Seton Publishing (2012)
ISBN 9781475017779
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (8/12) 

While there is no escaping the fact that, if we are lucky, we will get older, there are certainly ways of getting older more gracefully. The information on how to achieve this abounds, and approaches to this issue vary greatly. “Live Better Longer” by Hugh Wilson, M.D., is one in the long list of books dealing with the issue of aging, and his approach to it is both pragmatic and practical.

As the author says himself in the Introduction, “Aging is mandatory, debility is optional.” This is the sort of philosophy I believe in myself, although my motto would be, “I don’t mind getting older, I just don’t want to be decrepit...” Dr. Wilson opens the book by discussing the downside of living longer and basic explanations of age management, followed by two extensive sections on what one should know about aging and age management as well as what one could do.

While this is not a “how-to” book and it offers no clear-cut program for achieving the desired results in the step-by-step manner, it presents a lot of food for thought, and it directs the reader’s attention to the most important areas of one’s life where one could actually take measures to minimize the effects of aging on one’s well-being. The concise chapters dealing with various elements of the process are supplemented by a very extensive reference section, both for web resources and printed material.

“Live Better Longer” by Hugh Wilson, M.D., is without a question a book written by a professional in the medical field and is packed with medical information. In spite of that, I never found the writing to be overly technical or unnecessarily complicated.  I would recommend it to those readers who are willing to put some effort into aging more gracefully, and who are open-minded enough to really listen to what Dr. Wilson is saying.