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About · Further reading

Further reading

We cook; these three women wrote the books on everything else. If you read or listen to nothing else about perimenopause, start here. No affiliate links, no kickbacks; we recommend them because they shaped how we think and talk.

The cycle translator

Maisie Hill

A women's health practitioner who treats your hormones as information rather than a malfunction. If our planner's cycle-awareness makes sense to you, it's because Maisie Hill made that way of thinking mainstream.

Book

Perimenopause Power

The book we hand people first. What's actually happening to your hormones from your late thirties on, and how to work with it rather than white-knuckle through; practical, funny, and never patronising.

maisiehill.com
Book

Period Power

Where it all starts: her framework for understanding the menstrual cycle's four phases and planning your life around them. The foundation that makes perimenopause far less bewildering when it arrives.

maisiehill.com
Podcast

The Maisie Hill Experience

Short, direct episodes on cycles, perimenopause, and the behaviour and mindset side that food and HRT don't cover. Good company on a school run.

Listen
The medical authority

Dr Louise Newson

The UK GP and menopause specialist who dragged menopause care into the evidence age, and the reason we're careful never to oversell what food can do. Her free balance app pairs well with our check-ins.

Book

The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause

Exactly what the title claims: symptoms, HRT, testosterone, sleep, mood and long-term health, laid out with the evidence attached. The reference book to keep on the shelf and take to appointments.

balance-menopause.com
Book

Preparing for the Perimenopause and Menopause

The smaller, earlier Penguin guide; the fastest route from "is this perimenopause?" to walking into a GP appointment knowing what to ask for. Our GP report exists to serve exactly that conversation.

balance-menopause.com
Podcast

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Weekly conversations with clinicians, researchers and women themselves. When we say "check the evidence", this is what checking the evidence sounds like out loud.

Listen
The nutrition advocate

Dr Mary Claire Haver

A US obstetrician-gynaecologist who put nutrition, muscle and midlife metabolism at the centre of the menopause conversation. Of the three, her work overlaps most with what we cook every week.

Book

The New Menopause

An A-to-Z toolkit for the whole transition: what's happening, what helps, and how to advocate for yourself when your concerns get waved away. The chapter on dismissed symptoms should be required reading for GPs.

thepauselife.com
Book

The Galveston Diet

Her food-first programme for midlife: anti-inflammatory eating, protein and fibre, explained mechanism by mechanism. You'll recognise plenty of shared ground with our metabolism science.

thepauselife.com
Podcast

The Pause Life with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Straight-talking episodes on hormones, nutrition, muscle and sleep, with the research citations to back them up and a refreshing intolerance for menopause misinformation.

Listen

Our independence

These authors don't endorse Peri Happy and we have no commercial relationship with any of them; their views are their own. For the research behind our own recipes, start with the science we build on.