When my older sister began hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for menopause symptoms, she mentioned her motivation: “If I didn’t, I would have wanted to kill J——” (her much beloved, then teenage son). Our mom went on hormones early on in her transition and never stopped, as far as we know. When I hit menopause, my physician warned me against hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and almost 15 years post-menopause, long past when it’s wise to take HRT, I have zero ability to regulate my temperature and rarely get a full-night’s sleep. Exercise and a good diet seem to help some, of course.
I wish I’d read the four following books on menopause prior to my transition. They’re not just for those going through the phase, but also for their mates and maybe their children (see above). Shrouding such a biological necessity in mystery has really “done it dirty,” as people say. But these books clarify all. Listed in order of most recent to oldest.
How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Better Than Before
By Tamsen Fadal, 2025, from Hachette
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tamsen-fadal/how-to-menopause/9780306833564/?lens=balance
A lively, personable description of what menopause can feel like when it comes as a total surprise, from Tamsen Fadal, an Emmy award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, menopause advocate and host of the weekly podcast: The Tamsen Show. A self-described midlife mentor, more than 3 million follow her social media accounts. Fasal also is the creator, producer and co-executive producer of the PBS documentary The M Factor, Shredding the Silence on Menopause, a documentary that confronts what she calls a neglected menopause crisis, challenges societal and medical shortcomings, and advocates for a revolutionary approach to menopausal health.
Fadal says, following her first harrowing, on-air experience of being unable to recall how to pronounce a common word, while enduring an intense hot flash with her heart pounding out of her chest: “I had been an anchor for three decades and this was the first time I would not finish a show.” … “I had run smack dab into the best-kept secret out there, menopause.”
Fadal clearly explains the trajectory of this phase, delves into specific symptoms, and gives practical advice to readers about sleep, nutrition, skin care, exercise, and more, as well as addressing its potential effect on relationships. Her book suggests pragmatic strategies, including HRT, meditation, and diet to support brain health. If I were to use one word to describe her writing, it would be “relatable.” This is a journalist’s take and an easy book to read.
The New Menopause: Navigating Your Path Through Hormonal Change with Purpose, Power, and Facts
By Mary Claire Haver, MD, 2024, from Penguin Random House
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738539/the-new-menopause-by-mary-claire-haver-md
Mary Claire Haver, MD, is a board-certified OB/GYN, a certified culinary medicine specialist, a certified menopause provider, and the founder of Mary Claire Wellness, a private medical practice that focuses on women in midlife. Her bestselling book, The Galveston Diet, is based on the groundbreaking nutritional protocol she developed as an online subscriber program for women going through perimenopause and menopause.
“My doctor told me he doesn’t believe in perimenopause,” “I was told it’s just a natural part of aging, get over it,” and “Welcome to your new normal,” are just some of the responses to Haver’s research study on women’s experiences with menopausal symptoms that was published in the Journal of Women’s Health in 2023. In it, Haver was trying to ascertain what sort of support patients were receiving from healthcare providers.
‘The culture of silence about menopause in our patriarchal society is something to behold.’
Her final thoughts on the matter? “Overwhelmingly, the responses revealed substandard care and weak support.” The previous quotes Haver describes as not exceptions, but the rule.
“The New Menopause” is a clear and precisely written book on how to prioritize taking care of oneself during this phase of life. In the first chapter she lists 66 common symptoms of menopause, for many of which some might seek emergency care: depression, heart palpitations, high cholesterol, migraines, osteoporosis, tinnitus—the list goes on. My personal favorite: itchy ears.
There’s no uniformity of menopausal symptoms, no standardized diagnostic criteria for the phase, nor any screening. Haver really knows her stuff, and coming from an MD, it’s a powerful read. A very clear-eyed take on how women have been treated by medical professionals since time immemorial and strategies for dealing with it.
There’s also a detailed medical history of menopause that’s fascinating, and a similar section on where we stood/now stand on the use of HRT. The book addresses psychological challenges, too, and a substantial part is spent detailing practical solutions to managing menopause. It’s all very illuminating.
