Aging: An Apprenticeship - Nan Narboe

n nNan Narboe's 56 thoughtfully selected essays offer an intimate and lyrical account of aging through the decades. n nAuthors Judy Blume, Andrew McCarthy, Gloria Steinem, Donald Hall, David Shields, Ursula K. Le Guin and others draw from their own experiences, describing a specific decade's losses and gains to form a complex and unflinching portrait of the years from nearing fifty to ninety and beyond. n nIn six sections, these detail-rich essays paint an accessible picture of nearing 50, the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, the 90s and beyond with equal parts humor and insight. n nDrawing on seven decades worth of experiences, the selected essays offer a clear-eyed composition of narratives, each narrative as important as the one before it. In Paul Casey's Katie Couric Is No Friend of Mine, a colonoscopy, not a red convertible, marks his initiation into mid-life. Germaine Koh, in Thoughts on Aging, is the oldest player in her roller derby league, confounded by her changing body. Ursula K. Le Guin's Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty meditates on human self-consciousness--it is aging humans who find their bodies surprising. And in Death, Donald Hall rejects euphemisms: he's not going to pass away; he's going to die.n