The Book About Getting Older (for people who don't want to think about it) by geriatrician Dr Lucy Pollock (Michael Joseph, 2021)
Blogger Louise Morse highly recommends it: 'This is one of the best books about being very old that I’ve read in a long time. Everyone should read it, then none of us would be unprepared – and neither would our relatives and friends.'
The author, Dr Pollock, has been a geriatrician for 30 years. The British Geriatrics Society writes, ‘This warm and compassionate book gets to the heart of old age. Using stories and accessible explanations it covers issues of declining health, quality-of-life and choices about the things that matter most.’
Full of case studies which sound remarkably familiar, Dr Pollock addresses issues of faith in later life. In her blog review of the book, Louise Morse writes, 'Faith is a rock-solid certainty for many of her patients… woven into them. Younger people may have that to some degree, but often a great deal less than their parents or grandparents. It isn’t just a Sunday thing, but is absolutely the warp and weft of life. “And, my goodness, death is one of the moments in life when faith does its stuff, and belief transcends all physical concerns and lifts someone so gently and tenderly out of this world and into eternity.”'
Louise Morse concludes her review with this ringing endorsement:
'We will all be better for reading it.'