Resources on Aging

Nope, this isn’t about sustainability, or corporate responsibility, or the role of work in our lives and societies. But the topic of aging parents is consuming an ever-increasing part of my energy and conversations with peers. So I thought I’d share some resources here that I’ve found useful, whether because they’re practical, eloquent, relatable, or some combination of the three. Please feel free to send me additional titles, resources, and thoughts anytime.

Non-fiction books:

• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. The book to start with to get an overview of how broken the U.S. elder care “system” is.

• A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents—and Ourselves by Jane Gross, the late trailblazing sportswriter. Repetitive, should have been half the length, but I found myself coming back to it repeatedly as I started researching geriatric care managers for my parents.

• The Art of Dying Well by Katy Butler. Chock full of practical advice for each decade of life.

• Women Rowing North by Mary Pipher. What’s important to women transitioning from middle to old age.

• Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a year among the oldest old by John Leland, based on his 2015 New York Times series documenting a year in the life of six elderly New Yorkers. The lessons get repetitive (appreciate what you have, not what you’ve lost; adjust your expectations); but Leland’s affection for his subjects and care with their stories keep the pages turning.

• A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death by BJ Miller, MD and Shoshana Berger. The super-practical guide that I am currently working through now.

• A few more in this list from Ron Lieber.

First-person accounts:

• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Heartbreaking memoir from a neurosurgeon dying of cancer.

• Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast. In the style of Chast’s New Yorker cartoons, a laugh-and-cry memoir about Chast and her aging parents.

• Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner. Poignant, especially for those of us who keep food close to the heart.

Fiction (I haven’t read all of these yet, but am grateful to Professor Ozcan Tunalilar at the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning and at the Institute on Aging at Portland State University for recommending them in his Perspectives on Aging syllabus):

• A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)

• The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg)

• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (Kathleen Rooney)

• Still Alice (Lisa Genova)

• The Madonnas of Leningrad (Debra Dean)

• These Foolish Things/The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Deborah Moggach)