{"product_id":"fifty-is-the-new-fifty-isbn-9780452296053","title":"Fifty Is the New Fifty","description":"\u003cb\u003eRead Suzanne Braun Levine's posts on the Penguin Blog.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn inspiring guide to maximizing creativity and happiness in the second half of life \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Suzanne Braun Levine follows her groundbreaking \u003ci\u003eInventing the Rest of Our Lives\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e50 Is the New Fifty\u003c\/i\u003e is about survival, joy, and camaraderie, and it proves that fifty is its own wonderful stage of possibilities and promise. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWatch a Video\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"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, \u003ci\u003eFifty is the New Fifty\u003c\/i\u003e is the first true age liberation.\" \u003cbr\u003e -Gloria Steinem \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"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.\" \u003cbr\u003e -Isabella Rossellini \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eFifty is the New Fifty\u003c\/i\u003e is just what I expected from Suzanne Braun Levine-useful, comforting and smart.\" \u003cbr\u003e -Jane Fonda \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"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.\" \u003cbr\u003e -Marlo ThomasSuzanne Braun Levine is a writer, editor, and nationally recognized authority on women, media matters, and family issues. Editor of \u003cb\u003eMs.\u003c\/b\u003e magazine from its founding in 1972 until 1989 and editor in chief of the \u003cb\u003eColumbia Journalism Review\u003c\/b\u003e, she is currently a contributing editor of \u003cb\u003eMore\u003c\/b\u003e magazine . The author of a book about fatherhood and numerous articles and essays, she has also produced a Peabody Award-winning documentary about American women. She has appeared on \u003cb\u003eOprah\u003c\/b\u003e and the \u003cb\u003eToday\u003c\/b\u003e show and has lectured widely.\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTitle Page\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCopyright Page\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDedication\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson One - Fifty Is the New Fifty\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Two - Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Three - No Is Not a Four-Letter Word\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Four - A “Circle of Trust” Is a Must\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Five - Every Crisis Creates a “New Normal”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Six - Do Unto Yourself as You Have Been Doing Unto Others\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Seven - Age Is Not a Disease\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Eight - Your Marriage Can Make It\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Nine - You Do Know What You Want to Do with the Rest of Your Life\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson Ten - Both Is the New Either\/Or\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBibliography\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWeb Sites and Organizations\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlso by Suzanne Braun Levine\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eInventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFather Courage: What Happens When Men Put Family First\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eand Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eof Women and Workers, Rallied Against War and for the Planet,\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eand Shook Up Politics Along the Way,\u003c\/i\u003e an oral history (with Mary \u003cbr\u003eThom)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVIKING \u003cbr\u003ePublished by the Penguin Group \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, \u003cbr\u003eCanada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia \u003cbr\u003e(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, \u003cbr\u003eNew Delhi - 110 017, India \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand \u003cbr\u003e(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, \u003cbr\u003eJohannesburg 2196, South Africa \u003cbr\u003ePenguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England \u003cbr\u003eFirst published in 2009 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCopyright © Suzanne Braun Levine, 2009\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll rights reserved \u003cbr\u003eExcerpt from “The New Old Woman” by Robin Morgan (from the forthcoming collection \u003ci\u003eDark\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMatter: New Poems\u003c\/i\u003e by Robin Morgan). Copyright © 2007 by Robin Morgan. . \u003cbr\u003eWhile the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet \u003cbr\u003eaddresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility \u003cbr\u003efor errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have \u003cbr\u003eany control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or \u003cbr\u003etheir content. \u003cbr\u003eLIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING In PUBLICATION DATA \u003cbr\u003eLevine, Suzanne. \u003cbr\u003eFifty is the new fifty : ten life lessons for women in second adulthood \/ Suzanne Braun Levine. \u003cbr\u003ep. cm. \u003cbr\u003eIncludes bibliographical references and index.