GETTING OVER GETTING OLDER

As 77 million baby boomers begin turning fifty, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a respected social critic and award-winning writer, tells the truth about that uncharted period when time speeds up and the body slows down - when you are no longer young but far from old, and you refuse to believe that you are over the hill. Pogrebin's journey out of her forties and into her fifties becomes a user-friendly map of this challenging terrain as she demystifies the fears most people can't face and celebrates the possibilities most people can't see. Every woman who is facing fifty or has already moved past it will be grateful for this warm, witty exploration of the indignities and epiphanies of midlife, large and small. Suddenly waking up in the middle of the night, for instance, with a non-negotiable need to go to the bathroom. Immediately. Having to let the waistband out on every skirt you own. Discovering one day that you can no longer read the phone book. Finally figuring out what you want to be when you grow up. Realizing that not everyone you love will be here forever and neither will you. Cherishing the present as never before.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin is a founding editor of Ms. magazine.