Sue's Bookshelf

Charlotte Jewish News, May 2025

By Sue Littauer

Opening a new book by Judy Goldman is like sitting down to visit with an old friend. Her voice is gentle, confident, warm, and familiar. She exudes strength and wisdom. We know her through her insightful stories, and we are proud to be her friend.

Judy Goldman is a memoirist. Her new book, “The Rest of Our Lives,” is the perfect platform to reminisce, reflect, and articulate hopes and fears about what is to come. She wrote the book as she was turning 80, a moment in time when she was ready to see what comes next.

“Oh, goodness, if ever there was a time of not being ready for the next thing, it’s in old age. We all know what’s next. Are we ever ready? My way of preparing is to reassemble certain memories — genesis stories, we call them, stories that go to the heart of each life passage. Touchstones. That back and forthing. Where we are, where we’ve been, how time is a circle, the world repeating itself, endlessly. So, what am I trying to say on these pages? That turning eighty is a lot like turning sixteen, thirty-five, sixty — how we keep entering uncharted territory over and over. That old age is not so different from young age? Maybe this: ‘The past is just sitting in our palms.’“

In “The Rest of Our Lives,” Judy Goldman takes the time to remember and reflect. It’s a book about family and friends. It’s about those pivotal moments — getting your driver’s license, falling in love, finding a home, making career choices, marriages, births, illnesses, and death. It is in these moments that we see how strong this amazing woman is underneath her sweet, gentle, Southern exterior.

The memoir will be published on May 6. My recommendation is for you to run to your nearest bookstore or library and start reading. Also, if you haven’t read her other memoirs — “Child,” “Together: A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap,” and “Losing My Sister” — you will be giving yourself cherished gifts when you do.

Judy Goldman has published eight books — four memoirs, two novels, and two collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in USA Today, The Washington Post, Real Simple, LitHub, The Charlotte Observer, and in many anthologies and literary journals. She has won numerous awards for her poetry, fiction, and memoirs. She will be the guest speaker for the Center for Jewish Education Book Club on October 29 at 10 a.m. in the Weinberg Center at Shalom Park. Everyone is welcome. “The Rest of Our Lives” will be available for purchase during the book signing following the program. All of Judy Goldman’s books are available to check out at the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library. For more information, please contact sueb.littauer@jewishcharlotte.org