Essential Reading For Women Who'd Rather Go It Alone

In 1936, a woman named marjorie Hillis wrote a book, a best seller in its time and republished in 2005, called Live Alone and Like It, a guide for the woman who, for whatever reason, finds herself going solo.

- Stephanie Zacharek

Hillis, a career woman who did end up marrying, wasn’t saying that single life was for everyone. “But,” she wrote, “the chances are that at some time in your life, possibly only now and then between husbands, you will find yourself settling down to a solitary existence.”

The idea of a woman living on her own may have been more of a novelty in 1936 than it is today. Yet even in 2018, a woman who isn’t married by a certain age or who has chosen not to have children—or who, perhaps, has been unable to conceive and has decided to channel her energy elsewhere—is still an object of some curiosity. Even today, the assumption isn’t necessarily that she made a choice; often, it’s that she was somehow left behind.

But the dirty little secret of women who live on their own, whether they’re between partners or simply choose not to have one, is that . . . it’s kind of awesome. We all like to think we’re in control of our lives. But sometimes the life you’re supposed to live chooses you, and it’s for the best in ways you can’t foresee: children don’t arrive as you thought they would, but your career takes a shape you couldn’t have imagined. A broken marriage or love affair or the death of a spouse leaves you in despair, even as it opens a space for a self you didn’t know you could grow to be. One life can contain so many selves: we never know in advance which ones we’ll end up with, so it’s best to be prepared for anything. In one way or another, three of this summer’s books tackle the idea of living life on your own terms, even when deciding what those terms are seems daunting. The footnote that comes attached to all this self-knowledge is that no one ever said it would be easy.