As a culture, we are increasingly 'anti-age'. Ageing is either identified entirely with disability, dependency and isolation or, conversely, with the model of the bungee-jumping, jet-skiing, Botoxed baby-boomer who has vanquished age altogether; it is either all-defining or non-existent because powerful treatments have triumphed over the ageing process itself. Both are manifestations of the same fear.
In How to Age, Anne Karpf asks what it would mean to be 'pro-age'. She maps out a different approach to ageing, one that challenges the two sets of attitudes that now so saturate our thinking and recognises that ageing is an inevitable part of the human condition, an important process that has to be acknowledged and accepted in order for us to live our lives as fully as possible, but should not be the prism through which we view ourselves or others. In this practical, inspiring book, Anne draws upon science, history and personal experience to reveal that the great challenge of ageing turns out to be none other than the challenge of living. And the real meaning of ageing well, if such a concept has any value, is living an engaged life: to experience as wide a range of human emotions and experiences as possible. Anne Karpf is a writer, medical sociologist and award-winning journalist. She has been a contributing editor to Cosmopolitan, and wrote a weekly column for the family pages of the Guardian, to which she now contributes columns on social, political and cultural issues. She also writes for the Independent on Sunday, Psychologies and many other publications. A regularly broadcaster, she is currently writing and presenting two one-hour BBC Radio 4 programmes. She is the author of three books, including The Human Voice. A deep and thoughtful look at what it means to age, how to do it well and why we care at all.