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eeISBN : 978-1-101-01665-7\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e1. Middle age—Psychological aspects. I. Title. \u003cbr\u003eHQ1059.4.L48 2009 \u003cbr\u003e155.6’6—dc22 2008027445 \u003cbr\u003e. \u003cbr\u003eThe scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means \u003cbr\u003ewithout the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only \u003cbr\u003eauthorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of \u003cbr\u003ecopyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFor Bob\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith tremendous gratitude to my at-home editor and husband, Bob Levine, and my truly masterful in-house editor, Wendy Wolf, I also want to thank the editors of \u003ci\u003eMore\u003c\/i\u003e magazine for helping me shape my ideas about Second Adulthood. Thanks also to my agent, Janis Donnaud. I am grateful for the invaluable tech support I got from Reed Berkowitz, Karen Grenke, Rose Heredia, and my beloved son, Josh, “Mr. Fix-it.” Then there is the other and very precious kind of support: the love and encouragement of my indispensable “circle of trust.” And with this book there is a new source of information and goodwill: the 350 women who have signed up to be online “friends of Second Adulthood” and share their own experiences with me, and now with you, the readers. My mother, Esther Bernson Braun, remains an inspiration, and my dear daughter, Joanna, already embodies the energy, independence, and effectiveness that I still aspire to. Thank you all!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLesson One\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFifty Is the New Fifty\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe could not act our age if we did not know our age. . . . We live in the biochemistry of our bodies, and not in years; we live in the interaction between that biochemistry and its greatest product—the human mind—and not in a series of decades marked by periodic lurches of change.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, \u003ci\u003eThe Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-being\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eF\u003c\/b\u003eifty is the new fifty. Sixty, I hasten to add, is also the new sixty, and seventy the new seventy. And the women who are the new fifty, sixty, and seventy wouldn’t want to be anything else. Some people think they get the reinvention process we are going through when they extrapolate down a decade or two—“I see,” they say encouragingly, “Fifty is the new thirty!” as if the reward of what is clearly a major shift in outlook is a new lease on youth. That is not it at all. I have discovered that most women in Second Adulthood are very happy  being where they are—they don’t want to go back to any of their earlier stages or decades. And while we would all like to be stronger and fresher—and more admired (or at least respected) by the world we live in—few of us would like to be literally younger. “The great thing about getting older,” magical writer Madeleine L’Engle, who lived well into her nineties, said, “is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” We are at a point where our lives are finally beginning to add up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe assumption is that youth—or at least younger—is the ideal state and that given a choice, no woman in her right mind would relinquish it. I have found the opposite to be true. Many of us are delighting in rejecting that backward-looking mind-set and focusing on (to paraphrase the song from \u003ci\u003eThe King and I\u003c\/i\u003e) “the beautiful and new things I am learning about \u003ci\u003eme\u003c\/i\u003e day by day.” The range of things to learn about ourselves is now as wide as it hasn’t been since we were adolescents. So much about our bodies, our thinking, our relationships, our approach to the world is under review—by us, for a change. And the more we revise, the more we uncover new aspects of ourselves in the process, and the more we discover that we are not who we were when we were younger.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe challenge of this stage of life is not to “get over getting older,” as some suggest, but to get to know ourselves in this new context. Who is this person who hears herself say “I don’t care what other people think anymore” and loves the sound of it? Who is giving up high heels or belts simply because they are uncomfortable? Who is questioning the nature of her relationships and the meaning of her work? Who is ready to try some new and totally out-of-character experiences on for size? Who knows that life and death is no metaphor, but forges on?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOlder is almost irrelevant to these questions—except for the last one. Yet to listen to the society we live in, you would think that you have to stay young—and look young—to be happy. And we buy (literally) into that message, spending millions on age-defying cosmetics, surgery, drugs, and making a book that promises to teach us \u003ci\u003eHow Not to Look Old\u003c\/i\u003e a best seller. Even Gloria Steinem, who made such a point of acknowledging her  \u003ci\u003eage\u003c\/i\u003e (“This is what forty looks like!” and fifty, sixty, and now seventy), admitted that she had some trouble dealing with  \u003ci\u003eaging.\u003c\/i\u003e “Though I would have decried all the actresses, athletes, and other worshipers of youth who were unable to imagine a changed future—a few of whom have even chosen death \u003ci\u003eover\u003c\/i\u003e  aging”—she wrote in \u003ci\u003eRevolution from Within,\u003c\/i\u003e “I had been falling into the same trap.” An encounter with breast cancer—and her mortality—helped her confront her “denial and defiance” and begin to listen to and adapt her life to her body as it was changing. One unexpected reward for this revised worldview was that she, who had always been considered a great beauty, began to feel liberated from the “epithet of ‘the pretty one.’ ” “If that sounds odd,” she explains, “think about working as hard as you can and then discovering that whatever you accomplish is attributed to your looks.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Plume","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302033412325,"sku":"NP9780452296053","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780452296053.jpg?v=1767726850","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/fifty-is-the-new-fifty-isbn-9780452296053","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}