Bolder How to Age Better and Feel Better about Ageing

A radical re-think of our approach to everything from education, healthcare and work, to design, relationships and politics. An essential and inspiring read for everyone interested in our collective future.

A revolution in how we age is here. Yes, ageing is inevitable: one year from now we will all be a year older; that will never change. What can and will change is how we age--and how we can all take a much bolder approach to doing it with vigour and joy.

The time has come to cast off prejudices and to blur the lines of what is possible and permissible at every stage of life. In other words: we need to learn to re-imagine our approach to later life. Emboldening ourselves in older age demands big structural changes. For a start, we will have to tear up the old script that locks us into devoting the early part of our life to education, the middle chunk to working and raising kids, and whatever is left over at the end to leisure. In an age-inappropriate world, these silos will dissolve. We'll embrace the idea that we can carry on learning from start to finish; that we can work less and devote more time to family, leisure, and giving back to our communities in our middle years; and that we can remain active and engaged in our later years.

Carl Honoré has travelled the globe speaking to influential figures who are bucking preconceived notions of age, whether at work or in their personal lives. He looks at the cultural, medical, and technological developments that are opening new possibilities for us all.

Canadian-born journalist CARL HONORÉ has written for The Economist, the Houston Chronicle, the Observer, and the National Post, but he is best known for his advocacy of the Slow Movement. A loose and international effort by the harried and haggard to decelerate the pace of their lives, the Slow Movement spans everything from telecommunications (slow e-mail) and health care (slow medicine) to diet (slow food) and public space (slow cities). In Praise of Slow has been translated into well over twenty languages. Carl's TED Talk on the subject has been viewed by more than 2.5 million people. He is also the author of Under Pressure: Putting the Child Back in Childhood and The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter and Live Better.