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The Second Half of Your Life [Paperback]

Jill Shaw Ruddock (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Publication Date: 3 Feb 2011

Whoever you are at this moment, you have a choice. You can believe menopause signals the end or you can make a few small changes to finally become the person you always thought you could be.

In her groundbreaking book, Jill Shaw Ruddock offers answers to the questions women think and care about at this time of their life. ‘The change’ is not just physical but cerebral as well. Although a woman can no longer create life, this is the time when she can give birth to herself.

Drawing on her extensive experience, research and interviews, Jill Shaw Ruddock scrutinises what could be holding you back and provides practical, hands-on advice on how to harness the new-found focus that menopause brings. From money to the mind, dating to divorce, exercise to eating and separation to self-expression, Ruddock’s inspiring book sets out a game plan to prepare and guide you to make the second half of your life the best half.

All royalties generated from sales of The Second Half of Your Life go to The Second Half Foundation(reg no 1141988). This charity has been created by the author to build integrated social and health cares centres in the UK to bring to life the author's "Five a Day". The first centre will open in North Kensington in 2012. It has been selected as The Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea's charity for 2011- 2012.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Vermilion (3 Feb 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0091939496
  • ISBN-13: 978-0091939496
  • Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 21.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 49,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

"This book will make you want to run straight into the arms of menopause, embrace it and get to the best years of your life - no longer a slave to your hormones. Free at last, free at last"--Ruby Wax

"Heralded as one of the most important women's books for a decade. Every now and again, a woman's book comes along that promises to change our thinking forever. Helen Gurley Brown, Germaine Greer, Marilyn French. Now it is the turn of Jill Shaw Ruddock to shake us all up and ask new questions about our lives. A guaranteed best seller"--The Lady

"There is nothing airy fairy about the woman proclaiming the 'fourth wave of feminism'. Her energy and idealism make a formidable combination. If anyone can persuade others that old is to be celebrated it is Jill Shaw Ruddock."--Cassandra Jardine, The Telegraph

"{Ruddock]... has just written a ground-breaking book called, The Second Half of Your Life. Hugely liberating, empowering and transforming.”--Joy Orpen Kanter, The Sunday Independent

"The script for those fruitful years between 50 and 96 needed to be written. My only criticism? That I hadn't written it myself."--Christa D'Souza, Mail on Sunday

"Nora Ephron published I Feel Bad About My Neck, but a new book The Second Half of Your Life, is not a memoir but a self help book aimed squarely at women like me whose ovaries no longer function. Hugely ambitious. We need a book like this"--Mrs Moneypenny, Financial Times

"The Ruddock dynamo has definitely set something in motion. I say to Ruddock,bring on the granny boomers."--The Sunday Times

"The Second Half of Your Life - part self help manual and part scientific treatise. She's great on financial advice and inspiring on her unrelenting optimism on behalf of older women."--Alison Roberts, The Evening Standard

"Inspirational."--Victoria Lambert, Women and Home

"Good news for women. Jill Shaw Ruddock writes an upbeat menopause manual."--The Jewish Chronicle

