Sixty

June 13, 2016
On the day he turns 60, journalist Brown (The Boy in the Moon) starts keeping a diary. Brown probes the daily details of his first-year as a sexagenarian in an attempt to stave off his fear of breaking down physically and mentally as well to get to know his current self, which is different from his former self but retains shadows of it. In a memoir that is occasionally funny or momentarily poignant but more often simply wearisome, Brown lets down his guard to share his deepest anxieties about his aging life. Unsurprisingly, he provides a litany of the physical challenges of aging: the urge to pee, a crippling plantar fasciitis that hobbles him, aging eyes that require glaucoma drops as well as graduated lenses. He compares himself to celebrities who’ve turned 60—Jay Leno, whose “skin is clear but the color of my dining room table”; Tom Petty, who at 63 “looks younger and more relaxed than I do”—as a way of comforting himself. In the end, he longs to be less afraid as he moves forward, and he wants to be younger and stronger as the years progress, but he realizes time is “running out faster than I can know.” Those turning 60 will appreciate and find resonance with Brown’s honest grappling with his aging.

June 15, 2016
A journalist's diary of age 60.In 2014, Brown (The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son, 2011, etc.) arrived at one of the crossroads of life that even the most self-assured among us cannot help but eye warily. No longer a young man, nor even middle-aged, but on the cusp of "heading into the last turn, or for the back nine, or toward the clubhouse (someone should make a list of all the euphemisms we employ to denote the onset of aging)," the author looked back on a resolution he made at 50 to take note of the details around him and the processes unfolding within him. For 10 years, that resolution got lost in the daily shuffle of obligations. As 60 approached, he found a dearth of levelheaded explorations of that age. Displeased with the cheerleading of seniorhood as just another "new and ever-younger future," an assessment that "mostly made me want to run shrieking from the room," Brown found new motivation to try his hand at it. The subjects that find their ways into these pages aren't surprising: the author mulls over his own flagging ambitions as a writer, wondering where the drive to swing for the fences went and why he didn't harness it when it was active. He considers the writing of others--not just about aging, but also the importance of being present in one's current environment. Conversations with lifelong friends often turned into the airing of the newest physical grievances. Young editors at the newspaper told him to develop his Twitter presence and build his list of followers on YouTube. His reactions reflect the knowledge of someone who understands technology well enough to acknowledge the shifting paradigms while also dismissing much of it as ridiculous. If that sounds cantankerous, the author is not. Brown's humor is pointed inward as often as outward, and he neither glosses over nor languishes on the fact that he has fewer years ahead of him than behind.

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July 1, 2016
As far as birthday milestones go, turning 60 looms large. When Canadian journalist and author Brown was facing the start of this new decade of his life, he decided to chronicle the year through diary entries. The result is an account focused on all aspects of coming to terms with aging, from the seemingly trivial to serious ruminations on mortality. Brown is personable and relatable, whether he's discussing his unruly and rapidly disappearing hair or his sudden tentativeness about engaging in physical activities. Among Brown and his friends, there's a certain disbelief that they are indeed getting older, an unwillingness to be pigeonholed into stereotypes even as they recognize that they are changing. As the reality settles in that the time he has left is limited, Brown confronts his regrets, the loss of his parents, and asks where the years, even decades, of his life had gone. A spark of humor shines through even these serious topics, which he handles gracefully. Well considered and illuminating, Sixty allows readers to delve deeply into the real meaning of maturity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)