Sixty: A Diary

Book excerpt: As Ian Brown's sixtieth birthday loomed, every moment seemed to present a choice: confront or deny the biological fact that the end was now closer than the beginning. An award-winning writer, Brown instead chose to notice every moment, try to understand it, capture it . . . all without panicking. Brown's uncensored account of his sixty-first year is a richly informative, candid report from the line between middle-aged and soon-to-be-elderly. It perfectly captures the obsessions of a generation realizing that they are no longer young.