Elderhood, old age. Many of us can expect to live more years as “elders” than in either childhood or adulthood, a span of up to 40 years, yet that era of our lives has long been treated as more a symptom and burden—elderhood outright ignored or demonized.

In an extraordinary new title already praised by readers like Mary Pipher and Abraham Verghese, Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson offers an honest and full-hearted re-examination of the later decades, with all of their joys and frustrations. Drawn in part from her medical practice and expertise, in part from personal experience, history and popular culture, Elderhood exalts the worth of life’s third stage, inviting readers into a new relationship with the so-called “twilight” years of life. What does the future hold?

Hopefully, a ripe old age.

In discussion with Angie Coiro for This Is Now, Louise Aronson shows us the possibilities of elderhood.