Age disgracefully. This is my new mantra and I’m so glad that I ran across a how-to guide for helping me do it successfully. I mean, it’s as simple as making friends, joining a club and not glaring at people. Easy peasy.
Well, as we all learned reading this book, Daphne chose going about it in her own inimitable way. And that’s what makes this such a fun book for book club. Pooley’s light hearted novel includes themes like how to own your life, recovering from your mistakes and making them right, discovering unlikely friendships and how not to dismiss “invisible” old people.
Get started with your discussion using our How to Age Disgracefully book club questions. This discussion guide includes a synopsis, 10 discussion prompts, and some selected reviews to ponder. We’ve also got some related reads if you want to keep reading along this vein.
(This article contains affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase, I’ll make a small commission.)
How to Age Disgracefully Synopsis
(We always chose to provide the publisher synopsis because we feel that it’s worthwhile to discuss whether the official book description actually squared with your experience of the book.)
How to Age Disgracefully, Claire Pooley
When Lydia takes a job running the Senior Citizens’ Social Club three afternoons a week, she assumes she’ll be spending her time drinking tea and playing gentle games of cards.
The members of the Social Club, however, are not at all what Lydia was expecting. From Art, a failed actor turned kleptomaniac to Daphne, who has been hiding from her dark past for decades to Ruby, a Banksy-style knitter who gets revenge in yarn, these seniors look deceptively benign—but when age makes you invisible, secrets are so much easier to hide.
When the city council threatens to sell the doomed community center building, the members of the Social Club join forces with their tiny friends in the daycare next door—as well as the teenaged father of one of the toddlers and a geriatric dog—to save the building. Together, this group’s unorthodox methods may actually work, as long as the police don’t catch up with them first.
10 How to Age Disgracefully Book Club Questions
These questions have been tailored to this book’s specific reading experience, but if you want more ideas, we also have an article with 101 generic book club questions.
- At the beginning of the book Daphne decides to go back out into the world and makes herself a list. Here’s her list, but what would yours look like if you were to make up your own?
- Make some friends.
- Be more trusting.
- No shouting or glaring.
- Take up a hobby.
- Join a club.
- Use the internet.
- “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day.”
The novel’s epigraph is a quote from Dylan Thomas. How do each of the characters burn and rave in turn? - Place your bets– will this be made into a movie? And if so, who would you want to play Daphne, Lydia, Ziggy, Art, and Ruby.
- In an interview, Poole said about Daphne, “She’s modelled after the sort of woman I want to be when I’m 70” and “I wanted to explore how even the most unlikable people in the right circumstances can be magnificent. And by the end, I think everybody is rooting for Daphne and she’s great, but it’s not where she starts off. She’s certainly not perfect, But I think the most interesting people aren’t perfect.”
Is that how you saw Daphne? What sort of person do you want to be at 70?” - The structure of the book alternates between between the POVs of Lydia, Art, Ziggy and Daphne. Do you think the multiple POVs were critical to the story? How might it have been different if there had been only one POV?
- The relationship between Art and Daphne evolves slowly but rather dramatically. Did it work for you? Did you see it coming?
- We can all agree that Lydia’s husband had it coming. But did he deserve the thorough dressing down that he received?
- Daphne’s backstory is revealed as a slow burn throughout the book. When did you first get an inkling that she wasn’t who she seemed? And did you take a guess at her backstory?
- Is there anyone in this book who doesn’t break the law? Are their actions justifiable? Did you have more empathy for some types of law-breaking over other types?
- Let’s talk about Maggie Thatcher. What nickname would you have given her and how would you have fed her?
Selected Reviews for How to Age Disgracefully
(Use these selected Goodreads reviews to compare with your own experience of the book. Do you agree or disagree with the reviews?)
“I loved all the characters and their weird quirks and friendship dynamics. It felt real. It was almost like the author has once lived this story and now I want to live it too!”
“While I enjoyed the quirky characters uniting for a common goal, it all felt a little over the top to me. Read if you’re in the mood for septuagenarian hi-jinx with a happy ending.”
“The narrative is presented from multiple perspectives that allow us to get to know the characters and their backstories. I loved the characters, enjoyed their banter and loved how they grew to care for one another, banding together not only to save their community centre but also to help one another.”
“Maybe the author was just trying to cash in on the current craze for “old people” novels, but this worked for me. I loved the multi-generational cast, unlikely friendships, and wacky situations. Anyone looking for a hilarious, upbeat novel to cleanse the palate after a downer book – this is the one. It’s sheer fun from beginning to end!”
Readalikes for How to Age Disgracefully
If you want more women of a certain age, check out the synopsis in our guide for How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water. The book features a Puerto Rican woman facing her advancing years and she reflects back on her life and times. Touching and hilarious. We’ve also got a guide for The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which features an aging Hollywood star busting out the secrets of her remarkable life.
The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
This book is such a close comp, I almost wondered if Pooley took inspiration from it when she wrote How to Age Disgracefully.
Who wants to sit around knitting and playing bridge? Not these four amateur sleuths. Rather, they spend their time reviewing cold cases and chasing up criminals. Meet The Thursday Murder Club, Cooper Chase Retirement Home’s most deadly social group. These retirees each bring a unique set of skills to solving the murder of their retirement home developer.
This book makes for such a fun book club read. It’s surprisingly light in tone and not too long. But there are enough twists and turns to give your book group a lot to talk about. And if you like it, there are more in the series to keep you going.
Use our book club guide for The Thursday Murder Club to get the convo started.
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, Kathleen Rooney
The action in this book takes place over one New Years Eve as octogenarian Lillian walks the length of Manhattan, narrating the highs and lows of her life. She was a working woman before her time, a complicated character, a reluctant mother and a woman who takes no guff.
This was one of my favorite reads in the year that I read it. I appreciated the book’s lack of stereotyping and the Manhattan setting made me want to visit NYC again.
Maame, Jessica George
If you want a more of London, a bit less Daphne and more Ziggy, try Maame. It features a similar arc with Maame having to come of age while juggling major responsibilities.
London-based Maddie’s overbearing mother spends huge chunks of time in her native Ghana, leaving Maddie to care for her very ill father. Her brother is MIA and her father’s Parkinson’s care requires a lot of emotional and financial resources, which Maddie handles from the insecure position of a cruddy admin job.
Despite responsibilities, Maddie is naïve and inexperienced when is comes to being a young professional woman in the city. When her mom returns from Ghana, Maddie takes the opportunity to move-out, get a better job and start experiencing new friendships, romances and adulting.
This book offers a touching look at grief, dysfunctional family relationships, being the only black face at work, and the hard work of finding happiness.
Here’s our Maame book club discussion guide.
Share these How to Age Disgracefully book club questions with your friends:
