Aging Books Now!

Buy Aging Products at Drugstore.com!

The Last Gift of Time : Life Beyond Sixty
by Carolyn G. Heilbrun
 

Amazon.com Aging Book Section

Aging Books
 

Editorial Reviews 

Amazon.com 

At 72, Carolyn Heilbrun is the first to admit she's lucky. She writes: "I am, of course, aware that my perspective is that of someone who has enjoyed many advantages. I have had a privileged education, worked for over thirty years as a professor of English . . . and now enjoy a comfortable income. At the moment of recording this, I am in good health." Still, what she seems to feel luckiest about is not being young anymore. In this thoughtful collection of essays, The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty, Heilbrun describes her life in its final decades. For her, these years have been a time of quiet revelation: she buys a house of her own in order to have complete solitude, only to discover the pleasures of sharing that solitude with her husband of nearly 50 years; she finds her horizons--and her friendships--expanding through email; she offers a surprising argument against memory, suggesting that elderly people who dwell too much in the past miss out on "new ideas and pleasures we might, if firmly in the present, encounter and enjoy." 

A former professor of English at Columbia University, feminist author of several scholarly studies, and also the creator (under the name of Amanda Cross) of a successful series of mysteries featuring inquisitive Professor Kate Fansler, Heilbrun is vivid proof that life can be worth living to the very end. This intimate report from the frontier is both comforting and inspiring to all of us who must follow. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

Amazon.com 
Years ago Carolyn Heilbrun, a long-time feminist (Writing a Woman's Life) who also writes mysteries as Amanda Cross (The James Joyce Murder), decided to leave before age dragged her down by committing suicide at 70. Fortunately, she reneged, and chose instead to chronicle moments from her 60s. Always erudite, often deliciously wry, if sometimes pretentious, Heilbrun hits the mark more often than not in this book of essays. She speaks of "unmet friends" whose lives have paralleled her own and blessed deliverance from the academic bustle and backstabbing of Columbia University, the tyranny of memory, and foolish feminine clothes. Throughout, her sense of renewal is as welcome as her determination to go against the grain. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

The New York Times Book Review, Rebecca Pepper Sinkler 
Despite the subtitle, Carolyn G. Heilbrun's reflections on The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty is not a self-help or inspiration book, although it may be inspiring, and it is, in the broader sense, helpful. . . . It is more like a letter to a friend, the kind you don't lie to. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

From Booklist 
What a treasure Heilbrun is! Perhaps best known in academe for Writing a Woman's Life (1988)--which traced the narrow "marriage quest" narrative imposed on the lives of women, real and fictional--and outside it for her Kate Fansler mysteries (written as Amanda Cross to preserve her Columbia University professorship, from which she is now retired), the seventysomething Heilbrun is a superb advertisement for the examined life. Past the age at which she had long planned suicide, she marvels at the unexpected pleasures of her sixties: a new home, new dog, solitude that is not loneliness, a new link (e-mail!) to male friends from her grad school days, relatively recent, highly valued relationships with women friends, special writers (among them, May Sarton and Maxine Kumin), a close but not stifling multigenerational family, and "not wearing dresses." Still healthy and curious, Heilbrun "daily choose[s] life the more earnestly because it is a choice." Receptive readers will hope she makes that same choice for many years to come. Mary Carroll --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

