Society has a deep fear of ageing. Old age is increasingly viewed as a biomedical problem, something to be avoided at all costs and then vanished away by medicine. Anne Karpf urges us to change our narrative.

Exploring how our outlook on ageing is historically determined and culturally defined, she draws upon case studies, old and new, to suggest how ageing can be an actively enriching time of immense growth. She argues that if we can recognize growing older as an inevitable part of the human condition, then the great challenge of ageing turns out to be none other than the challenge of living.

One in the new series of books from The School of Life, launched January 2014: How to Age by Anne Karpf, How to Develop Emotional Health by Oliver James, How to Be Alone by Sara Maitland, How to Deal with Adversity by Christopher Hamilton, How to Think About Exercise by Damon Young, How to Connect with Nature by Tristan Gooley.

‘This new series of The School of Life’s self-help books build on the strengths of the first, tackling some of the hardest issues of our lives in a way that is genuinely informative, helpful and consoling. Here are books that prove that the term self-help doesn’t have to be either shallow or naive’ (Alain de Botton, Founder of The School of Life)