5 Top Gifts for the 50+ Booklover
The Fierce with Age Digest Annual List of Visionary Books for Old Souls
For the 50+ booklover in your life, give them a present that will take them straight from its gift wrapping to their favorite armchair. These five books, ranging from brand new to the classics, share the belief that aging is not a problem to be solved but a time for depth and expansion.
The connecting thread is the reminder that you have what it takes to shift from fear-driven reactivity to the challenges of aging, to instead accept them in a spirit of gratitude as they help you grow not just old, but whole. Each of these titles is available from your favorite retailer. For many more suggestions, visit the virtual book club tab at CarolOrsborn.com.
1.) Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life by Carol Orsborn
From the publisher: Walking readers through the most uplifting, passionate, as well as dangerous passages on the path of aging consciously, Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.’s new book points the way forward through every conceivable mood, opportunity, and stumbling block that may arise on the journey through the second half of life.
Designed to be read weekly in two-year cycles beginning the first week of January, the 120 timeless readings focus on the issues and concerns that arise among those who view aging as a path to spiritual culmination. From transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love, Dr. Orsborn’s wise and compassionate insights are seasoned by quotes and stories by and about mystics, sages, and old souls from ancient through contemporary times who illuminate the path to living a full life while embracing old age.
At once unflinching and triumphant, the readings are both archetypal and personal, reminding readers of how far they’ve come and that, regardless of their circumstances, aging can be a lifestage with spiritual meaning and purpose of its own. The paperback is a pleasant and chubby handful, specially-sized to fit on bedside tables and armchairs for years to come.
2.) The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister
On the far side of midlife, author Joan Chittister shows us the way to experience the freedom beyond our childhood traumas and discover what it means to be liberated from kneejerk reactivity and to make fresh, life-affirming choices for ourselves. Here’s how she puts it: “Now we are beyond the narcissism of youth, above the survival struggles of young adulthood, beyond the grind of middle age, and prepared to look beyond ourselves into the very heartbeat of life. Now we can let our spirits fly. We can do what our souls demand that fully human beings do. This is the moment for which we were born.”
Yes, there are losses. But there are also gains. We can, as Joan puts it “come alive in ways” beyond our wildest expectations.
3.) Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey by James Hollis
In this game-changing book, James Hollis guides us to our potential breakthroughs later in life the fastest, most elegant way possible, by basically asking us the same question over and over again, in various ways and means: What is your unfinished business? What’s stopping you? And then through a rich parade of illustrative teaching stories and sage advice, drawn from his many decades of practice as one of the country’s leading psychiatrists, he gives us the map to the maze. Of course, it’s up to us to find our way out—especially since along the way, there will be dragons galore. But Hollis asks: what is the alternative?
4.) The Measure of My Days: One Woman’s Vivid, Enduring Celebration of Life and Aging by Florida Scott-Maxwell
We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense and varied experience. Almost beyond our capacity at times, but something to be carried high.
--Florida Scott-Maxwell
So begins celebrated Jungian therapist Florida Scott-Maxwell‘s classic book about aging, The Measure of My Days, written a little over 50 years ago when she was 85.Trained as a psychoanalyst by Carl Jung and gifted with the soul of a poet, Florida warns against romanticized notions of aging as complacency. Rather, she experienced old age as a time of paradox in which one has the potential to be at times exhausted and at others on fire with life.
Her courageous stance towards aging included confessing to bouts of pessimism, without feeling the need for explanation, defense or apology. Other times, she is willing to reveal original wounds and unprocessed shadows, with no need to submit nor prescribe to superficial resolution. When she embraces her anger, her concern, her grief, she does not necessarily thereby transform or transcend her emotions in order to regain control. To the casual observer, she may appear to be unhappy—at least some of the time. But Florida aims for something even greater than happiness: to be intensely alive. This is a deceptively small book but so densely packed with wisdom it delivers a big punch.
For the Spiritual Aging Calendar of Free and Support Group Events, click HERE
How to Join or Start a Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group, click HERE