London Sojourn: Rewriting Life After Retirement

For fans of Eat, Pray, Love and Without Reservations, a captivating memoir of one woman’s bold leap into reinvention—trading academia for adventure, storytelling, and self-discovery in the heart of London.

What happens when a burnt-out professor trades academia for a fresh start in the city of her dreams—only to find reinvention far tougher than she imagined?

At sixty-five, Rebecca Knuth walks away from the security and status of academia, determined to reimagine herself in London. She craves more—more creativity, more stories, more life. Immersing herself in the city’s literary and cultural world, she enrolls in a creative nonfiction masters program, trains as a guide, joins the prestigious London Library, and reclaims her voice as a writer. London becomes her muse, a place of transformation where shedding her old identity is inseparable from rebuilding herself as a woman. But change is never simple.

Her mother’s health declines. Rebecca lands in intensive care. She’s harassed on the Underground. Exhaustion takes hold. Doubt creeps in—about her ambition, her motivation, even her sense of belonging. Where exactly is home?

A memoir of reinvention, resilience, and self-discovery, London Sojourn speaks to retirees, creatives, and seekers longing to step beyond certainty into something new.