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UPDATE —
Last month, the highly anticipated update of Estrogen Matters was released, and with 2025 set to be a huge year for menopause-related books, we decided it was time to update our current list before the year comes to a close.
There are life passages you can navigate by clicking around the internet for advice — I’m thinking of surviving parenting through the middle-school years, and how I mostly needed to know that my peers were all living with crazy people, too — and then there are other big changes that call for diving into a good book. When I was growing a baby, for instance, I needed to read pregnancy books that could help me make sense of the bazillion body changes I was experiencing. I’ve also not been above a modern self-help book or two when life has gotten to be too much. Some trials and tribulations require long passages of wisdom, not just short bites of observation.
Perimenopause and menopause are called “the change of life” because together they are a huge transition. Our energy drains, our tempers shorten, and our sleep gets disrupted — not by the kids this time, but by our own hormones. And it’s a long process. Perimenopause might only last a few years, but it’s also totally possible for it to go on for ten years. This is why I’m telling you that you might need a book or two.
Personal side note: I thought my doctors would be helpful but no. Neither my primary-care doc nor my OB-GYN were ever able to tie my exhaustion episodes (granted, I called them “migraines without the headache,” which I’m sure was confusing) to what they obviously were: The swan song of my reproductive years. Even now that I am (presumably) menopausal, things are a little unclear since my period sometimes makes a surprise, short appearance after a year of nothing. My OB-GYN looks at me like I am lying when I tell her that, which just scratches the surface of frustrations.
No two women have the same sequence of events that comprise perimenopause and menopause. But if you want to understand more about the shift, or arm yourself with some solutions to the symptoms, page through any of these helpful books.