By Diane Cole

Savoring the pleasures of life and discovering fulfillment even as you deal with the challenges of aging. These are two themes that thread their way through this year's recommended books and podcasts.

BOOKS

'How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement'

By Christine Benz | Harriman House (320 pages)

"It's difficult to be happy or even content if you're worrying about money," Christine Benz writes. Benz, director of personal-finance and retirement planning at Morningstar, interviews 20 experts in aging and retirement, and goes beyond economic topics of retirement to include psychological, medical, emotional and practical issues that can affect your decision-making.

In one chapter she helps evaluate the costs of long-term-care insurance. In another she looks at how flexibility is required throughout one's retirement to accommodate changing interests and life events. Her advice can be pithy. "Invest in relationships and your health just as you would invest in stocks: Start early and make ongoing investments."

Finally, wherever you are in your retirement planning, she says, remember to relish the "micro-joys" each day brings.

'Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age'

By Chip Conley | Little, Brown Spark (240 pages)

Midlife has always been a period of transition. But the transition is longer now, due to increased life expectancy, and it requires us to reinvent ourselves, says author Chris Conley.

In the years from 35 to 75, life's disappointments, regrets, griefs and health concerns can leave us feeling emotionally stranded and clueless about what comes next, Conley says. To help readers restart, he shares the psychological tool kit he used after his career as a hospitality entrepreneur ran aground during the 2007-09 recession.

In a conversational style, Conley mixes psychological research, anecdotes and open-ended questions to jump-start reflection. He addresses the joys and potential losses of jumping off the career treadmill. "We are aging and growing at the same time," he writes. "And, ironically, it's our growing that helps us with our aging."

'Let's Talk About Aging Parents: A Real-Life Guide to Solving Problems With 27 Essential Conversations'

By Laura Tamblyn Watts | The Experiment (256 pages)

A huge role-reversal is in store for adults with elderly parents: one in which the child effectively becomes the parent. In down-to-earth language, Laura Tamblyn Watts, a lawyer and chief executive of Can Age, Canada's national seniors' advocacy organization, proposes helpful scripts for having a host of often-prickly conversations about the health and safety of our parents as their physical and cognitive senses begin to weaken.

Suggested conversations include, "How to talk to your parent about whether they should be moving out of that three-story townhouse with the narrow, slippery stairs. About whether your dad should really be driving when he's essentially blind."

The list goes on to include legal issues, dealing with new romantic interests and practicing safe sex. She lays out homework, too, to prepare for multiple conversations. On the feasibility of safely aging at home, for instance, she provides a comprehensive room-by-room safety assessment and cost projection for age-proofing a parental home.

'Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive'

By Eliot Stein | St. Martin's Press (336 pages)

Wonder is present throughout BBC journalist Eliot Stein's enchanting travelogue in search of unsung individuals around the world devoted to keeping alive endangered cultural traditions.

In the quaint medieval town of Ystad, Sweden, Stein climbs a 14-story tower to visit its full-time guard, the 74-year-old, tunic-cloaked Roland Borg. Beware of vertigo as Stein crosses the last bridge in use dating to the Incan Empire, a grass-woven span 70 feet above Peru's Apurimac River. The bridge's keeper, Victoriano Arizapana, preserves the centuries-old craft required to weave and strengthen the bridge's braids.

Foodies, meanwhile, will delight in reading about the lace-like Sardinian pasta su filindeu (or threads of God), product of a 300-year-old recipe that requires intensive work and is now prepared by only three local women. Stein weaves a web of fascination as he introduces us to them all, and leaves us hoping that these honored traditions endure.

'The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life'

By Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer, Allison Gilbert and Pierre Lehu | Rodale Books (176 pages)

Ruth K. Westheimer, the sex and relationship therapist familiarly known as Dr. Ruth, who died this year at the age of 96, begins her final book by revealing that beneath her cheerfully ebullient public personality, "I've been sleeping with my loneliness my entire life." She was a child refugee from Nazi Germany whose family was murdered in the Holocaust. Living in an orphanage in 1945, she wrote in her diary, "Above all, I'm longing for a friend."

To make new friends and build new relationships today, she says, start by reframing your self-image from unlovable loner to someone of worth; that shift in self-esteem will allow you to begin to say yes to opportunities you had previously automatically rejected. If you're still shy, "bring a prop" or anecdote to a gathering to have something to talk about. "Get a dog," who will spark conversations on walks. "Practice small kindnesses."

Developing friendships takes time and effort, so don't give up, Westheimer says. She emphasizes the need for intimacy at any age, and provides advice that sounds helpful in and out of the bedroom.

PODCASTS

'Stuff You Missed in History Class'

You don't have to be a history buff but you might become one listening to this podcast.

Hosts Holly Frey and Tracy Wilson regale listeners with tales of memorable if eccentric historic figures and lesser-known but nonetheless momentous incidents.

The topics range across centuries and include science, art, music, politics and all aspects of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Frey and Wilson regularly answer questions and provide updates on mysteries that remain unresolved.

'This Is Growing Old'

This podcast is produced by the Alliance for Aging Research, a nonprofit devoted to "the common human experience of aging." Listeners get advice on topics such as being your own health advocate, navigating the web safely, legislation important to seniors, coping with loss and grief, and, on the brighter side, the positive impacts grandparents and grandchildren can have on each other.

In one episode, Carrie Shaw, founder of Embodied Labs, a platform for training caregivers of people with dementia, describes how her inspiration came from caring for her mother. In another, historian Nell Irvin Painter explains why and how she decided to reinvent herself as a professional artist.

Diane J. Cole is a writer in New York. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 01, 2024 07:00 ET (12:00 GMT)

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