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Elderhood

Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life
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( 2,188 ratings, 417 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Elderhood by Louise Aronson explores the later stages of life from a medical perspective, combining personal narratives with systemic insights. Aronson delves into the experiences and challenges of aging, aiming to redefine our understanding and appreciation of this often-overlooked stage. It's a blend of memoir, medical advice, and cultural commentary that encourages a deeper consideration of what it means to grow older.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$5400
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book may appeal to you if you are interested in exploring the complexities and beauties of ageing. It offers insightful perspectives on growing older, combining the author's medical expertise with tender storytelling, making it a valuable read for anyone curious about the later stages of life.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction

A New York Times Bestseller

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Winner of the WSU AOS Bonner Book Award

Winner of the 2022 At Home With Growing Older Impact Award

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 often disparaged 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, denigrated, 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—a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself.

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

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Louise Aronson's Elderhood is praised for its eloquent and insightful critique of the healthcare industry's treatment of the elderly. Reviewers highlight the book's compassionate and humanistic approach, advocating for a new paradigm in personalised medicine that takes into account a patient's experiences and expectations. The work is noted for its blend of personal memoir, social critique, and a call to action against the "anti-aging industry", making it a vital read for both medical professionals and the general public interested in the challenges and opportunities of aging.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781620405475

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 02 March 2021

Country: United States

Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Illustration: charts and graph illustrations throughout

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 454g

Pages: 464

About the Author

Louise Aronson, MD, MFA, is a leading 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, Dr. Aronson has received the Gold Professorship in Humanism in Medicine, the California Homecare Physician of the Year Award, the American Geriatrics Society Clinician of the Year Award, and was named one of Next Avenue’s 2019 Influencers in Aging. She is the author of A History of the Present Illness and her articles and stories have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, and The Atlantic. She lives in San Francisco.

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