cover image The Longevity Factor: The New Reality of Long Careers and How It Can Lead to Richer Lives

The Longevity Factor: The New Reality of Long Careers and How It Can Lead to Richer Lives

Lydia Bronte. HarperCollins Publishers, $20 (409pp) ISBN 978-0-06-016755-4

If human life expectancy continues to increase at the rate it has during the past century, a life span of 150 years, most of it active and healthy, could be common by A.D. 2090. That according to this absorbing study of the aging process by a cousin of the literary Bronte sisters (two of whom, of course, died in their 20s). Using research gleaned from the Long Careers Study, the author, the director of the study and former director of the Aging Society Project, reverses many negative assumptions about old age, delving into the experiences of 105 notables active in their 70s, 80s and 90s. In fact, this is at the age when they did some of their best and most satisfying work, often in entirely new ``post-retirement'' careers. Included among those discussed: Nobel Prize-winning scientist Barbara McClintock, Jonas Salk, Mother Hale, Eileen Ford, Norman Cousins, Margaret Chase Smith, Norman Vincent Peale, Robert McNamara, Douglas Dillon and Pauline Trigere. What's the secret? According to the author, enthusiastic activity, in some cases philanthropic, is psychologically and physically the optimum lifestyle for the ever-increasing over-65 age group. (Aug.)