Can women be sexy after 50, or are we still uncomfortable with older women who openly desire?
In this episode of Transatlantic Bookmarks, Ksenija Popovic and Sue discuss Vladimir by Julia May Jonas: a darkly funny campus novel about a 58-year-old professor whose husband is under investigation for relationships with students, and whose own obsession with a younger novelist disrupts every rule she thought she understood.
But this is not a book review! We talk about female desire after 50, menopause, confidence, aging, beauty standards, sexuality, age-gap relationships, and the persistent double standard between older men and older women. Why is an older man with a younger woman still so culturally familiar, while an older woman with a younger man can seem provocative—or even unacceptable?
We also discuss Rachel Weisz and Leo Woodall in the Netflix adaptation, the pressure women feel around aging, and whether culture is finally making room for older women to be complicated, sexual, ambitious, and fully visible.
What do you think? Can women be sexy after 50—and why are we still asking? Tell us in the comments.

#WomenOver50 #Vladimir #TransatlanticBookmarks

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED:
(As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases)

• Vladimir by Julia May Jonas: https://amzn.to/4goD9f6
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: Elizabeth Strout Olive Kitteridge

💌 OUR SUBSTACK AND SHOW NOTES:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 READ KSENIJA’S NOVELS:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

📚 KSENIJA ON GOODREADS:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS
Hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston, Transatlantic Bookmarks is a weekly literary podcast that uses books as the starting point for conversations about culture, history, psychology, morality, politics, and the questions hiding between the lines.

New segments every Saturday, Monday, and Thursday.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 The Complexities of Aging and Desire
07:29 Confidence in an Aging Woman
09:51 Older Woman, Younger Man
15:44 Do Young Men Have It Worse?

Do adult children owe their parents daily contact, hands-on care, and the chance to stay in the homes they love, or is that expectation unfair to the lives their children are trying to build?

In this episode of Transatlantic Bookmarks, Ksenija Popovic and Sue Graham Johnston use Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread to debate one of the most emotionally difficult questions in family life: what do we owe the people who loved us first?

Ksenija cannot understand a family that would move an elderly father out of the home he has lived in for decades, or a grown child who calls their mother only once a week. Sue argues that love does not necessarily mean living together, calling every day, or putting an adult child’s career and family life on hold. Between them: the Balkan and Mediterranean idea of intergenerational obligation, the American ideal of independence, aging parents, dementia, inherited homes, guilt, care, and the things families leave behind.

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED:
(As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases)

• A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler: https://amzn.to/4zzJImG
• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke: https://amzn.to/4xRP8Yb
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: https://amzn.to/4gkO2NB
• American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee: https://amzn.to/4cSZOhc
• I'll Take the Fire by Leïla Slimani: https://amzn.to/4zve3CI
• Life of M by Rachel Cusk: https://amzn.to/3U5WAR7
• Partita by Barbara Kingsolver: https://amzn.to/4c1rVdX
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver: https://amzn.to/4gdH8JS
• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver: https://amzn.to/4hLh6QU
• Whistler by Ann Patchett: https://amzn.to/4gm21ma
• Heather by Caitlin Mullen: https://amzn.to/4wAdEfH
• Fathers Before Sons by Ksenija Popovic: https://amzn.to/4wDloNK

💌 OUR SUBSTACK AND SHOW NOTES:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 READ KSENIJA’S NOVELS:
https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Teaser
01:05 Intergenerational Relations
07:19 Cultural Expectations and Responsibilities Towards Elders
26:00 The Ugly Side of Strong Intergenerational Connection
30:14 Balancing Independence and Family Obligations
33:53 Is the Relationship with our Elders Transactional?
38:27 The Future of Multi-Generational Living
41:42 What Do We Owe the People Who Loved Us First?
57:56 What We're Reading

A sports medicine journal has a term, "beautiful suffering," for what elite athletes experience during 24-plus-hour endurance events. This week Sue takes the lead with a question she's been sitting with since watching runners collapse in freezing rain at the 2018 Boston Marathon: are elite athletes wired differently, or is toughness something the rest of us can actually learn? The conversation moves through Corey Richards' memoir of surviving an avalanche and an undiagnosed mental illness, Steve Magness's case against the old "grit and bear it" model of toughness, Ksenija's years coaching football players and elite athletes through NLP and pattern interrupts, and why the answer to "is this person a psychopath" might just be "no, they've found a very efficient way to feel alive.”

📚 BOOKS MENTIONED:

(As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases)

• The Color of Everything by Corey Richards: https://amzn.to/4zlpZqA
• Do Hard Things by Steve Magness: https://amzn.to/3SExh8h
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed: https://amzn.to/461OdbM
• Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: https://amzn.to/4xCnw9p
• Mindset by Carol Dweck: https://amzn.to/4g3SEYc
• The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu: https://amzn.to/460DXR9
• A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler: https://amzn.to/4x45nla

💌 Our Substack & Show Notes: https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/

📚 EXPLORE OUR HOSTS' WORK & READING LISTS
• Read Ksenija's Novels: https://transatlanticbookmarks.substack.com/p/publications
• Ksenija on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6449766.Ksenija_Popovi_

🎙️ ABOUT TRANSATLANTIC BOOKMARKS
A brand new weekly literary podcast hosted by European novelist Ksenija Popović and American engineer Sue Graham Johnston. From opposite sides of the Atlantic, we bring you thoughtful, relaxed, and witty conversations about contemporary fiction, classic literature, award shortlists, and the human questions hiding inside the books we read.

New episodes are released every week.

👉🏻 CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction
00:57 The Mindset of Elite Athletes
12:13 Debunking the Toughness Myth
16:11 Can the Mindset of Elite Athletes Be Taught?
19:45 Association and Dissociation
26:57 Pattern Interrupt
32:43 Achieving Flow
39:59 The Advantage of Personalized Approach
45:51 The Astonishing Power of the Mind
51:21 The Psychology of Basic Human Needs
01:02:49 When The Mindset Isn't There
01:08:16 The Dedication Conundrum
01:09:31 Recommendations