Aging: An Apprenticeship

Nancy Narboe, Editor |  Nonfiction

four-hearts

This is a book of essays, 56 in all, about aging.  It starts with “Nearing 50” and ends with “The 90s and Beyond.”  It is an interesting collection.  This is NOT a book about “How to have a New Career in Retirement” or “Managing Your Money so that the Last Check Bounces” or “What to Do When You Become Obsessed with Reading the Obituary Column” or “Foods to Keep You Alive ‘til 95.”  There’s no advice.  Instead, we read writers, famous writers, accomplished writers, writing about their perspectives on growing older.  Sometimes they are quite funny.  And sometimes they are sad.  But always they are provocative.

Here is a sampling of some that I liked, or have cool titles:

  • On Interruptions by Sarah Ruhl
  • Lessness by Lance Olsen
  • Women Over Fifty - The Invisible Generation by Hilary Mantel
  • Passing Fifty by Mark Greene
  • Beyond Chagrin by David Bradley
  • On Not Wanting Things by Jane Miller (in which she discuses non wanting to shop for clothes anymore, much to the disdain of her four granddaughters)
  • Passing for Young-ish by Christian M Lyons 
  • On Throwing Out My Journals by Jane Bernstein (just the title alone makes my heart skip a beat)
  • Where Have All the Old Ladies Gone by Molly Giles 

Some of the places we visit to look at our age

  • A crazy bike ride down Ninth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan  
  • Grandmother’s house in Japan
  • A small university town with a roadrunner
  • Two-inch hail and a tornado in the Black Hills of South Dakota  

And, of course, I will read anything by Ursula K. LeGuin.  And Ram Dass has an essay in here.  Gloria Steinem, too.

If you are growing older and are “Nearing 50” or beyond, you will find something to like in this book.  You won’t like every single essay.  I didn’t.  But it has much fine writing to keep your attention.  Most of the essays are three pages long; some are as long as seven pages, so if you don’t like a particular writer’s voice, you won’t have to commit to him/her for very long. I look forward to our book club discussion, where we are all beyond “Nearing 50.”  Thanks, Linda, for an evocative suggestion.

3 responses on “Aging: An Apprenticeship

  1. Daniel Murphy

    Great review, you hooked me. I’m in line to get a copy from the library. ?

  2. Kathy Kram

    I am sold on this book from your review! As I close in on 70, and study transitions in to retirement, I think I will find much insight and further support for the challenges of the decade of the 70s and beyond. Thanks for your great review.