Old age, they tell us, is not for sissies. Nevertheless, it is a territory that most of us can expect to enter and that, considering the alternative, we are usually willing to brave, however tentatively. Now, in this superb anthology, Wayne Booth, one of our most widely read and admired literary critics, offers us aid and comfort: the marvelous work of some of our greatest writers and poets on what growing older is really like, with a wonderful bonus - his own wise, Immensely rewarding reflections on what his seventy years have taught him. Profound, witty, shrewd, compassionate but never sentimental, Booth acknowledges, with characteristic candor, what has been lost, but also reminds us what remains to console, even to celebrate. Like the writers he has gathered, his subject is as much living as aging. And in the vitality and splendor of these contributors, we discover that the very act of making great art out of growing older is. Itself a bracing victory against time. Booth shows us that the best advisers on aging are not the gerontologists and other "experts" but our poets and writers, those quiet students of feeling who tell us that to grow old well is itself an art. His commentary weaves together poems and meditations from many cultures and periods: ancient Greeks and Chinese and Persians join company with Shakespeare and Yeats and Auden and Updike. Striking illustrations make a fine visual. Counterpoint, ranging from portraits by Rembrandt and Renoir to photographs of older people still going strong at work and at play. This extraordinary diversity of voices is a book to be savored and enjoyed for years to come. A perfect gift to oneself or to others, it provides ideal companionship and renewal for the journey from summer, through autumn, and on to winter.