Aging Your Best Until You Stop: What To Expect And What To Do
by Danny Kuhn
Favoritetrainers.com
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1737295341
$16.95

The first pick today in The 2024 PopCult Gift Guide is a new book by an author familiar to the readers of this blog, Danny Kuhn.

His new book, Aging Your Best Until You Stop: What To Expect And What To Do is a departure from his books that have been in previous PopCult Gift Guides. This time he writes about getting older, hopefully gracefully.

Ken Bays, former editor, Blues Revue magazine offers up the following assessment:

It’s not an option: you will age until you stop. Learn all you can about the process and plan to make the time you have left as good as it can possibly be. Based on solid academic research but written in a personal and conversational style, Danny Kuhn tells it like it is and doesn’t avoid uncomfortable topics. What is likely to happen to our bodies and minds? Are we doomed to have fewer and less satisfying relationships as we age? Is sex “still on the table?” What about our stuff?

Diseases, medications, drinking, recreational drugs, exercise, social contacts, and estate planning are all discussed, plus a thorough treatment of that great unknown: what is it really like to die? Many of the answers are personal and individual, but this extensive information from credible academic and medical sources can help you set realistic expectations and bend the rules in your favor. “You’re going to die, but there are things you can do to make the time you have left better. Danny Kuhn repeats those words throughout “Aging Your Best Until You Stop” like a mantra, and your reaction to that hard truth could be an indicator of whether or not this book will be up your alley. If that sort of reminder inspires you to take action, you’ll get excellent guidance here for living out your days with gusto and courage as well as clarity and realistic expectations.

If thinking about your mortality frightens you, then you might have a harder time making it through some of the latter chapters — though Kuhn’s disarming sense of humor goes a long way toward making readers comfortable with even the most difficult subjects, like terminal disease and hospice. (He loves puns; at one point he writes, “Since one of the complaints older people have is that they sometimes feel listless, I am giving you a list.”) This is light reading about a heavy subject, and Kuhn uses stories from his own life, anecdotes from friends and acquaintances, and reputable scientific literature to illustrate useful advice about everything from sex as you age to exercise to avoiding common regrets.

The chapter titled “Old Rules” is alone worth the price of admission; it’s where Kuhn provides the aforementioned “list,” an inventory of eight guidelines for staying happy as you age, the first of which is “never turn down the good because it isn’t perfect.” It’s wisdom like this — common sense ideas that perhaps aren’t so common in practice — that makes this book so valuable

To be honest, the reason I’m quoting Ken here is because I haven’t had time to sit down and read Danny’s book yet. Aside from writing The 2024 PopCult Gift Guide, Your humble blogger has been dealing with some of the very issues discussed in this book. I will say that I’ve skimmed it, and it strikes me as a great instruction manual for making the most of your later days.

Highly recommended as a gift for anyone on your shopping list who would enjoy some helpful suggestions on how to enjoy life to the fullest with grace and dignity. You should be able to order it from any bookseller using the ISBN code, or you could just get it from Amazon.