Last Gift of Time

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Summary: A seventy year old grandma who says, "Amen!"
Review: I share the view that age adds a beautiful dimension if one so chooses. More freedom than can be imagined in the earlier years of responsibilty to others. The author gives encouragement and hope to those of us in search of meaning as we approach the end of life. Though our circumstances differ, the possiblities for each are unlimited. Cheers to this beautiful woman who expresses so well what older women need to hear.

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Summary: Life Beyond Sixty.
Review: I'm a 72-year-old Grandmother, and I thought it was great. I'm a Master's candidate in Writing with an undergrad minor in Women's Studies, and this book reflects perfectly attitudes that were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s. Young women who were born in the 1970s wouldn't understand Heilbrun's focus on androgyny or the frustration that was prevalent in smart, educated women who needed more than children and housework. But we who were born in the 1920s and 1930s understand it perfectly. Kudos to Heilbrun.

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Summary: The lady opted out
Review: It is difficult to relate to this book having the knowledge that Heilburn killed herself -with the consent of her son-because she felt it was all over. Perhaps her isolation had more to do with depression or some such than the spin she puts on it in the book.Her suicide was presented as a rational and logical choice. I don't know. She was an excellent scholar and a feminist thinker at the right time-so kudos to her memory for that.

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Summary: A priceless jewel of a book!
Review: It was like reading my own brain, although our life-experiences have been quite different. This is going into my back pack as I march headlong into my 60's!

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Summary: Three cheers for aging!
Review: She paints it as a freeing experience, and I felt as if I were in Carolyn's presence as she sat cozy in an arm chair, fire blazing, glass of wine in hand, having an honest conversation with me, her friend. The unabashed truthfulness, the scathing remarks about her pompous male confreres at Columbia, the tender realization of her longing for her husband's company - the entire book - a wry but warm delight. I recommend it to anyone fifty or over. The young would never understand.

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Summary: My letter from Carolyn
Review: This book of thoughts by Carolyn Heilbrun was written to anybody yet I felt that so many of her thoughts were directed to be as a 66 year old woman. She has remarkable clarity and while we are quite different, I felt she was totally open in sharing areas that made her look selfish. yet, I could see the peace she received from decisions to be alone, to exclude her husband and to have a "room of her own." Poignant and thoughtful; a treasure.

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Summary: A must-read for older women, their spouses & adult children
Review: This is a marvelous, inspiring book, must reading for all women over 50. Heilbrun's no-nonsense consideration of the conflicting pulls of career and family, the demands on her life vs the desire for solitude, her affirmation of life even as she considers her final years, will keep the reader thinking long after the last page is turned. What a wonderful friend she would make! I will reread this book many times

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Summary: A must-read for women in academia.
Review: Very validating for women who have worked in the American academy. Parts of this are a scathing but accurate summary of what life is like as a professor---other parts confirm that her own gift to women is far larger than mostbecause it is the gift of wisdom and of shared experience. (If it can happen at Columbia to a woman who has truly made a contribution and achieved several high honors, then it is probably happening to women everywhere.) This book inspires one to live the rest of one's life with meaning and purpose. It literally gives permission to people who have high-achieved and been severely undervalued. I have given it to a number of friends. They've all been as pleased and as astonished as I was.