Book Description

A positive, life-affirming book for women over 50 that encourages them to make the most of their post-menopausal years
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
193 of 211 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars So many rave reviews? 13 Feb 2011
By P A Marshall
Format:Paperback
This is a rather basic book. It's difficult to comprehend the flood of rave reviews about its life-changing nature. And all written within a couple of days?
Curious about this, I clicked on the "see all my reviews" button for the first couple of dozen of the reviewers. Every one of them had only this review to their name.
How likely is it that 47 people who have never reviewed a book on Amazon before will rush to the computer on the same couple of days to write a gushing five-star review for this book? Bear this in mind before rushing to buy.
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54 of 59 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars only applicable if your life is already ok 12 May 2011
By elsie purdon TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
The book as a whole is written like a magazine article.
There are some good bits of information.The sort you already mostly know but have forgotten.
However there are an awful lot of tips and suggestions that are only going to be possible if your life is already ok.You need money and you need good health.
I can't find anything in here that will help if like me you have health issues, and isn't that one of the biggest challenges for many as we grow older.?
To give an example of why this book frustrates and disappoints me.
The author tells you to spend some time each day with people you love. It doesn't tell you how to cope if you have become isolated and simply cannot see people that you love each day! It would have been more realistic to have at least given suggestions of what else you can do.....eg, texting, emails, letters. Which is what I aim to do to fill the gap.
Somewhere the author states "there is no excuse for grey hair until aged 75 or older" ! Maybe that will convey where this book is at and why I do not like it.
I think that the second half of your life could be about embracing the strengths of getting older, not still chasing the superficial values we all tend to go along with when we are younger.
Most of the advice is available from many other self help books. Not to mention our own common sense. This after all the second half of our lives !
This is not the book I am looking for.
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30 of 34 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Billionaire hedge fund manager wife tells all about her depressing life? 24 April 2011
By Wife of a MD
Format:Paperback
I don't understand the reviews for this book. I picked it up at a bookstore and found it very run of the mill. No new information. No new revelations. Can someone please explain to me how a billionaire wife of a hedge fund owner can demonstrate to the masses what it is like to be over 50 and depressed? her life is 99.9% better than all of ours just for a start because of her $. She was able to quit work at a very young age and be on "art" boards because her husband has money and influence. She can take private pilates on a daily basis for 100 pounds/session. Give me a break!!!
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45 of 52 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars suspicious 11 Feb 2011
By Penny R
Format:Paperback
I'm very suspicious of the 47 reviews of this book which all sound remarkably similar, are without any criticism and all give it 5 stars.
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36 of 42 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars An oversimplification of ageing 14 Feb 2011
By Lorna Bevan
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Yet another cheery,relentlessly upbeat tome urging women to take control of their lives post-menopause.It is very simplistic and appears to be written by someone only just into the menopause herself.This constant exhortation for women over 50 to "show the world they matter" is incredibly patronising and another way of making them feel inadequate.
Everyone of us is unique.We have different personalites,histories,experiences and physical capabilities.The issues we confront on the threshold of ageing are complex,subtle and indicators of the soul's call for inner development.Focusing on "being a player" and acting from the animus is a failure to respond to the great quest of the second half of life.As Carl Jung said;" What works in the morning of one's life is not appropriate in the afternoon".
If you want an intelligent book about ageing ,read Angeles Arrien's"The Second Half of Life".The contrast will stagger you.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Packaged Hope as Gateway 12 Mar 2011
By londonjeanie
Format:Paperback
Well I like this book. I probably fall on the positive side of the middle in terms of my critique. I found the notion of changes in the brain suggesting different pre-occupations for later decades of life especially intriquing: boy, I sure wish the author would have gone into more detail about that! As someone just one year away from being 60, I appreciated the assumption of the 60s, 70s, 80s & possibly 90s being before me. My mood at the time I purchased this book was less than 'get on with it'. I felt kicked into gear & less sunk after reading it. The five-a-day is a simple reminder & the persist assertion of the six days a week exercise & making connections echoes other health & well-being books I've read on aging. The association to advice & encouragement at a teenager into youth stage made by another review feels correct to me: however, unlike that reviewer, I liked being reminded of my younger, determined to have a future self. I knew most of some parts of this book & was not interested in other parts. Surely that is not the author's fault & likely to be true of readers of 'second half of life' age. I have used this book as a tool to reactive a hopeful gateway into that 'make it good' part of myself. Yes, I noticed the slightly grandiose & better off economically assumptions leaking through bits of the book, but so what? Surely being discerning is part of being women in the second half of life. I was very pleased to have something written for the UK audience!
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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK IS A NON EVENT: DON'T BUY IT 26 April 2011
By Nurse Nancy
Format:Paperback
I read an article by the author in a local newspaper over a year ago. So it had my interest piqued. When the book came out a few months ago, I went to hear the author speak on a book tour(although after hearing her talk I was really skeptical). I bought the book anyway. It is so badly written. I found it grating. It gave no "new advice" on how to make the 2nd half of your life better. It just created an enormous amount of envy for the author, who is very wealthy and can afford "all the help" she can get for making the 2nd half of her life better. She is truly blessed by having a very wealthy husband that allowed her the time for this over hyped self indulgence exercise.
I truly hated this book. The author is pompous. Don't buy this book. If you read the article that came out by the author about a year ago, that is all you need to know.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars So true!!!
I have read many books on the menopause but I was very impressed with this book. While reading it, many times I would say "that is me, she knows how I am feeling, I am not the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sue Warren
5.0 out of 5 stars A good practical advice
This is a great book. It makes you feel normal and not like some crazy woman. It gave lots of practical advice and makes you think about a lot of things. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ruth
2.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste the 2nd half of your life reading this book
Looking for inspiration, I borrowed this book from our local library. I give it 2 points for a) some of the candid comments about what menopause really means and b) a few of the... Read more
Published 14 months ago by M. T. Norfield
1.0 out of 5 stars Same few points made over and over again
Cannot understand why this book was so well reviewed. The author makes the same basic points about diet, exercise, hobbies, maintaining positive outlook.... again, and again. Read more
Published 18 months ago by MJ
1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the reviews on the book cover
This book has so many questionable assumptions and generalisations. In addition, it is exclusively aimed at women who have looked after husbands and children and don't know what to... Read more
Published 19 months ago by April May
2.0 out of 5 stars just okay
This seems to be to be a book written by a woman over fifty with time on her hands and who wanted to make some extra cash. Read more
Published 21 months ago by anna
4.0 out of 5 stars The Second Half of Your Life
I came across an article about this book and as I am in the second half of my life I decided to purchase it. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Maura
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read
i thought this book was an excellent read on menopause. It is very well written but also very sensitive on the subject. Read more
Published on 13 May 2011 by d. Peltz
5.0 out of 5 stars Finally someone who understands
I can't think of any woman this great side of 50 who would not enjoy reading The Second Half of Your Life- and in fact sort of want to inhale it. Read more
Published on 13 May 2011 by Jeany
5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Inspirational
I was given a copy of THE SECOND HALF OF YOUR LIFE and simply loved it. It completely "hits the spot" for those of us lurching towards 50 and whose children are flying the nest.
Published on 10 May 2011 by Holly C
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