America's greatest living essayist writes about life and aging and being all too nicely out of it. In these personal pieces, he takes on topics as varied as grieving for a dead son, learning Latin late in life, and the pleasures of living with cats. Epstein gives us a "bonfire of his own vanities," his thoughts about why watching sports is so impossibly seductive, what it is like to be short, and why he misses smoking even decades as a health-obsessed non-smoker. Above all, he writes about the literary life and the endless joys that reading and writing have brought to a self-confessed "lucky man."

"What is the lived experience of previously healthy older adults as they face disability in late life, and how is disability assimilated in their identity? How do prevailing practices facilitate--or limit--options for elders living with new disabilities? To address these questions, Jeffrey Kahana and Eva Kahana uniquely synthesize disability and gerontological perspectives to explore both the unfolding challenges of aging and the practices and policies that can enhance the lives of older adults."--Publisher's website

Rare book

The social realities of old age have undergone profound changes since the middle ages. This study shows, however, that the images, attitudes and expectations of old people have changed for less. Shulamith Shahar shows how the status and social participation of the elderly varied according to gender, social stratum, economic resources, position, level of functioning, and personality, as well as according to regional custom. The book offers a broad cultural history of old age in medieval western Europe. Shahar examines the images, attitudes and advocated norms used in relation to the elderly and looks at the elderly in various social strata: churchmen and nuns, rulers, small office holders and soldiers, town dwellers and peasants. A valuable insight into life and society in the Middle Ages, this will prove an invaluable addition to history reading lists.

Argues that senility is basically a form of malnutrition, and offers nutritional guidelines to help prevent the dehabilitating affects of old age

Grandma Moses was old. Methuselah was old. Bob Hope was old. But boomers getting gray hairs and wrinkles? It can't be! Aging has been a normal human condition since the dawn of humankind, but for the boundless boomer bulge hitting its thirties, forties, and fifties, giving aging angst a whole new meaning. In this hilarious book, well-known humor writers Lisa Birnbach, Ann Hodgman, Patricia Marx, and David Owen have brought together countless reasons for their maturing compatriots to look on the bright side of getting older. 1,003 Great Things About Getting Older will convince you that aging isn't so bad. Finally you can eat dinner at 4:00. Your Pineapple Pez Dispenser is worth $900. Chances grow smaller every year that you will die in childbirth. You'll learn about nonagenarians like the Delaney sisters, Henny Youngman, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and the secrets of the very old (yogurt, scotch, and pain killers). All in all, the book is a compendium of humor, trivia and real information. 1,003 Great Things About Getting Older is a perfect feel-good gift to raise the spirits of anyone concerned about a few wrinkles or gray hairs.

What is it that most people want to become but nobody wants to be?

George Melly is nudging 80. He is still swinging and singing, fly-fishing, flirting, and for now just playing at senility. But he walks very slowly these days. He's losing control over his bladder, and his bowels. He no longer, being quite deaf, enjoys noisy parties. He's been seriously ill once, and not quite well often. And he's constantly being probed and tinkered with, at St Mary's Hospital: like an old car in and out of the garage. Sex has walked out on him, but Irish Whiskey, in only slightly diminished quantities, remains a good friend. This remarkably cheerful book is his diary of it all. A darkly funny, frank, and larger-than-life account about how he feels to be growing old and irresistibly slowing down.

Coming up to her sixtieth birthday, Kate Figes found herself turning to the larger questions of family, love and life's meaning. It is like this author to examine different stages in writing, and her books - from new motherhood and adolescence to coupledom and infidelity - testify to this way of understanding herself and others: so naturally she turned to writing to explore the challenges of becoming sixty. And then - a horrible, and sudden diagnosis of breast cancer which had metastasised. Instead of a gentle journey into middle age, Kate Figes began to write for her life. Now, clawing back confidence and control was not just the ordinary business of these years: it was the only way to try and survive great pain and emotional turmoil. As her writing became an honest reflection on ageing, failing, regrets and the importance of childhood memory, friends, family and love she found a new determination to live to the full and about finding ways to face up to a shortened life expectancy with dignity. Original, passionate, funny and moving, On Smaller Dogs and Larger Life Questions will resonate with anyone dealing with the many griefs and freedoms of midlife. It is about living with a life-threatening disease but it is even more: an intelligent and passionate look at the way we can approach disappointment and trouble, friendship and love - every day.