We’re all aging, even if we don’t want to acknowledge or think about it. And we’re all living longer in a society that fears aging and often looks on aging as a disease.

 What questions really matter as we age?

 How are we facing the inevitable changes aging brings?

 How can we deal with a healthcare system in which the work of medicine is often incompatible with both care and health?

 What is good about aging? Many surveys have shown older adults as more satisfied with their lives than ever before, but that’s not the general societal perspective.

 The library has received a grant from the National Institutes of Medicine to host a discussion based on the book Elderhood by Louise Aronson, a geriatrician whose book poses provocative questions about what old age is, what it should be and what it could be.

Join the discussion at the library on October 25 at 6:30pm in the art gallery. Coordinating the discussion will be Mary Schantz, who has long experience in public policy regarding aging issues; Dr. Nancy Ellis-Ordway, a psychologist and author of Thrive at Any Weight and whose academic research focuses on body image; and Madeline Matson, the library’s adult programmer.