List lovingly created by Mary Ruhl

Cultural Attitudes & Aging Well
                                                                                           
A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health and Financial Security in an Age of  Increased Longevity  - Lauren Carstensen

A Year by the Sea; A Weekend to Change Your Life; A Walk on the Beach - Joan Anderson                                                                                                                      Aging Well - George Vaillant, MD

Being Mortal: Medicine & What Matters in the End - Atul Gawande

Disrupt Aging - Jo Ann Jenkins

Don’t Retire, Rewire - Jeri Sedlar

Fifty to Forever - Hugh Downs

How to be Old: Thinking Person’s Guide to Retirement - Richard Gerberding

How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free - Ernie Zelinski

Inventing the Rest of our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood - Suzanne Braun Levine

New Passages  - Gail Sheehy

Old Age - Simone de Beauvoir

Old is Not a Four-letter Word - Susan Towle

Saving the Best for Last: Creating our Lives after 50 - Renee Fisher

The Fountain of Age -  Betty Friedan

The Girls with the Grandmother Faces -  Frances Weaver

The Life Cycle Completed - Joan Erickson

The Long History of Old Age - Pat Thayne

This Chair Rocks -  Ashton Applewhite

What are Old People For?  - William Thomas, MD

With A Little Help From Our Friends: Creating Community As We Grow Older  -    Beth Baker
                                                                        Your Life Calling - Jane Pauley
 
 
Physical Health & Longevity
                                                                                           
Anti Cancer A New Way of Life - David Servan-Schreiber, MD PhD

Counterclockwise - Lauren Kessler  (local author!)

Drop Dead Healthy -  A.J. Jacobs

If I Live to be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians  - Neenah Ellis

Secrets of Longevity: Hundreds of Ways to Live to 100 - Dr. Mao Shing Ni

Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever or Die Trying - Bill Gifford

Strong Men and Strong Women Beat Arthritis - Dr. Miriam Nelson
  
The Art of Aging, A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-Being - Sherwin Nuland

The Blue Zones: Lessons on Living Longer from the People Who Live the Longest - ​Dan Buettner*                                                                                                            

The Gift of Caring -  Marcy Houle & Eliz. Eckstrom, MD

The Healthy Aging Brain: Sustaining Attachment, Attaining Wisdom - Louis Cozolino                                                          The Longevity Revolution - Robert N. Butler, MD

What Makes Olga Run? The Mystery of the 90-something Track Star & What She Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Happier Lives  -  Bruce Grierson

Younger Next Year - Chris Crowley 
Younger Next Year for Women - Chris Crowley

Creativity & Aging
                                                         
It's Never too Late to Begin Again: Discovering Creativity and Meaning at Mid-Life and Beyond -Julia Cameron &   Emma Lively                                                                    Lastingness: The Art of Old Age - Nicholas Delbanco 
                                           
Sky Above Clouds: Finding Our Way Through Creativity, Aging, and Illness - Wendy Miller & Gene Cohen, MD                                                                                                        The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life  - Gene Cohen, MD 


Mental Health & Cognitive Aging
                                                                                          
Aging with Grace: What The Nun Study Teaches us about Leading Longer, Healthier and More Meaningful Lives - David Snowdon, MD

The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science - Norman Doidge MD

The Mature Mind: the Positive Power of the Aging Brain - Gene Cohen, MD

The Secret Life of the Grown Up Brain - Barbara Strauch


​Literature & Memoir
 As We Are Now - May Sarton

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?  -  Roz Chast
                        
Journal of a Solitude - May Sarton

Old Age, Journey into Simplicity -   Helen Luke

Somewhere Toward the End: A Memoir -  Diana Athill

The Summer of a Dormouse - John Mortimer

The Wild Braid: a Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden  Stanley Kunitz
​
When Breath Becomes Air -  Paul Kalanithi MD


Wisdom, Spirituality, Death & Dying
Aging as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemplative Guide to Growing Older and Wiser - Lewis Richmond                                                                      Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul - Stephen Jenkinson

From Aging to Sage-ing -  Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Odyssey: School for the Second Half of Life - Shoshana Zuboff

Second Wind: Navigating the Passage to a Slower, Deeper, and More Connected Life  - Dr. Bill Thomas

Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying - Ram Dass

The Denial of Death - Ernest Becker
The Force of Character and the Lasting Life - James Hillman
                        
The Hourglass: Life as an Aging Mortal  -  Pamela Cuming

The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife - James Hollis

The Sense of an Ending  - Julian Barnes

The Wonder of Aging: A New Approach to Embracing Life After Fifty - Michael Gurian
                                                             Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life  - Daniel Klein