WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS Examines Ways Boomers Are Innovating Old Age
(NASHVILLE, Tenn. – April 20, 2014) – Baby Boomers watched their parents grow old and die in nursing homes, isolated from their communities and friends. Now that the Boomers are retiring, they’re making arrangements to live out their years in ways that will better meet their desire to stay independent for as long as possible while remaining connected to their community, family, and friends.
In her new book WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Creating Community as We Grow Older (Vanderbilt University Press, May 5, 2014), journalist Beth Baker describes the innovative ways people are making their golden years a genuine treasure.
To request an electronic review copy, click here.
“This book shares stories of people around the country creatively coming up with new ways to live their next chapter, within a network of friendship and support,” Baker explains.
Beth Baker
Based on visits and interviews at many communities around the country, Beth Baker weaves a rich tapestry of grassroots alternatives, some of them surprisingly affordable:
—a mobile home cooperative in small-town Oregon
—a senior artists colony in Los Angeles
—neighbors helping neighbors in “Villages” or “naturally occurring retirement communities”
—intentional cohousing communities
—best friends moving in together
—multigenerational families that balance togetherness and privacy
—niche communities including such diverse groups as retired postal workers, gays and lesbians, and Zen Buddhists.
About the Author: Beth Baker, a long-time freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, AARP Bulletin, Washingtonian, and Ms. Magazine, is the features editor of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Baker is the author of Old Age in a New Age: The Promise of Transformative Nursing Homes. She and her husband live in a close-knit community in Takoma Park, MD. (Author photo by Ross Wells)
For Interviews: 301-270-8969 bethbaker@starpower.net
Advance Praise:
“Beth Baker courageously and empathetically asks the question many Baby Boomers avoid: How will we make it through our aging years with dignity, independence and pleasure? The answers she receives from folks around the US, straight and LGBT, reassure us that there are already promising paths being carved.”—Michele Kort, Senior Editor, Ms. Magazine
“Every Baby Boomer who wants to ‘age in place’ should read this book. So should their children.” —Howard Gleckman, author of Caring for Our Parents, Resident Fellow, the Urban Institute
“Beth Baker helps Boomers imagine alternatives as they prepare for living arrangements more permanent than Woodstock and less scary than where their (grand)parents ended up.” —W. Andrew Achenbaum, Deputy Director of the Consortium on Aging at the University of Texas Medical School
BOOK INFO:
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Creating Community as We Grow Older
Beth Baker
264 pages, 6 x 9 inches
To be published MAY 5, 2014
ISBN 978-0-8265-1976-4 trade paper $24.95
Also available in hardcover and ebook.
