Rating: 
Summary: Understanding our elders
Review: I have taken care of my father-in-law and my grandmother. At times their point of view on issues and decisions they made did not make any sense to me at all. This book helped me understand the differences in our generations. The older generation was shaped by experiences I never had. I began to talk to them about what their lives were like, which helped me understand their point of view. We still did not agree on everything, but we could relate.
Rating:
Summary: A wholistic look at understanding our differences
Review: I have taken care of my father-in-law and my grandmother. At times their point of view on issues and decisions they made did not make any sense to me at all. This book helped me understand the differences in our generations. The older generation was shaped by experiences I never had. I began to talk to them about what their lives were like, which helped me understand their point of view. We still did not agree on everything, but we could relate.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding our elders
Review: I read this book wanting to have a better understanding of what my parents might be feeling as they enter old age. Their health is starting to decline, yet they want desperately to maintain their independence. It seems irrational. Why not enjoy prepared meals and cleaning services of assisted living when you can afford it? Pipher's book answered my questions. It isn't fun to reach what she calls old-old age when health declines and one needs assistance with some of the daily routines. Yet our culture makes it difficult to ask for help and even harder to accept it. Pipher shows how the baby-boomer generation and their depression-survivor parents differ, and the "great divide" is psychology not technology as one might expect. She addresses the realities of care for our elders and encourages family communication and geographical closeness. In the last chapters, she seems unrealistically optimistic about families caring for each other and a bit preachy on that idea. But she does give much useful information on understanding our elders and some good advice on communicating with them.
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful, useful look at aging
Review: In "Another Country," the acclaimed Mary Pipher of "Reviving Ophelia" discusses the issues surrounding caring for the aged, and aging itself. Her explanations surrounding the cultural gap between the baby boomers and their aged parents are interesting, as are the case studies, which are just grim enough to be realistic. A minor flaw is that the book is very much focused on the boomers and *their* aging parents, which makes its appeal to the non-boomer audience limited. Added to which, she does not cover the poor, destitute, or those who have no one to support them. A good book, if not as complete as it might have been.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful, useful look at aging
Review: In "Another Country," the acclaimed Mary Pipher of "Reviving Ophelia" discusses the issues surrounding caring for the aged, and aging itself. Her explanations surrounding the cultural gap between the baby boomers and their aged parents are interesting, as are the case studies, which are just grim enough to be realistic. A minor flaw is that the book is very much focused on the boomers and *their* aging parents, which makes its appeal to the non-boomer audience limited. Added to which, she does not cover the poor, destitute, or those who have no one to support them. A good book, if not as complete as it might have been.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful, useful look at aging
Review: In "Another Country," the acclaimed Mary Pipher of "Reviving Ophelia" discusses the issues surrounding caring for the aged, and aging itself. Her explanations surrounding the cultural gap between the baby boomers and their aged parents are interesting, as are the case studies, which are just grim enough to be realistic. A minor flaw is that the book is very much focused on the boomers and *their* aging parents, which makes its appeal to the non-boomer audience limited. Added to which, she does not cover the poor, destitute, or those who have no one to support them. A good book, if not as complete as it might have been.
Rating: 
Summary: A Trip on the Nostalgia Express
Review: Mary Pipher is an excellent writer. Her introduction is beautifully written, and her empathy and love for her clients and friends (it is hard to distinguish) is evident throughout the book. By choosing to write of America's elderly, Pipher gives "Another Country" a subtext - that the elderly are valuable, as human beings if no longer as contributors to society. This is bound to anger the brat generation - those who have had no war or depression to ruffle the surface of their lives, and who are quick to blame any and all unhappiness on some form of abuse by their parents. She even suggests that caring for another is not evidence of mental dysfunction or codependency. It is good that Pipher sugarcoats her message with nostalgia for her rural childhood in Nebraska, somewhat sentimentalized "case studies", and too many quotes from her wide acquaintance with literature and song lyrics. The quotes are particularly irritating - if only because Pipher is a fine writer and leaves no doubt that she herself can say anything she means. In short, a good read, a message that needed broadcasting, but presented as extended Hallmark card. However, if a book as idiotic as "Michelle Remembers" could have sparked the Satanic Ritual Abuse craziness, maybe "Another Country", and "The Shelter of Each Other" can shift our current paradigms in the direction they badly need to go.
Rating:
Summary: A Trip on the Nostalgia Express
Review: Mary Pipher is an excellent writer. Her introduction is beautifully written, and her empathy and love for her clients and friends (it is hard to distinguish) is evident throughout the book. By choosing to write of America's elderly, Pipher gives "Another Country" a subtext - that the elderly are valuable, as human beings if no longer as contributors to society. This is bound to anger the brat generation - those who have had no war or depression to ruffle the surface of their lives, and who are quick to blame any and all unhappiness on some form of abuse by their parents. She even suggests that caring for another is not evidence of mental dysfunction or codependency. It is good that Pipher sugarcoats her message with nostalgia for her rural childhood in Nebraska, somewhat sentimentalized "case studies", and too many quotes from her wide acquaintance with literature and song lyrics. The quotes are particularly irritating - if only because Pipher is a fine writer and leaves no doubt that she herself can say anything she means. In short, a good read, a message that needed broadcasting, but presented as extended Hallmark card. However, if a book as idiotic as "Michelle Remembers" could have sparked the Satanic Ritual Abuse craziness, maybe "Another Country", and "The Shelter of Each Other" can shift our current paradigms in the direction they badly need to go.
Rating:
Summary: Superb, compassionate, and insightful. Enormously helpful
Review: Mary Pipher's books are a whole cut above the self help genre, because they look perceptively at the whole social context of problems, so that we recognize the massive currents around us. Like Silent Spring, Children First (Penelope Leach), and other epochal books, they answer the big questions of a generation. Another country is painful, honest, gutsy and real, yet it offers real direction and tools for this issue that is so important to those of us with ageing parents. Which of course, is everyone. One of the three or four really original voices in American social sciences, with a knack for matching the personal and the bigger picture.
Rating:
Summary: If you have parents, this book is for you
Review: Mary Pipher's groundbreaking "Reviving Ophelia" changed how we think about raising our daughters. In "Another Country", she has done it again - this is truly a paradigm shifting work. Ms. Pipher writes with style, grace, and compassion about a topic most of us will have to face - dealing with our aging parents. This is no mere how-to-do-it, self-help tome, though. Mary uses real life examples and situations that we can all relate to. I urge you to buy this book. It will become a classic, and THE book on aging and caring for the elderly in years to come.
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