‘Both a deeply personal reflection and an elegantly philosophical navigation of the transitions, changes, and challenges of growing older, The Middlepause is written with candour and cosmopolitan wisdom. Benjamin draws on a wide variety of sources from life and literature to illuminate her own experience and amplify its impact, making this book an essential companion for women who want to journey forward with grace and confidence.’
Caroline Baum, Booktopia
‘Emotionally honest.’
Tom Gatti, New Statesman
‘We are not supposed to beguile, we the middle-aged women. But with The Middlepause, Marina Benjamin does that: she beguiles and entrances with a lyrical, thoughtful, erudite, and always lucid exploration of the middle years of her life, and what they mean to her, and what middle-aged women mean to society.’
Rose George, author of The Big Necessity
‘Beautifully written and so thoughtful, The Middlepause made me think about fleeting time and what is important to me. I couldn’t put it down.’
Amy Jenkins, author of Honeymoon and creator of This Life
‘Intimate, open-hearted, clever and kind, this book is a companion which, by naming the shadow fears, finds the truer gold.’
Jay Griffiths, author of Kith
‘A candid and beautifully written “wrinkles and all” meditation on the middle years with all their dilemmas and challenges … [Marina Benjamin] seeks a new vision of how to be middle-aged happily and harmoniously without sentiment or delusion.’
Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
‘Deeply moving and gorgeously written ... Marina Benjamin leads us on a journey into the heart of age-ist darkness, then upwards into a light of self-understanding as she faces that most difficult of all challenges — not death but getting old.’
Margaret Wertheim, author of Pythagoras’ Trousers
‘A 21st-century meditation on middle age … The Middlepause is erudite, with a lengthy list of notes and ideas for further reading, but it is also personal – part memoir, part unflinching travelogue through the unsettling physical and mental challenges of the menopause … Honest and uplifting.’
FT
‘Lucid and sophisticated … A restrained but wonderful guide to the convulsive changes of 50 and over … This is a book that yields valuable insights on almost every page.’
Melissa Benn, The Guardian
‘A candid look at what it means to be 50 today … Warm, wise and beautifully written.’
Good Housekeeping
‘Benjamin has conjured something philosophically poised and poetic from an unlikely subject, as much about the sanctuary of place and coming to terms with time, seasons and life’s cycles, and all rendered with clarity and calm.’
Saturday Age
‘An honest mid-life reflection … In this elegantly written, extended essay, [Marina Benjamin] explores what it means to have lived for half-a-century, and contemplates what may be left in perhaps another half-century.’
The Jewish Chronicle
‘A personal meditation on the losses and gains of facing the middle years … [Marina Benjamin] offers hope and heart to others facing the same life transition.’
Irish Examiner
‘Benjamin combines personal experience with more objective scientific and historical accounts of ageing … Elegantly written.’
Prospect
‘This is a measured and beautifully written critique of menopause and middle age that pre-, mid-, and postmenopausal women will find eminently relatable, and that those who love and care for them will likewise appreciate.’
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
‘Benjamin takes us into her inner world — it’s instructive, and very moving.’
William Leith, Evening Standard
