Fifty Is the New Fifty: Ten Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood [Mass Market Paperback]

Suzanne Braun Levine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 2010

Read Suzanne Braun Levine's posts on the Penguin Blog.

An inspiring guide to maximizing creativity and happiness in the second half of life

Suzanne Braun Levine follows her groundbreaking Inventing the Rest of Our Lives with fresh insights, research, and practical advice on the challenges and unexpected rewards for women in their fifties, sixties, and seventies. Rich with anecdotes, this book captures the voices of women who are confronting change, renegotiating their relationships, and discovering who they are now that they are finally grown up. Levine's own warm, wise, and humorous voice make this guide encouraging, enriching, and empowering.

50 Is the New Fifty is about survival, joy, and camaraderie, and it proves that fifty is its own wonderful stage of possibilities and promise.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a time when How Not to Look Old is a bestseller, and the women who came of age during the 1960s are now in their 60s, outspoken women's movement veteran Levine (Inventing the Rest of Our Lives) advises women 50-plus to reject the desire to recapture youth and acknowledge their great good fortune in arriving at a point where they can creatively enhance the rest of their lives. Citing Madeleine L'Engle's observation, the great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been, Levine uses this book to air and explore her own feelings, and those of other women, about moving from the Fuck-You Fifties to a pleasanter, stress-defusing outlook characterized by a growing ability to not take lesser things too seriously. She offers a 10-step strategy for avoiding a descent into The Fertile Void, where late-midlife women find themselves in a state of confusion and lost self-confidence. The self-help lessons are nothing new: be your age, not your stage; take responsibility for your physical and emotional life; accept that you are not who you were, only older; use what you already know. Advertising-style jargon and nonsensical slogans get in the way of an otherwise promising positive message. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"No more pretended youth! Suzanne Braun Levine shows us the wisdom and joys of living in our own personal present. For women who have been pressured into living the past over and over again, Fifty is the New Fifty is the first true age liberation."
-Gloria Steinem

"Suzanne Braun Levine''s honest and empowering book is the antidote to all those anti-aging creams and glum pronouncements about life after fifty. It explains why for me and for so many other women, this has turned out to be the most free, creative, and rewarding time of life."
-Isabella Rossellini

"Fifty is the New Fifty is just what I expected from Suzanne Braun Levine-useful, comforting and smart."
-Jane Fonda

"Finally, fifty comes of age! Levine''s concept of Second Adulthood confirms what women have been telling one another in private-this is a wonderful stage and we can each claim it in our own way."
-Marlo Thomas

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (March 30, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452296056
• ISBN-13: 978-0452296053
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,165,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fifty is the New Fifty, June 22, 2009

By 

Mary Kay Blakely "author, journalist" (Columbia, MO, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fifty Is the New Fifty: Ten Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood (Hardcover)

Sitting across a lunch or dinner table when Suzanne Braun Levine starts telling stories is one of life's great treats. Now that I have some of those stories between covers of a book, so much the better! I loved this book, relating the spunk, the attitude, the honesty, and the pure nerve that comes with each decade. Women of a "certain age" are no longer consigned to an indoor life in a housecoat and slippers. Suzanne ardently believes we've got nothing to lose and a lot of laughs and wisdom to gain by altering our lives--I'm IN!
Mary Kay Blakely

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is Older Really Better, April 2, 2009

By 

Jane Adams "Jane Adams, Ph.D." (Seattle WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fifty Is the New Fifty: Ten Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood (Hardcover)

Having avoided all those other books proclaiming how great getting older is, I opened this one warily and found myself intrigued, challenged, and convinced - even on the eve of a Big Birthday, which might otherwise have left me with nothing to say except, It's better than the alternative - I guess! Suzanne Levine has crystallized in ten pithy lessons (each one deserving of its own T-Shirt) the real truth about this life stage - for women, it can be the best one yet, especially if we make it about the stage,which is full of new possibilities, pleasures, and vistas, rather than about the age, which buys into too many old myths and a few new ones about what 50, 60, or 70 is supposed to be like. When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us: Letting Go of Their Problems, Loving Them Anyway, and Getting on with Our Lives

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Keep this book on your night table, April 6, 2009

By 

Alva Benn - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fifty Is the New Fifty: Ten Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood (Hardcover)

Fifty Is the New Fifty: Ten Life Lessons for Women in Second Adulthood KEEP THIS BOOK ON YOUR NIGHT TABLE! Don't stash it away on some shelf - because if you are a woman past 50 trying to invent the rest of your life, you will need to access its wisdom every single day. Braun Levine gives practical advice that is sometimes permission -- "You don't have to keep doing something just because you're good at it," -- sometime caution -- "All Yellow Brick Roads need a stop sign at the bank" -- sometimes instigation - "Anything that gets you moving will get you where you want to be" -- always with real life examples (one of my favorites is the woman who couldn't lose weight until she invited the general public to watch her diet.) Her style is short, clear, powerful. Her book is indispensable.