ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’ 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY “A master novelist's haunting parable about our troubled modern moment." —The Wall Street Journal “By turns unnerving, hilarious, and sad. . . . It is a book that shows how the public zeitgeist can shape, even destroy, an individual's life." —The New York Times “The best novel he has written.” —The Times Literary Supplement It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk’s secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled.

A funny, candid, insightful, and unflinchingly honest memoir from one of New York City's most spirited and outspoken mayors Ed Koch—the bold, colorful, forthright, and impassioned three-term mayor of the city of New York—lived his eighty-eight years to the fullest. In I'm Not Done Yet Koch reflects on life after politics, taking readers through his various career turns since losing the Democratic mayoral primary to David Dinkins in 1989, during which time he worked as a radio talk-show host, a newspaper columnist, a college instructor, a SlimFast spokesman, and an arbitrator on the television show The People's Court. With occasional looks back at his childhood in the Bronx and his political experiences, Koch speaks openly about the ups and downs of what he calls "the third act" of his storied career, offering a frank account of his health and medical challenges, and considering what it has meant to live a life without a partner or children. I'm Not Done Yet is a fearless account of an extraordinary man's under-standing of what it means to reach one's autumn years, and offers proof that the healthiest outlook on advancing age is to keep active at the work you love.

Aging Mafia Don Salvatore Padronelli, a.k.a. the Padre, is furious when fanatical terrorists capture his beloved daughter and grandson on a trip to Egypt. Fed up with diplomatic caution that prolongs their captivity, the Padre and his loyal henchman cleverly insinuate themselves into the White House and hold the President and his wife hostage. Now the Padre calls the shots on getting the President to take steps to release his family. This classic confrontation between two men on utterly opposite sides of the law is laced with humor and illustrates how fierce paternal love can motivate even the most ruthless of gangsters into reckless acts of courage and bravery.

We all age differently, but we can learn from shared experiences and insights. The conversations, or paired essays, in Aging Thoughtfully combine a philosopher's approach with a lawyer-economist's. Here are ideas about when to retire, how to refashion social security to help the elderly poor, how to learn from King Lear -- who did not retire successfully -- and whether to enjoy or criticize anti-aging cosmetic procedures. Some of the concerns are practical: philanthropic decisions, relations with one's children and grandchildren, the purchase of annuities, and how to provide for care in old age. Other topics are cultural, ranging from the treatment of aging women in a Strauss opera and various popular films, to a consideration of Donald Trump's (and other men's) marriages to much younger women. These engaging, thoughtful, and often humorous exchanges show how stimulating discussions about our inevitable aging can be, and offer valuable insight into how we all might age more thoughtfully, and with zest and friendship.