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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9780684867632
ISBN: 068486763X
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 80
Publication Date: 2000-10-04
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Studio: Simon & Schuster

From the bestselling author of Forever Fifty comes a new collection of poems that tickle, console, and offer the pleasure of instant recognition -- the perfect book for any woman anywhere in the vicinity of sixty.

Judith Viorst's "decade" books of verse -- including It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty, How Did I Get to Be Forty, and Forever Fifty -- have delighted millions of readers worldwide who relish her wit, warmth, and wisdom. Now here she is with Suddenly Sixty, a funny and touching book that speaks directly to the sixty-ish woman, inviting her to laugh about, sigh over, and come to hopeful terms with the complex issues of this decade of life.

Among the poems in this charmingly illustrated collection are those exploring the joys -- and strains -- of children and grandchildren, and the intimacy of old friends who've "known each other so long/We knew each other back when we were virgins." There are poems that tip their hat to mortality, wrestle with a husband's retirement -- "He's coming with me when I shop at the supermarket/So I won't have to shop alone. I like alone." -- and acknowledge the fact that at this stage of life we'd "give up a night of wild rapture with Denzel Washington for a nice report on my next bone density test." Offering plenty of laughs, a few tears, and cover-to-cover truths, these are poems for everyone who would "rather say never say die than enough is enough." Every woman who has reached this decade will -- rueful and smiling -- find herself in the pages of this book.

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Comforting, Comfortable, Funny - You'll Want to Share It
Review: This slim volume of prosaic poems (they are barely poems, more like very graceful essays) on encroaching senior-hood is really enjoyable. And comfortable, and comforting to read, much in the same way the classic "Golden Girls" TV show is, in a "you're not alone in this aging business, all us women are going through the same things!" way. I especially loved the "New Alphabet," which includes things like "O is for osteo, P's for porosis," and the poem about the two lovers who can't take their eyes off each other -- and it turns out the "man" is her four-year-old grandson. Thanks to Judith for reaching through the LA-nip/tuck-gym hardbody BS in this world, and telling it like it is.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: suddenly sixty and other shocks of later life
Review: it wasn't as humorous as some other books i have read on this subject

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I just ordered this book and am sorry I did. Where is the Judith Viorst of the 70's, when my children were young and loved her work? I expected this to be a light-hearted and original look at being "the age we are now," but instead, I found a woman sour -- especially with marriage -- and to a degree with life and grown children. I would not recommend it.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The best way to face sixty is to make fun of it, that is what Viorst does
Review: I have not yet hit the landmark sixtieth birthday, but I am closing on it rather fast. It is clear to me that the best way to approach that fateful day is to laugh about it and one of the best ways to accomplish that is to read this book. In general, it pokes good clean fun at aging, although there is an occasional bitter tone when describing some of the more unpleasant aspects of life. Independent of your age, life is what we make of it and Viorst makes fun of what we all will hopefully face someday, the arrival of the sixtieth birthday. After all, the alternative really isn't a great deal of fun to contemplate

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Scintillating Sixties
Review: Judith Viorst deals with aging gracefully in her truth-giving poems about Suddenly Sixty and Other Shocks of Later Life. Being of a certain age in American society brings a certain angst tempered by the wisdom of experience-if we are lucky and thoughtful. Almost every poem elicits laughter as she ruminates on a variety of topics, including men's inability to ask for directions, the difficulty in apologizing, the family vacation, retirement, or the revenge for the woman dumped.

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