I HAVE a rather specialist library. The cataloguing is more personal than academic. You won’t find A for Age (Old), D for Dying or G for Gerontology, but it’s all there in my collection devoted to the downhill slalom of life. The books are old friends who have aged well. I read Crazy Age: Thoughts on Being Old by Jane Miller every year or so. The title comes from Robert Burns, who wrote: ‘Yet here to crazy age we’re brought,’ a reminder that we’re all headed there.
Another companion is by Nicole Hollander, creator of the beloved comic strip. The book opens with a typical wisecrack epigraph from Sylvia: ‘Getting old in America… best to do it somewhere else.’ She said that in 1990, more than three decades ago, and it no longer rings true. Washington DC, the nation’s capital, is now headquarters of Planet Denial.
