Elderhood: A Book Discussion

Most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for forty years or more. Even though humans are living longer than ever before, we've made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected and denied. Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson's Pulitzer-nominated book Elderhood is the subject of a book discussion that invites participants to consider how aging ang ageism affects popular culture, medical treatment, and societal attitudes. Copies of this provocative book are available from the library and through Mobius. The library has received a National Institutes of Health grant that includes discussion materials and a number of books to be awarded in a drawing to those who participate in the discussion program. The discussion will be coordinated by 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.