Walking with Beth, Merilyn Simonds
Walking with Beth, Merilyn Simonds
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
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Walking with Beth
Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend

Author: Merilyn Simonds

Narrator: Merilyn Simonds

Unabridged: 8 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/23/2025

Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Merilyn Simonds's Walking with Beth allows us to eavesdrop on two women, one already a centenarian, talking frankly about what scares us all: growing old. It's a book with a unique take on longevity, full of wisdom, tenderness, joy and the passions that sustain a very long life.

In the spring of 2021, Merilyn Simonds asked her friend Beth Robinson if she’d like to go for a walk. Simonds had just turned 70, still active, still writing, but entering what struck her as a mysterious, even frightening stage of life. Beth, a smart, vibrant woman who’d held a job until she was 99, lived on her own and was as awake to the world as a person half her age. Who better to ask what might come next?

During three years of weekly walks, the conversation between the two women only deepened, as they opened up about their heart-felt passions, the lingering influence of their pasts, and their hopes and fears for the future.

In Walking with Beth, Simonds shares these intimate exchanges, delving into corners of older women’s lives that are rarely seen or spoken about so openly. As Simonds looks forward into a future that seems unknowable, Beth looks back, offering her experience in surviving the later-life blows that batter us all, and more importantly, her wisdom about how to enrich every passing day.

About The Author

MERILYN SIMONDS is author of twenty books, most recently Woman, Watching: Louise de Kiriline Lawrence and the Songbirds of Pimisi Bay, an innovative memoir/biography of Lawrence, an extraordinary self-trained ornithologist who became one of Canada’s greatest naturalists. Born in Winnipeg, Simonds grew up in small-town Ontario and Brazil. She published her first book in 1979 at the age of 29, and since then her work has been anthologized and published internationally in eight countries. She writes in a wide variety of genres—personal essay, memoir, travel, literary fiction (such as the novel The Holding, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice) and creative nonfiction, including The Convict Lover, which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-fiction. In 2017, Project Bookmark Canada installed a plaque on the site of the former Kingston Penitentiary rock quarry to honour the place of The Convict Lover in Canada’s literary landscape.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Courtney on September 12, 2025

I really wanted to like this book. I thought it would inspirational and the cover is just gorgeous. However, I found it really hard to relate to the author and her 100+ year old friend Beth. Maybe it’s because I am in my 30’s? Maybe it’s because of the disjunct interactions? Maybe because I was stri......more

Goodreads review by ❀ Susan on November 09, 2025

I am always in awe of resilient centenarians and enjoyed learning more about Beth and her experiences.......more

Goodreads review by Margi on October 22, 2025

I was excited to read this, as I know Beth, and can picture and hear her very clearly in my mind. I found the first third of the book a bit tedious, but the momentum picked up so that I was eager to read to the end. Beth is almost an unbelievable character, so pure and refined, and her remarkable ag......more

Goodreads review by Pamehla on August 02, 2025

BOOK REVIEW: Walking With Beth by Merilyn Simonds ​ ​Neither Beth nor Merilyn remembers when they met, but they both feel as if they have known each other forever. Merilyn is seventy-one and Beth is almost one hundred and one. They agree that it doesn’t matter when they met. “All that matters is that......more

Goodreads review by Mary on August 17, 2025

Merilyn is 70 and Beth is about to turn 101 . They don’t remember when they met but have been friends “forever”. Merilyn asks Beth to join her on walks and Beth agrees. They walk and talk; talked about life and ageing and this book is a chronicle of their conversations. I thoroughly enjoyed reading abo......more

Quotes

PRAISE FOR WALKING WITH BETH:

"Merilyn Simonds’s gentle, lyrical prose is like a whispered invitation into the most intimate of friendships—that between women of one generation and the next. Each remarkable in her own right, these two women fearlessly, yet tenderly, broach the satisfactions, fears, joys and even humour of aging. A wonderful contemplation." —Michelle Good, author of Five Little Indians

 “Walking with Beth is a treasure chest of a book—the pages brim with glittering details, memories, and contemplations about the bond between two extraordinary ‘soul-friends.’ Simonds explores aging, connection, and the power of family and community with a poetic grace that is unparalleled in this moving meditation on a friendship between two remarkable and unforgettable women.” —Suzette Mayr, Giller Prize–winning author of The Sleeping Car Porter

“[Merilyn’s] writing is exquisite. Writers and oral storytellers alike will relate to her description of the human need for narrative.” —Alberta Views

“The book shares rarely told stories of older women's lives, and offers valuable insights on how to sustain a long and meaningful life.” —CBC Books, “13 Books to Make You Feel Hopeful”


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