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The Coming of Age | 
| Author: Simone De Beauvoir
Creator: Patrick O'brian
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $5.99
You Save: $8.01 (57%)
New (14) Used (13) Collectible (1) from $5.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 308844
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 585
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 039331443X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780393314434
ASIN: 039331443X
Publication Date: June 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: in great condition, has some wear on the cover and writing/underlines on the first part of the book. ships next day
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| Customer Reviews:
 A very economical and simple to operate utility oriented product February 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
As phones go, this is one of the best for the family to enjoy operating, cut tel costs, and simplify your communications network. Its clarity is outstanding and its simple to operate for the entire family.
are old people real people? that is de Beauvoir's question. January 4, 2004
14 out of 20 found this review helpful
are old people real people? that is de Beauvoir's question.
When I first read this book 30 years ago, I thought it was so great I assigned it to my students in a course on gerontology. Now that I am older than the author was when she wrote it, I realize how little she really knew about old people.
de Beauvoir is not a sociologist or a gerontologist, but a professor of philosophy and leftist French writer. She (and her partner Jean Paul Sartre) often took official positions on certain topics as a matter of principle, but with little understanding coming from the heart. She has a clear philosopher's gaze and is utterly pitiless. She doesn't cut people any slack.
Her great contribution here is that she brings a wider attention to what it's like being old in terms of how societies conceptualize old age and in terms of old age as a subjective experience by quoting from the lives and works of famous authors and artists who lived to a ripe old age, defined as anything over 60! How times have changed. Currently the average life expectancy in the US is over 75! (It's over 83 in Kansas).
I now live in a town of 15000 whose founding mayor was elected over the age of 80 (he died in office, suddenly, at 86 in the middle of a development planning project).
Many of my neighbors are pushing 90 or 100 (and over) and keep active walking for miles and swimming for hours daily. Are they real people? You bet! Are some of my neighbors with canes, walkers, hearing aids, cataract surgery and nurse's aides or companions real people? You bet!
The amazing thing about old age is people just want to keep on doing what they are used to doing for as long as they can.
Many of the peculiarities of age that de Beauvoir describes are now known to be due to physical medical problems which are treatable. However, her work is still valid for those last few weeks or months of severe impairment before death.
You just won't feel good after reading this book.
 Understanding our older loved ones March 21, 2001
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
I read this book by when my grandmother was living her last days in a nursing home. There was so much I didn't know about older people -- what is important to them, how they think, what their needs are, how they approach death. Simone de Beauvoir, the celebrated French thinker and writer offers an in-depth study of older people as individuals and older people in society. She also looks at the treatment and psychology of older people across time in western civilization. Anyone who is a caretaker of an older family member or friend, or cares about understanding older people will find this book remarkable and thoughtful.
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