A Book of Ages: An Eccentric Miscellany of Great & Offbeat Moments in the Lives of the Famous & Infamous, Ages 1 to 100

By Eric Hanson

Book Overview

AGE ISN'T JUST A NUMBER-IT'S A WAY OF KEEPING SCORE. THIS IS YOUR SCORECARD. The day we turn any age, we become contemporaries of everyone who has ever been that age, and it becomes our business to know that Bob Dylan wrote "Blowin' in the Wind" when he was twenty, Orson Welles cowrote, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane when he was twenty-five, Winston Churchill was fired from the Admiralty when he was forty and took up painting, and Jane Austen died, unmarried and mostly unknown, when she was forty-one. Knowing who did what when provides the yardstick by which to measure our own progress; it's comforting to learn that Grandma Moses didn't show her first painting until she was seventy-eight, and discouraging (but not surprising) to discover that Einstein was already smarter than you at age sixteen. A witty, ironic collection of moments from famous lives organized by year of age from infancy to death, A Book of Ages tells you who is doing what, who is on top of the world, who is waiting for his luck to change, who is saying unkind things about whom, who is planning his revenge, who is meeting for the first time, and who Elizabeth Taylor is currently divorcing. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO? An Eccentric Miscellany of Achievements,Misdeeds, Crossed Paths, Bypaths, Inventions, Scandals, Child Prodigies, Late Masterpieces, Marriages and Breakups, Feuds, Dead Ends, Second Chances, Adventures and Misadventures, Novels Written and Battles Won and Lost, All Organized by Year of Age.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307408949
• ISBN13: 9780307408945
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 309 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

GREAT. THANK you for saving me for a mid-life crisis! Mr. Hanson has done a great service,making me

Mr. Hanson, and his book, as I said in my title, saved me from a mid-life crisis the day i turned 50 by revealing to me there was still time, that it's never too late. But this isn't a Pollyanish (spelling?) volume; not just about Grandma Moses starting to paint at 123. There are hilarious entries; the day/age when Freud first saw his mother naked, etc. It's also very sobering/realistic.......to realize that by my age Elvis Presley had already been dead for eight years. Thanks Eric, for an hilarious, realistic, inspiring, once in awhile saddening, but mostly just a good, realistic, side-splitting chronice/and introduction of evidence to all of us who wonder if we've peaked at age 50, 40, 20 or 7.

Wow!

It's easy to feel like you haven't achieved much after reading through the first few years but it's also really inspiring as to what can still be accomplished...

FANTASTIC

I picked this book up and read it whenever I had a free moment. It's a fascinating collection of anecdotes about a varied and large group of famous people. Anyone should read this if they want a perspective on their own life and age, an interesting fact to share or know, or a gift for anyone they know. Buy the book, it's one of few books I look through again and again.

humorous, reflective, informative, chock full of biographical tidbits

Eric Hanson strings together bits and chunks of personal stories and history through the lives of writers, artists, politicians and others in our milieu. If you wonder about where are on on the path of life compared to others, if you love biographies but don't have time to read a full book... if you want to be entertained and learn something, buy this. You can pick it up and read it for 2 minutes, or read it cover to cover. "A Book of Ages" is a great gift!