From Kirkus Reviews 
This very satisfactory collection of essays celebrates the author's seventh decade as she looks back on it from her serene and energetic eighth. Heilbrun is a former Columbia University professor and a writer noted both for her feminist scholarship (Writing a Woman's Life, 1988, etc.) and her Amanda Cross mysteries. Satisfactorily married for half a century, the mother of three grown children, and a grandmother, she nevertheless planned to commit suicide when she reached 70. But when that magic number arrived, she discovered in looking back that living through her 60s had been an ``astonishing'' pleasure. Unlike some of her peers--Doris Grumbach and May Sarton among them--she has not grown crankier as she has grown older, and she attributes that in part to a life with ``many advantages,'' including good health and the discovery of close women friends. At first glance, the essays encompass a broad diversity of subjects, from Bianca the black dog to the joys of E-mail to androgyny and bisexuality (in a liberating section called ``On Not Wearing Dresses''), and including thoughts on living with men and on the fantasies of a lifelong Anglophile. Yet in fact, the range is narrow. Each piece, more or less fruitfully, discusses coming to terms with the past and formulating the terms of the present ``without a constant . . . stream of anger and resentment, without the daily contemplation of power always in the hands of the least worthy.'' In essence, the author describes a state not of growing older, but of being older, a state that incorporates both grace and growth. Drawing elegantly on the poets and authors she has taught and written about, from Andrew Marvell to Gloria Steinem, Heilbrun offers a glimpse not only of the rewards of aging, but of feminist battles fought and won. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

Book Description 
When she was young, distinguished author and critic Carolyn Heilbrun solemnly vowed to end her life when she turned seventy. But on the advent of that fateful birthday, she realized that her golden years had been full of unforeseen pleasures. Now, the astute and ever-insightful Heilbrun muses on the emotional and intellectual insights that brought her "to choose each day for now, to live." There are reflections on her new house and her sturdy, comfortable marriage; sweet solitude and the pleasures of sex at an advanced age; the fascination with e-mail and the joy of discovering unexpected friends. Even the encroachments of loss, pain, and sadness that come with age cannot spoil Heilbrun's moveable feast. They are merely the price of bountiful living.
 

Ingram 
The astute and ever eloquent Carolyn Heilbrun, author of the bestselling "Writing a Woman's Life", muses on the emotional and intellectual insights that have brought her to "choose each day for now, to live". 

From the Publisher 
As a young woman, Carolyn Heilbrun made a resolution not to live past "three score years and ten." Taking her own life at the age of seventy, she reasoned, would lend clean closure to a life well lived, and would keep her from the many tragedies of aging--becoming a burden to her children, witnessing the deterioration of her body, falling prey to a crippling disease. But on the advent of her seventieth birthday, she looked back on the past ten years and found, to her surprise, that her sixties had been the happiest decade of all: after fifty years, her marriage had matured into a happy balance of companionship and respect for solitude; she had developed deep friendships with her grown children and a small circle of peers; she had mastered a highly successful career as a scholar and writer. In the poignant, essayistic writing that best showcases her elegant talent and provocative mind, Carolyn Heilbrun celebrates the many pleasures of a mature life.
 

Filled with wisdom, knowledge, wry humor, and literary allusion, The Last Gift of Time is a moving book for all women invested in the pursuit of leading a woman's life to its fullest capacity. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

From the Back Cover 
"Like a letter to a friend, the kind you don't lie to . . . Heilbrun looks back on her 60's with buoyant pleasure."
--The New York Times Book Review

"THOUGHTFUL . . . OFTEN HUMOROUS . . . An eloquent look at life after 60 . . . Heilbrun's irrepressible humor and irreverence are among the first qualities noticed in The Last Gift of Time."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"HEILBRUN'S VOICE: HONEST, UNSENTIMENTAL, INTELLIGENT, WISE, RELEVANT. She is rigorous, she takes herself seriously, and that voice, at 70, is her reward."
--The Boston Globe

"READING CAROLYN HEILBRUN IS LIKE LISTENING TO MOZART. . . . In her wit and commitment to measured statement, she comes as near to the achievements of the 18th-century essayists as anyone writing today."
--Houston Chronicle 
 
 
 
 

From About.com Classic Literature and Fiction Guide
 

Top Stores:

AMAZON.COM
Earth's Biggest Selection 
Review  Rating:9.4 go there now!
Read Articles and learn more about this site here
Amazon UK

The World's Largest Bookseller Online 
Rating: 9.0  go there now!

10 million books,  CD's and videos 
Rating: 9.0 go there now!

