Product Description

Blair shares more than 150 short essays covering a wide range of topics relating specifically to women and aging. Encouraging women to re-envision their lives for the road ahead, Blair explores our own attitudes and cultural myths about aging, and helps us work through our own self-limiting beliefs. She even includes a special section examining love and relationships, along with tips on managing finances and sharing our decisions with family and friends. The interactive format features space to write your responses to each essay, and the book also includes a study guide for groups.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47988 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 333 pages

Review
Must Read Rating: Five Stars -- Today's Books Book Register, December 2005

[Blair] shares ways for us to continue to evolve with purpose by blessing others and ourselves. I highly recommend it. -- National Association of Baby Boomer Women Newsletter, March 2006

Review
"This is a wonderful book--filled with useful exercises and spirit." --Sue Bender, author of Stretching Lessons, Plain and Simple, and Everyday Sacred

Customer Reviews

SHATTER YOUR AGING MYTHS
This book has indeed encouraged me to re-envision my life for the years ahead. The essays by women who are successfully aging are short. There is room after each essay for journaling, answering specific question about the essay. This has made it possible for me to explore my beliefs about aging. I have made the book my own and have actually written on every page. The wide margins encourage note taking. Usually I will write in pencil so my material can be erased. In this book my comments are in ink. I have claimed the book as my own.
It is a book that I will give to my friends who are stuck in the myths of aging.
After reading this I know that I do not have to age like my Mother or Grandmother. My age now is 68 and I know now that I have many fulfilling years ahead of me.
This is the first interactive book i have seen on aging.

A think-and-do book for cronehood
This book is well timed for the crossing over of us baby-boomer women into the seemingly formidable midlife threshold. It is a fun read that entices its reader to accompany-and, years hence, to revisit-it into a ripe and rich old age that (we like to think) makes the young-and-promising positively tremble with eager anticipation and even a little envy.
As our youth recedes, we gain in wisdom-or so we fervently hope. This book provides a nice direction on topics to start cogitating about, if we aren't already saying "me too" at their very mention. Both held true for this 50-something reviewer.
The journaling pages add a new dimension to the author's musings and down-to-earth advice about how aging affects cultural attitudes, relationship to self and others in our lives, and logistical concerns. The think-and-do format seems designed for those of us (such as myself) who whittle away seeming eternities in waiting rooms ripping out and filling in self-diagnostic tests from women's magazines. This book is written with avid readers of women's magazines in mind.
This format helps with journaling, an increasingly valuable skill to those whose need for verbal processing exceeds the capacity of even our closest friends, therapists, not to mention our sanity.
Ms. Blair offers much practical wisdom on stress management, the more than occasional need to say "no", how to prune out obsolete junk and simplify-even how to sell your house and create a more comfortable and manageable living space for yourself. The author takes some of the sting out of certain unpleasantries-such as the death of loved ones, working retirement, parenting "old" children, employers' prejudices against older workers-by articulating and describing them, and creating a guided journal entry. Her tone is warm and motherly without being scolding or condescending. I would have liked more information on the logistics around the deaths of parents, but no reviewer can have everything.
It works best to take in this book as a self-paced mini-course, pausing at your leisure to dialogue with the author by filling in the journal entries as you journey through it. Though the content builds on itself, the table of contents' organization and the self-contained coherence of each chapter makes for a nice nibbler too.

I Love This Book!!!
Picture sitting down to tea on a warm sunny porch in early spring with your favorite Aunt. She's honest, witty, full of important information delivered with love and affection which helps pave the way for your continuing growth and development. With The Next Fifty Years, Pamela Blair has officially become one of my favorite aunts, gently guiding me through the challenges of midlife with grace and humor. The essays, on every topic imaginable, are beautifully written and punctuated with fabulous quotes from women only. At the end of each essay, wonderfully thought-provoking questions transform this book into an interactive conversation where my journaled responses become part of the journey. Order this book, put the kettle on and pull up a cozy chair - you'll be glad you did!