The Retirement Sourcebook

Rating:
Summary: Grounded and down to earth, yet breezy and fun to read
Review: I picked up the book at10 p.m and couldn't put it down for an hour. Three years ago I left my job to begin a dream; so I was fascinated with how it might apply to me. This book gives you ideas, data, and places to find out more. I found myself in the pages and it made me laugh. Most importantly, it conveys a vision of what this part of our lives can be.

Rating:
Summary: Up-to-date, comprehensive view of retirement choices
Review: Our goal in creating "The Retirement Sourcebook" is to help people who are fifty-and-over relax about retirement. Much of the printed media deals with financial matters only. Often these materials fill people with fear. Potential retirees ask, "Do I have enough money to retire?" Retirees wonder, "Will my nest egg last?" Obviously, this passage in life is about more than money.

A lengthy chapter on financial and legal issues is augmented by chapters on health and well-being matters, social and emotional changes, work and play opportunities, and here or there decisions. There is even a short chapter on safety and security concerns since we live in a time fraught with telemarketing pressures and financial scams.

We performed a lot of our research on the Internet, scouring government sites for current regulations and statistics. We sorted through seemingly endless words and numbers to simplify and organize the data into meaningful concepts. Up-to-date mailing and Internet addresses appear in the text and in the indices for whenever there's a need for more in-depth examination of an issue.

By e-mail, letters, phone conversations, informal chats, and more formal interviews, we gathered tips from successful retirees to help other retirees. Many of these suggestions appear as sidebars throughout the book.

With all the research and interviews, Mary Helen says, "There's something for everybody in this book. It may be the comprehensive overview of this life passage called retirement. It may be the simplification of how medical insurance works. It may be the address for deleting your name from junk mail lists. Or it may be those wonderful tips shared by retirees."

"We encountered the gamut of responses to retirement -- no planning, thinking of it as a one-time event, and planning in detail," says Shuford. "From our interviews, we'd say the happiest retirees are people who have done their homework. They've understood the challenges, faced their fears, decided how and where they want to live, kept their minds open to positive options, and continued to view life with wonder."

Rating:
Summary: This book is a buoyant guide to the later years
Review: The Retirement Sourcebook is a buoyant guide to the later years. Loaded with possibilities as well as helpful realities, this book is an invaluable asset in refining your vision of the life you'd most like to lead. The authors are ebullient examples of retirees who have blossomed after leaving the structured workplace. They share their wisdom ("when you have time, you have options") as well as their considerable practical knowledge. And there is no shortage of inspiration with role models cited ranging from Colonel Sanders to Mother Teresa.

The chapter on financial issues alone is worth the price of admission. The authors, experts at "working the web," sift through the mountain of information available for the nuggets that will help you make an informed decision.

If you yearned to see Alaska but considered it too expensive or thought a condo on a golf course would be a tranquil place to live, read this book before you make any decisions.

The Retirement Sourcebook covers nothing less than the entire gamut of human experience from stress and living wills to how to get rid of junk mail.

You'll be referring to it for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely useful across the board reference for retirees
Review: There are many, many bits and pieces of useful advice and direction to guide retirees or soon to be retirees floating around in the book world. This book has done a masterful job of bringing most of the key decision factors and issues together under one "roof". Not only are the standard factors-finance, climate, entertainment etc covered but personal emotional and physciological issues are covered. The handling of death, care giving, emotional trauma are covered. Perhaps a most useful feature are the numerous matrices and check list tables throughout the book. Example-the check list of values Vs time allocated to these values will let a lot of people decide what is really important to their retirement "health".This allows management of time and prevents frustration.

Rating:
Summary: A great resource.
Review: This book, which is aimed at the mid-life adult contemplating retirement, is comprehensive, clearly written, and wonderfully current. I purchased it for the Senior Collection our local library, and I will use it myself as I look ahead to retirement.

Mary Helen and Shuford Smith recognize that successful retirement is a process requiring much more than choosing a pleasant place to live. Lots of decisions, opportunities and challenges accompany the retirement journey, and the authors offer excellent tools for addressing them. Some of the tools are self-evaluative, while others look outward, pointing to other avenues we can explore along the way.

In fact, part of the book's success stems from the fact that it provides sound advice on a variety of topics without getting bogged down on any one subject. Instead, it offers suggestions about other resources--books, documents, organizations, web sites, etc. The web sites, especially, extend our reach in remarkable new ways.

The highlight of this book for me, however, is the way it is written. Every time I pick it up, I feel as if I'm being introduced to yet another member of a circle of wise friends. The authors draw much of their material from interviews with retired people, and nuggets from those conversations are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. These new friends are people who have done it right--or who have learned from a mistake or two-and I mean to pay attention to what they have to say.

Rating:
Summary: This is a fantastic book!
Review: This is a fantastic book about that most exciting life cycle stage--retirement. But retirement doesn't mean "to retire" as in relaxing, taking it easy or doing little. Retirement can be the most fulfilling and rewarding time of your life and it is often the most active time as well. But to get the most out of it requires careful planning...and that is what The Retirement Sourcebook provides. Mary Helen and Shuford Smith have thoroughly researched their subject and leave no aspect unexamined. The book is full of ideas and answers. Nancy Holmes, Retired from private practice in family therapy and currently manager of an art gallery

Rating:
Summary: This is a fantastic book!
Review: This is a fantastic book about that most exciting life cycle stage--retirement. But retirement doesn't mean "to retire" as in relaxing, taking it easy or doing little. Retirement can be the most fulfilling and rewarding time of your life and it is often the most active time as well. But to get the most out of it requires careful planning...and that is what The Retirement Sourcebook provides. Mary Helen and Shuford Smith have thoroughly researched their subject and leave no aspect unexamined. The book is full of ideas and answers. Nancy Holmes, Retired from private practice in family therapy and currently manager of an art gallery