Nine Books About Aging, Growing, and Changing
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Living in a body is an exercise in enduring surprise and accepting change. During our lifetimes, we spring leaks, heal, grow, get sick, and age. We wake up some days and don’t recognize ourselves in the mirror. Some transformations appear on schedule—new rolls of flesh, sudden tufts of hair—and others come upon us suddenly: humbling bruises, unforeseen illnesses. But too frequently, we sanitize the moisture and mess of being alive with bland metaphors.
The best writing about our physical selves acknowledges that our exteriors affect how the world receives us; that we’re shaped and changed by family, friends, and lovers; and that as long as we’re alive, our bodies are always in flux. The nine books below are radically truthful: They explore moments of great change—pregnancy, puberty, illness, athletic training, weight fluctuations, aging, transition—and the revelations that accompany them. Reading them inspires both introspection and sympathetic reaction. You’ll wince in shared pain, sigh in relief, and remember that none of us stays the same for long.
A Very Easy Death, by Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Patrick O’Brian
In 1964, de Beauvoir published an arresting day-by-day account of her mother, whom she calls Maman,
