Recommend me a book with a middle aged woman protagonist

[AlyssumandHelianthus]

I want to feel inspired and hopeful after I read it!
Fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe was a good one in this line.

All Fun and games until someone loses an eye by Christopher brookmyre.

Sue Townsend. Rebuilding Coventry. Amazing.

Would you take some late 70s women? The thursday murder club books.
fantasy - jacky Leon is 40 or a bit over in the Jacky Leon books.

Ooh! Thank you! I haven't read very many of these.
I've read the Thursday murder club books, but I would take over 70s women :-)

Diary of an Ordinary Woman was good, it's actually through all different ages but very women-centred and I enjoyed it.

The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year by Sue Townsend. Brilliant and funny x

The Secret gift of Lucia Lemon by Celia Anderson

Miss Ranskill Comes Home, which is published by Persephone. She has been shipwrecked on an island for some years and returns to England during WW2. I thought it was lovely. Persephone have a lot of women focussed stories, it is worth perusing their website.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Penelope Fitzgerald ‘The Bookshop’ ( but it is sad). ‘Offshore’ has a heroine who is definitely not a girl.
Many of Penelope Lively books have middle aged or older heroines, or follow the heroine through her life.

Old Baggage by Lissa Evans.
It's about a suffragette a few years after women got the vote. Its not laugh out loud, but is a lighthearted book.

Lissa was a producer and director for Father Ted.

I've just seen that this is the first in a trilogy, so off to find Crooked Heart and V for Victory!

Most of Anne Tyler's books have a middle aged protagonist. Breathing Lessons is her best by far.

The Walworth Beauty

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

They never learn by Layne Fargo

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

The Keeper of Stories by Sally Page
Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce
A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier

Miss pettigrew lives for a day - oldie but goodie

Yes, I came on here to say this 😊

The Elegant Gathering of White Snows

Another vote for almost anything by Anne Tyler. Ladder of Years is my favorite.

An older one but The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim is about a group of women of various ages. It was partially inspired by the same destination as the Hotel Portofino TV series.

The Vera books by Anne Cleeves

Pretty much anything by Isla Dewar

"A Thousand Ships" by Natalie Haynes.
It retells the story of the Trojan war from the perspective of the women. I wouldn't usually go for books on ancient/mythical stuff but I absolutely loved this one. The women were well-written and felt so real. I felt very connected to them across the divides of reality/fiction, now/then, here/there.
I particularly enjoyed reading Penelope's (wife of Odysseus) accounts.

"Bitter Orange" and "Unsettled Ground" by Claire Fuller are also excellent. Not necessarily 'middle aged' women I don't think but women in their 30s trying to keep shit together. Fabulous books.

Mrs Dalloway. Read it when I was a teenager and hated it. Read it again this year (now 43) and loved it.