The Menopause Brain: New Science Empowers Women to Navigate the Pivotal Transition with Knowledge and Confidence
By Lisa Mosconi, PhD, 2024, from Avery Penguin Random House
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712561/the-menopause-brain-by-lisa-mosconi-phd-foreword-by-maria-shriver
Lisa Mosconi, PhD, is an associate professor of Neuroscience in Neurology and Radiology and directs the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM)/New York–Presbyterian Hospital. The program includes the NIH-funded Women’s Brain Initiative, the award-winning Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic, and the newly launched Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinical Trials Unit.
Mosconi’s writing is straightforward but charming, and surprisingly conversational considering that it’s backed by years of medical study. “The hypothalamus is the central node of this connection and takes the brunt of the impact. Since this gland controls body temperature, an instability in the supply of estradiol means that the brain can’t regulate body temperature correctly. Remember the hot flashes? Scientists believe that’s the hypothalamus going bonkers. On top of losing hold over our internal temperature, the brain falters in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness. The result: we have trouble sleeping, with changes in our sleep rhythm and patterns.”
It’s also reassuring in that she explains why and exactly how women experience a plethora of symptoms: “Decreased multitasking abilities: Difficulty juggling multiple tasks or switching between tasks, leading to feelings of being overwhelmed.”
“Menopause is not an illness, a disease, or a pathological condition. It is a transition. It doesn’t need curing or fixing. It does need addressing and managing, if necessary,” she says.
The book can be culturally damning, too, “In other words, the hormones inextricably involved with our fertility, with estrogen leading the charge, turned out to be just as crucial in the overall functioning of our minds. To give you a sense of how recent a finding this is, men had walked on the moon 30 years prior. During those same 30 years on earth, scores of women had been taking hormones in spite of the fact that nobody had a clue about how estrogen really worked from the neck up.” Highly recommend.
The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism
By Jen Gunter, MD, 2021, from Penguin House Canada
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/652048/the-menopause-manifesto-by-dr-jen-gunter/9780735280786
An OB/GYN and pain medicine physician, Jen Gunter, MD, writes about sex, science and social media, and has been called Twitter’s resident gynecologist, the internet’s OB/GYN and a fierce advocate for women’s health.
The book is a witty, fast read, which presumes a refreshing level of feminist mindset in the reader. “The culture of silence about menopause in our patriarchal society is something to behold. Menopause doesn’t even rate the shame that society gives to the vulva and vagina. Apparently, there is nothing of lower value than an aging woman’s body, and many in our society treat menopause not as a phase of life, but rather as a phase of death. Sort of a predeath,” says Gunther.
She focuses on how it is to seek treatment as a common woman, versus one with medical training: “My medical knowledge didn’t prevent me from having menopause acne, hot flushes, or those ‘special’ heavy periods that are all typical of the menopause transition. But because I knew exactly what was happening and when to seek care, it made the whole process feel routine. ”
Gunter is big on facts and their ability to empower women seeking answers, often with an amusingly blunt nod to why it’s been so difficult to reach this stage in knowledge. “For women to navigate menopause, they need facts because empowerment requires accurate information—but they also need feminism because our bodies, our medical care, and even our thoughts have been colonized by the patriarchy. The cultural absence of menopause from our discussions isn’t because that’s what women want.”
The book is a manifesto, after all, but it’s so entertaining that it’s hard to stop reading it despite the heavily anti-male tone.
“We are well past due for a manifesto on menopause as 2021 is the 200th anniversary of the introduction of the word. My manifesto is for every woman to have the knowledge that I had to help them with their own menopause. I demand that the era of silence and shame about menopause yield to facts and feminism. I proclaim that we must stop viewing menopause as a disease, because that means being a woman is a disease, and I reject that shoddily constructed hypothesis. I also declare that what the patriarchy thinks of menopause is irrelevant.”
Her attitude and why one should read the book, is best summed up here: “If we applied that same tone to erectile dysfunction, we’d expect textbooks to declare that the penis is worn out. In medicine, men get to age with gentle euphemisms and women get exiled to Not Hotsville.” Well worth a read.
Illustration credit: By Emily Erdt.
