Book Review: How To Age...Disgracefully

This is a book that I grabbed in a local bookstore over the holidays, while shopping for Christmas gifts. Our sweet little bookstore offers lunch, local art, and a wonderful children's corner. It also hosts artists, musicians and other events. On our first visit, I walked in and a small book leaped off the shelf into my aging hands called How to Age Disgracefully by Claire Pooley. I read the back cover as follows:

"Daphne knows that age is just a number. She also knows that society no longer pays her any attention - something she exploits to help hide a checkered past. Finding herself alone on her 70th birthday, she decides to venture out. Joining a Senior Citizen's Social Club horrifies her - she's not made to endure games of cards and the like..."

Ok...I'm fast approaching a marker birthday, now that we flipped the calendar. My much older cousin and my younger sister both gasped out loud, followed by "Oh No!!! Are you kidding? NOOO! It can't be!" NOOOO!! WAY!!! That was the response when I confirmed my approaching age. Good grief! Could that make you feel any worse?

I feel the same - well, with more aches and pains and less patience. I look (cough) somewhat the same, I think - some days not... What the hell is all the fuss? This book, from the first chapter, was laugh-out-loud funny and continues to the end! The main character is a mess: snooty, unsociable and also undercover with a secret...but dips a cautious toe into a round-the-corner senior center, that also houses a day care center, an AA Meetup, and other events that are necessary community resources. The building is about to be taken over by a big development with bigger plans in downtown London. In the meantime, everyone at the community center has secrets, ghosts from the past (and present), and each would rather avoid facing them. As we all age, who doesn't?

All I can say is this author has a gift for describing the human condition, no matter the age, and a talent with the human language.

The author, Claire Pooley, is a married, stay-at-home mom of three from Fulham, London. This is her third book. I'd never heard of her, but her marvelously funny story and amazing insight into the human heart found its way to my local Florida bookstore. Her only other novels, including The Authenticity Project, a NYT Best Seller and translated into 29 languages, are my next read. She also wrote Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting, which I also purchased.

How To Age Disgracefully (how can you not love the title?) weaves a crazy tale about a small, newly opened senior center with not much funding or confidence, and the few tepid hearts that join who all have interesting, crazy and sometimes nasty pasts, and ghosts in the closet that insist on coming out and faced. There is a powerful message here - that generations young and old can offer so much to each other, that local support and a close-knit community far outweighs another high-rise. It tells how we need our local churches, community centers and small businesses that depend on one another to make a town work, and ultimately, a thriving culture, and a healthy country.

You will love this book. To all within the Ricochet community with ties to the entertainment world, this would be a fantastic movie! All the characters shine, but not without struggles.

I love this author. Here is her information and books: https://clarepooley.com/