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A Search for Wisdom from Old People
Twelve
January 2009
On Sale: January 2, 2009
272 pages
ISBN: 0446196037
EAN: 9780446196031
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Armed with recent medical evidence that supports the cliche
that older people are, indeed, wiser, Alford sets off to
interview people over 70 - some famous (Phyllis Diller,
Harold Bloom, Edward Albee), some accomplished (the world's
most-quoted author, a woman who walked across the country at
age 89 in support of campaign finance reform), some unusual
(a pastor who thinks napping is a form of prayer, a retired
aerospace engineer who eats food out of the garbage.) Early
on in the process, Alford interviews his 79 year-old mother
and step-father, and inadvertently changes the course of
their 36 year-long union. Part family memoir, part Studs
Terkel, How To Live considers some unusual sources -
deathbed confessions, late-in-life journals - to deliver a
highly optimistic look at our dying days. By showing that
life after 70 is the fulfilment of, not the end to, life's
questions and trials, How to Live delivers that most
unexpected punch: it makes you actually 'want to get old'.
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