Vendor
Brandt & Hochman Agency
Published by
Bloomsbury (2019-06-11)
Current material
Press Folder/Reviews
Original language
English
Themas
Society & Social Sciences

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ELDERHOOD

Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

by Aronson, Louise

Geriatrician Louise Aronson's insightful non-fiction title about our care - or the lack thereof - of the elderly.

As revelatory as Atul Gawande's BEING MORTAL, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson's ELDERHOOD is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but little respected stage of life. For more than 5,000 years, "old" has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we've made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, disparaged, neglected, and denied.

Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that's neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy. She challenges not only the way we look at aging but also the way we think and feel about medicine and humanity itself.

ELDERHOOD is for anyone who is, in the author's own words, "an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being."

Louise Aronson, MD, is the author of A History of the Present Illness and a geriatrician, educator, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she directs UCSF Medical Humanities. A graduate of Harvard Medical School and the MFA Program For Writers at Warren Wilson College, Dr. Aronson has received the Gold Professorship in Humanism, the California Homecare Physician of the Year Award, and the American Geriatrics Society Clinician-Teacher of the Year Award, as well as numerous awards for her teaching, educational research, and writing. The recipient of a MacDowell fellowship and four Pushcart nominations, her articles and stories have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and Bellevue Literary Review. She lives in San Francisco.

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Comments

"As Louise Aronson says, 'Life offers just two possibilities: die young or grow old.' This searing, luminous book is for everyone who hopes to accomplish the latter and remain fully human as they do. It will challenge your assumptions and open your mindand it just might change your life."

Quote: Lucy Kalanithi, MD, editor of WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

"A passionate, deeply informed critique of how our healthcare system fails in its treatment of the elderly. Vitally important. Though the subject of this provocative book is the elderly, its message touches the entire span of human life."

Review: BookPage

Life is poignant for many reasons, but especially because it ends. In the latter years there are possibilities for joy, transcendence and meaning but also for just the opposite. ELDERHOOD is a lovely and thoughtful exploration of this voyage. Aronson's skill is to write like a memoirist while giving us scientific insight, philosophical wisdom and wise counsel for a journey and destination we all share.

Quote: Abraham Verghese, author of CUTTING FOR STONE

Aronson's ELDERHOOD is dazzling, rich with knowledge gleaned from her professional work as a geriatrician, her personal experience as a daughter, her common sense, and her thorough analysis of our social supports and cultural messaging. Her arguments are powerful, and her conclusions are revolutionary. I hope everyone who has a stake in older people, which is ultimately all of us, will read this book.

Quote: Mary Pipher, author of REVIVING OPHELIA and WOMEN ROWING NORTH

"Intimidating as it may seem, elderhood becomes welcoming and generous in Aronson's deft care."

Review: Shelf-Awareness

Korea: Rok Media

Quote: Brandt & Hochman

[A] penetrating meditation on geriatrics . Aronson's deep empathy, hard-won knowledge, and vivid reportage makes for one of the best accounts around of the medical mistreatment of the old.

www.publishersweekly.com/9781620405468

Review: Publishers Weekly

"An examination of aging and the human condition encompassing poignant stories and the viewpoints of medical experts, writers, historians, and scientists. Empathetic, probing, and often emotionally moving narratives on appreciating the power and the pain of aging."

Review: Kirkus

"In ELDERHOOD, the physician-writer Louise Aronson provides an honest and humane analysis of what it means to grow old in America. Her bookpart memoir, history, and social critiqueis deeply sympathetic to elders and sharply critical of the 'anti-aging industry' that has tried to turn being elderly into some sort of disease. I highly recommend this wonderful book to anyone who plans on growing old in this country."

Quote: Sandeep Jauhar, author