Only two books in the stack with other reading for my 7th year of suggested titles for “booking up” in the subject area of ageing and longevity. With countless new books in this subject area arriving each year, I tend to lean towards those which focus on social issues, with an age inclusive global perspective where possible. Of course there are niche books, some more academic in nature and those specifically zoned in on overlapping topics such as technology or social science.
As an aside, I usually read something off my usual feed on ageing and longevity, for example in summer 2023 – Otherlands: Journeys in Earth’s Extinct Ecosystems(2022) by Thomas Halliday. Here I was whiplashed back and forth in time through eons, eras and epochs, learning about life on this planet before humans, in times when our continents had not taken shape as they are currently. In the epilogue Halliday leaves us with much to reflect on, for instance:
“… the ecosystems that have been built since the last mass extinction 66 million years ago are under stress. By destroying communities and changing the chemistry of the world, we are tugging at the strands of the spider’s web once more, and several strands have already broken.”
Perfect set up for the first book on my list – Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation(2023) by Danielle Arigoni. Listened to Arigoni speak about her book back in March on the Stanford Center on Longevity Book Club series where she submitted that housing and climate need to be discussed within an intersectionality framework and should not exclude homelessness of older people and issues such as financial frailty and the impact of climate change on home insurance.
Second on the list –The Longevity Imperative (2024)by Economic Professor at the London Business School, Andrew J. Scott who I also listened to on the Longevity Book Club in early May right after the launch of the book.
Still I look forward to see how Scott further articulates his global thinking on the subject of longevity as he approaches it from a social and economic framework.
By his own admission, quoting from one of his recent LinkedIn posts: “…I am increasingly obsessed with the issue of longevity. For me that isn’t about finding a way to biohack myself to an immortal future but how we as a society think about adapting and adjusting to our new found length of life.”
Scott also surmises: “a first longevity revolution is coming to an end now that global life expectancy now exceeds 70. The young, in other words, can now expect to become the old. That means a second longevity revolution needs to commence focused on changing how we age”.
Listening to what Andrew Scott says harkens me back to 2001 when I first read Longevity Revolution by Theodore Roszak. The subtitle was “As Boomers Become Elders”, though somehow nearly 25 years later this sounds a of singular view; not completely it, as Scott infers and I agree – longevity is not a Boomer story alone.
One of the outlooks that Scott shared during his Longevity Book Club discussion was that of intergenerational inclusiveness and fairness, we need to be funding healthy longevity at all ages while at the same time we should not underestimate the potential of older people. So if there is one quote from Roszak (my all-time favourite), that might align well with Scott’s narrative it is his proposal: “Living longer…it’s time we start finding a good social use for those extra years.”
Postscript. Once again my annual summer read from Donna Leon is in the stack – ARefiner’s Fire – her 33rd Inspector Brunetti novel set in Venice.
