How to age / Anne Karpf.
Series: School of LifePublisher: Basingstoke : Macmillan , 2014Description: 149 p. : ill. ; 18 cm001: 25399ISBN: 9780230767751Subject(s): Self-help books | Ageing | Human conditionDDC classification: 305.26Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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Book | MAIN LIBRARY Book | 305.26 KAR (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 110319 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Society has a deep fear of ageing. Old age is increasingly viewed as a biomedical problem, something to be avoided at all costs and then vanished away by medicine. Anne Karpf urges us to change our narrative. Exploring how our outlook on ageing is historically determined and culturally defined, she draws upon case studies, old and new, to suggest how ageing can be an actively enriching time of immense growth. She argues that if we can recognize growing older as an inevitable part of the human condition, then the great challenge of ageing turns out to be none other than the challenge of living.
One in the new series of books from The School of Life, launched January 2014:
How to Age by Anne Karpf
How to Develop Emotional Health by Oliver James
How to Be Alone by Sara Maitland
How to Deal with Adversity by Christopher Hamilton
How to Think About Exercise by Damon Young
How to Connect with Nature by Tristan Gooley
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Booklist Review
Part of the School of Life series (How to Stay Sane, 2012; How to Think More about Sex, 2012), Karpf's pithy and cogent treatise calls for us to embrace aging as a lifelong process. Not that Karpf dismisses the difficulties of advanced age, but she believes that our fear of getting old is debilitating. Age would be a much healthier aspect of life if we didn't dread and disparage it. Karpf critiques our extreme obsession with looking young and how it fuels a gargantuan anti-aging industry based mostly on fantasy, and she protests age-apartheid. Reminding us of neurological studies that reveal the lasting elasticity of our brains, Karpf cites fascinating and diverse examples that confirm the fact that age helps us discover enduring sources of meaning. Wittily philosophical, Karpf declares that ageism is prejudice against one's future self. We should live time to the hilt since we can't stop it, cultivating passion, vitality, humor, and creativity, which are possible at every age. One more observation to help us shake off apprehension: There's never been a better time to age. --Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 BooklistThere are no comments on this title.