The Thing about Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

Inspired by the immense vitality of his 90-something father, author Shields (Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine) looks at the arc of a human life in order to come to terms with mortality. Organized into four stages of life-infancy and childhood, adolescence, adulthood and middle age, old age and death-Shields's short, snappy chapters are crafted from personal anecdotes (many featuring his wife and teenage daughter), literary-philosophical musing and enlightening scientific data, examining a wide range of human concerns relating to ""the beauty and pathos in my body and his body and everybody else's body as well."" Shields also visits historical and contemporary figures, from Sigmund Freud to John Ruskin and Woody Allen, for their thoughts on mortality; says Picasso, ""One starts to get young at the age of sixty, and then it's too late."" Shield's eclectic approach and personal voice makes this extended meditation on living and dying a pleasing and occasionally profound read.