn something about life, especially in the second half.

The Year of Pleasures is about a recently widowed 55-year-old woman, and there’s so much wisdom in the story. Here’s one: about halfway through, one of the characters tells the widow to try to do one thing every day just for her own enjoyment. The widow says she already does that. “Every night I count my blessings.”

The friend says, “I’m not talking about things that happen to you. I’m talking about things you make happen. I’m talking about purposefully doing one thing that brings you happiness every single day, in a very conscious way. It builds up your arsenal…” Isn’t that a smart piece of advice for life in general?

Here’s another: “I saw in a way I never had before the beauty and diversity of our earnest labor on the earth, and also our ultimate separateness. This helped my pain metamorphose into something less personal and more universal and natural…” 

“Still, every now and then a quick thrill raced up my spine in the form of a thought: I am my own again. Sorrow that lay pooled inside me gave over to a kind of exhilaration in those moments; the relief was stunning.” 

“You think you get used to death in the dying. But after the dying is done, you see how the end is the beginning.” 

“Perhaps my ‘job’ now was to learn what I needed to learn. John (her late husband) and I had often talked about how focused our culture was on distraction, about how ill suited we were to staying with things, following them through in a respectful and thorough way…” 

“It came to me how necessary the near presence of others was in keeping me civilized and sane; I could see how quickly I might become a woman gnawing a chicken leg over the kitchen sink for her dinner.” 

“But did you ever notice how after you look at art for a long time you come out onto the street and see only art?” (an argument for making more time for galleries and art museums). 

“He’d appreciated…manual labor, saying he like to do work that was outside his head, for a change.” 

And lastly: “It’s true that when someone you love dies, part of you dies, too. And then you must be reborn. And many people were reborn; they suffered through their pain and emerged victorious: their love for the lost one revered but put away, their lives now open to a separate course.” 

This is a great read because it’s empowering. The underlying message is one of hope; although the main character is flattened by grief (and she describes existential loneliness so well), she decides to value her life and keep going. I loved this book and was excited to return to it each night. You can see it on Amazon here.