Showing titles in Gerontology

Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school - in her 60s - to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In Old in Art School, she travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, even as she comes to understand how they may be undervalued; and struggles with the unstable balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful, demands of a life fully lived.

In the 1960s Ram Dass was a Harvard professor who turned to Eastern religion to answer the questions troubling his generation. He shared his story in the landmark classic, Be Here Now, which instantly captured the spiritual longings of his contemporaries. In Still Here, Ram Dass once again brings understanding, common sense, and reassurance for those of us facing the final season of life.

The immune system holds the key to human health. In The Beautiful Cure, leading immunologist Professor Daniel Davis describes the scientific quest to understand how it works - and how it is affected by stress, sleep, age and our state of mind - and explains how this knowledge is now unlocking a revolutionary new approach to medicine and well-being.

At a time when many people around the world are living into their 10th decade, the longest longitudinal study of human development ever undertaken offers some welcome news for the new old age: Our lives continue to evolve in our later years and often become more fulfilling than before. Begun in 1938, the Grant Study of Adult Development charted the physical and emotional health of over 200 men, starting with their undergraduate days. The now-classic Adaptation to Life reported on the men's lives up to age 55 and helped us understand adult maturation.

When Ben Aitken learnt that his gran had enjoyed a four-night holiday including four three-course dinners, four cooked breakfasts, four games of bingo, a pair of excursions, 16 pints of lager and luxury return coach travel, all for a hundred pounds, he thought, that's the life, and signed himself up. Six times over. Good value aside, what Ben was really after was the company of his elders - those with more chapters under their belt, with the wisdom granted by experience, the candour gifted by time, and the hard-earned ability to live each day like it's nearly their last. 

Worried that old age will inevitably mean losing your libido, your health, and possibly your marbles too? Well, Cicero has some good news for you. In How to Grow Old, the great Roman orator and statesman eloquently describes how you can make the second half of life the best part of all - and why you might discover that reading and gardening are actually far more pleasurable than sex ever was.

Stephen Jenkinson explores the great paradox of elderhood in North America: how we are awash in the aged and yet somehow lacking in wisdom; how we relegate senior citizens to the corner of the house while simultaneously heralding them as sage elders simply by virtue of their age. Our own unreconciled relationship with what it means to be an elder has yielded a culture nearly bereft of them. Taking on the sacred cow of the family, Jenkinson argues that elderhood is a function rather than an identity.

Andy Lazris, MD, is a practicing primary care physician who experiences the effects of Medicare policy on a daily basis. As a result, he believes that the way we care for our elderly has taken a wrong turn and that Medicare is complicit in creating the very problems it seeks to solve. Aging is not a disease to be cured; it is a life stage to be lived. Lazris argues that aggressive treatments cannot change that fact but only get in the way and decrease quality of life.

Molecular biologist Nicklas Brendborg takes us on a journey from farthest reaches of the globe to the most cutting-edge research to explore what nature has to teach us about longevity. From immortal lobsters, backwards-aging jellyfish and the centuries-old Greenland shark to the woman who successfully edited her own DNA in search of immortality, Jellyfish Age Backwards brings together everything the natural world and science have to offer on the mystery of ageing.

More than 1,000 extraordinary Americans share their stories and the wisdom they have gained on living, loving, and finding happiness. After a chance encounter with an extraordinary 90-year-old woman, renowned gerontologist Karl Pillemer began to wonder what older people know about life that the rest of us don't. His quest led him to interview more than one thousand Americans over the age of 65 to seek their counsel on all the big issues- children, marriage, money, career, aging.

Some of the most profound growth of our lives can happen in the home stretch, the years after age 60 or so. It's a time when we can finally crystallize the meaning of what we've been and done so far and fully expand into the self we've always intended to be, guided by the voice of the soul. But, says psychologist Charles Garfield, that can only happen if we first loosen the grip of the life we've led so far, the one that's been focused outwardly - on activity, achievement, and the idea of success - and let our souls lead the way. 

During her own year of transition—a milestone birthday, a wedding anniversary, the emptying of the nest—Walrond, in the buoyant and luminous style her listeners have come to love, does a deep dive into dimensions of getting older, including health, beauty, spirituality, connection, adventure, and meaning and purpose. Through conversations with social workers and neurologists, activists and clergy, Walrond satisfies her curiosity about why the dominant culture treats aging as a time of dwindling capacity.

Women growing older contend with ageism, misogyny and loss. Yet as Mary Pipher shows, most older women are deeply happy and filled with gratitude for the gifts of life. Their struggles help them grow into the authentic, empathetic and wise people they have always wanted to be. In Women Rowing North, Pipher offers a timely examination of the cultural and developmental issues women face as they age. 

Eigentlich hatte Didier Eribon sich vorgenommen, ab jetzt regelmäßig nach Fismes zu fahren. Doch seine Mutter stirbt wenige Wochen nach ihrem Umzug in ein Pflegeheim in dem kleinen Ort in der Champagne. Wie in Rückkehr nach Reims wird dieser Einschnitt zum Ausgangspunkt für eine Reise in die Vergangenheit. Eribon rekonstruiert die von Knappheit und Zwängen bestimmte Biografie einer Frau, die an einen brutalen Ehemann gekettet blieb und sich sogar in ihren Träumen bescheiden musste. "Meine Mutter", hält er fest, "war ihr ganzes Leben lang unglücklich."

The Mature Mind delivers good news for those in the second half of life, with an extraordinary account of cutting-edge neuroscience, groundbreaking psychology, fascinating vignettes from history and case studies, and practical advice for personal growth strategies. Gene Cohen, a renowned psychiatrist and gerontologist, draws from more than thirty years of research to show that surprising positive changes in our brains have the powerful potential to enhance, not diminish, our lives after fifty.

The Ultimate Guide to Sex After Fifty delivers solid, practical information in a friendly, accessible style to help all genders and orientations, partnered or unpartnered, enjoy their sexuality for the rest of their lives.

As revelatory as Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson’s Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life. For more than 5,000 years, 'old' has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we’ve made old age into a disease. 

Face is a book of fictional vignettes that examines the fear and vestigial evolutionary habits that have caused women and men to cultivate the imagined reality that older women’s faces are unattractive, undesirable, and something to be "fixed".  

How come I can never find my keys? Why don't I sleep as well as I used to? Why do my friends keep repeating the same stories? What can I do to keep my brain sharp? Scientists know. Brain Rules for Aging Well, by developmental molecular biologist Dr. John Medina, gives you the facts - and the prescription to age well - in his signature engaging style. With so many discoveries over the years, science is literally changing our minds about the optimal care and feeding of the brain. All of it is captivating. A great deal of it is unexpected.

Are you afraid of death? What is death? Is it the end, the beginning, or a transition? Why are we so afraid of death? After all, death is inevitable. Overcoming the Fear of Death: Through Each of the 4 Main Belief Systems helps us reduce and overcome our fears without having to change our beliefs about death.