Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected Adventures | 
| Author: Reeve Lindbergh
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy New: $12.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 3316
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.7 x 1
ISBN: 074327511X
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.262
EAN: 9780743275118
ASIN: 074327511X
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
In her funny and wistful new book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage in life, turning sixty, the period her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described as "the youth of old age." It is a time of life, she writes, that produces some unexpected surprises. Age brings loss, but also love; disaster, but also delight. The second-graders Reeve taught many years ago are now middle-aged; her own children grow, marry, have children themselves. "Time flies," she observes, "but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too." A milestone birthday is also an opportunity to take stock of oneself, although such self-reflection may lead to nothing more than the realization, as Reeve puts it, "that I just seem to continue being me, the same person I was at twelve and at fifty." At sixty, as she observes, "all I really can do with the rest of my life is to...feel all of it, every bit of it, as much as I can for as long as I can."Age is only one of many subjects that Reeve writes about with perception and insight. In northern Vermont, nature is an integral part of daily life, especially on a farm. Whether it is the arrival and departure of certain birds in spring and fall, wandering turtles, or the springtime ritual of lambing, the natural world is a constant revelation. With a wry sense of humor, Reeve contemplates the infirmities of the aging body, as well as the many new drugs that treat these maladies. Briefly considering the risks of drug dependency, she writes that "the least we [the "Sixties Generation"] can do for ourselves is live up to our mythology, and take lots of drugs." Legal drugs, that is -- although what sustains us as we grow older is not drugs but an appreciation for life, augmented by compassion, a sense of humor, and common sense. And of course there is family -- especially with the Lindberghs. Reeve writes about discovering, thirty years after her father's death and two and a half years after her mother's, that her father had three secret families in Europe. She travels to meet them, learning to expand her self-understanding: "daughter of," "mother of," "sister of" -- sister of many more siblings than she'd known, in a family more complicated than even she had imagined. Forward from Here is a brave book, a reflective book, a funny book -- a book that will charm and fascinate anyone on the journey from middle age to the uncertain future that lies ahead.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Taking something away May 15, 2008
I always feel a book is worthwhile reading if you take something away from it that strikes a chord within you. Two things resonated with me. On page 26 she speaks of loss: "...I carry my lost loved ones with me...I have learned over the years that I can do this, that love continues beyond loss." Further on she says: "My experience has also made me understand that loss is inevitable, and that loss too, continues forever, right along with love." So beautifully stated and so true. The other bit of philosophy we could all profit from is: "I don't believe in 'rehearsing trouble,' advice given to me years ago ('Don't rehearse trouble, Reeve!') by Helen Wallace..." Everyone reads from their own perspective. Certainly Reeve Lingbergh has experienced life differently from me, but so have many of my friends. I cannot identify with everything in her book, but I think she is a person that would be nice to know.
 Boredom From Here ... May 13, 2008
Leaving interesting things for musings on middle age and beyond.
P.S. "I like turtles too .."
 *THE LINDBERGH NAME INVITES A DESERVED AUDIENCE* May 3, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
"Forward From Here" is written in good humor tinged with irony: anecdotes about aging, insights about the natural world and observations on how the 'dailiness' of our lives can help us outlast any despair. The author, Reeve Lindbergh, combines revelation and commercial instincts. but with the philosophizing that comes from maturity.
"Lindbergh" falls in the category of a never-to-be-forgotten name. At the age of five I was terrified by the stares of strangers in slow-moving vehicles, all because of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. Newsmen seized on the frightening, sorrowful story of the loss of the baby with a voracious appetite almost equal to today's media.
Reeve Lindbergh discusses her "fraught relationship" with her famous father. I am no psychologist but it has long seemed to me that explorers of this planet have a corner on certain personality traits. My own uncle who explored Antarctica in the late 20's & 30's, and much later as a climatologist in the Arctic, seemed to have a 'solitariness' not found in most men. Perhaps this develops as a bi-product of celebrity status?
The author learned thirty years after his death that "Lindy" - - the nation's hero & her famous father, had fathered three other families in Germany & elsewhere in Europe. The reader is confronted by the sad reality of selfishness, of which we are all guilty to a degree. Reeve Lindbergh writes of the "unutterable loneliness" her father must have endured in his later years. It is a moving experience to read her conclusions about her parent's flawed personality.
Readers will be equally moved and grateful for other chapters of her book. We can all wish to age with the grace that helps us "not to utter unkind words" - - and further, to "love the reality of wrinkles"!
Forward From Here April 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was so excited to see that Reeve Lindbergh had written another book!
I love her writings. I appreciate her for telling of her life and how she deals with the circumstances that come her way. So personable and down to earth. Everytime I sit down with her books, I feel I am visiting with an old friend.
Thank You for Sharing Your Inner Thoughts.. April 22, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Dear Reeve,
I am hoping that you read the Amazon.com reviews, because I know of no other way to reach you and tell you how much I loved your book.
I have to preface this review by telling you that I was a HUGE fan of your mother's writing, starting in the early 70's with her published diaries, and then on through her other works that had been published previously (Gift from the Sea, etc.) You clearly have her gift for accessing your innermost thoughts and feelings and expressing them so clearly and adroitly on paper. If there is a heaven, I'm sure she is looking down upon you with great pride. Perhaps to REALLY appreciate your writing, one must understand the history of the Lindbergh family - the secretiveness, shyness, and fear of publicity. All understandable, of course, in light of what your parents went through in the early 1930's.
I loved most of your essays - especially the ones about your brain tumor, getting older, and your friends and family. As I said, you have the gift of your mother's "immediacy" - showing the reader what is IN your thoughts, and not talking ABOUT them. Thank you for the chapter in which you reveal your reactions to the news of your father's other families - I had wondered for several years since the news broke about your step-siblings in Europe how you had reacted. Having read your other books ("No More Words" is my favorite), I had a sense that you would "step up to the plate" and face the issue head on, rather than retreat into bitterness and melancholy afterwards. I will not reveal your actions here (so that other readers may see for themselves first-hand how you handled it), but suffice it to say that your character and courage is displayed in full measure throughout the book.
I, too, miss your mother....but I still have her in her diaries and books, which I will treasure to the end of my life. I'm sure you feel about her as she felt in her diary "Locked Rooms and Open Doors" ,in talking about losing her sister, Elizabeth, when she quoted John Masefield's poem:
"But gathering as we stray a sense
Of Life so lovely and intense-
It lingers when we wander hence
That those who follow feel behind
Their backs when all before is blind
Our Joy, a rampart to the mind.
Thank you, Reeve, for the joy you have brought to my life, as a children's author, poet, and memorist. It's the greatest gift that any reader can receive.
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