I took a course in speed reading. Then I got Reader's Digest on microfilm. By the time I got the machine set up, I was done.

I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.

Review! Rating: 9.2 go there now!
Your online store for beauty, health, wellness, personal care and pharmacy products. 

Visit Our Online Planet Rx Pharmacy! Go There Now!
Rating: 9.0 go there now!
Welcome to the PlanetRx online pharmacy and drugstore.  Fill prescriptions.  Shop for products.  Get answers and advice.  Online shopping for pharmacy and drugstore products at PlanetRx 

All Stores:

Alibris.com
Search over 3 million used, out of print, rare and 
antiquarian books for sale from online web bookstore. Updated daily, constant inventory of  fine booksellers and ephemera.

BUY BOOKS.COM
The Internet Superstore 
Rating: 9.1 go there now!
 

VarsityBooks.com
The leading online college textbook store, offers over 400,000 titles at up to a 40% off bookstore prices.  Class textbook lists for 300 colleges 
and universities
Rating:9.0 go there now!

BigWords.com
Online college textbook store offering new and used college textbooks at discounted prices.  Buy your books online up to 40% cheaper than at your college bookstore.

Rating: 8.9  go there now!
For books-a-plenty visit this website featuring free book reviews, a Book du Jour (everyday, even!), Weekly Features, the Book Retriever (an easy-to-search database of titles), a section devoted to AudioBooks (with it’s own AudioBooks Retriever), Publisher’s Highlights and a Find & Fulfill service (just in case you can’t find the book you want, Books Now can!) With access to over 1 million titles, Books Now is sure to meet your needs!

AudioBookClub.com
Rating 8.8   go there now!
Tens of thousands of titles in dozens of categories 
so no matter what you're looking for, you're sure to find it at Audio Book Club. 4 Audiobooks For 1 Penny. 

Rating : 8.5  go there now!
For a comprehensive selection of computer, programming and technical books, interactive training and certification - such as MCSE, Fatbrain.com should be your first stop.

Rating: 8.5  go there now!
"Publisher's overstocks at blow-out prices.  Millions of in-stock books covering all major categories including out-of-print material. Secure online ordering with customer satisfaction guarantee 

Seek Books.com
Rating: 8.5  go there now!
Discount Book Seller and Source for Hard-to-find Books, Audio Books, Videos and Other Book Related Items 

Textbooks.com
Discounted new and used textbooks books. Guaranteed Buy Back.
Rating: 8.9  go there now!

Rating: 8.5  go there now!
Books, mystery books and; suspense booksnovels, romance books and; women's fiction books, history books and; biographies.No matter what you like to read, 1bookstreet has the Book for you. 

Quality Books.com
Over 700 Books Titles to Build Your Future: Divorce, Will & Banruptcy Kits, Work at Home Directories, Wholesale Directories, Tapes, CD's ... and much more!

Cherry Valley Books
Specialty children's bookstore focusing on children's books, parenting books, young adult books, book reviews.

Booksforcooks.com
8,000 cookbooks - books for every taste & palate from Books for Cooks, the cookbook bookstore on the Web!

Booksamillion.com
Offers better prices on the books you want. Millionaire's Club members save 55% off bestsellers, 46% off features and 37% off in-stock hardcovers. Paperbacks, magazines, gourmet coffee and gifts are also discounted every day.

Better Life Books.com
Better Life Books offers the best in Christian and Religious books and music as well as Childrens books and Bibles.

BusinessBookReview.com
Useful, best in business knowledge.

Ebookstand.com
eBookstand the digital publsiher of eBooks. Publishes all eBooks in less than 5 day for no more than $199

ElephantBooks.com
your primary source for out-of-print, fine used, old, rare and antiquarian books. Search our fast on-line database and order your books directly from us, guaranteed to be shipped within 24 hours.
 

* results or ranks are based on a 10 point scale judging the quality and honesty of the site. All ratings are opinions of Web Pages Now! and its staff.
Jokes by Steven Wright