The 50 Year Dash is a wonderful book of reflections on everything that’s part of life at fifty: looking at aches and pains as a growth industry, and seeing the constant onslaught of new pain relievers as a new version of the British invasion of rock groups in the 1960s; finding that the world is no longer sufficiently quiet, and that you’re the one yelling Turn that down! ; realizing you’re older than James Bond ever was; hearing yourself say, The fruit plate looks good, and meaning it; understanding that the one thing that seems to be going away from you the fastest is that first-time feeling–first job, first house, first kiss–and knowing that the best thing you can do for yourself is to find ways to keep finding those feelings again and again.

Between now and the year 2014, seventy-seven million American men and women–most of the baby boom generation–will turn fifty. That’s about ten thousand birthdays per day. The 50 Year Dash is the perfect book for every single one of them.