For smarter readers… HOW TO LIVE

I am averse to advice books. Don’t tell me HOW TO LIVE, that’s why I have an autonomic nervous system! But Henry Alford‘s book is not some souped-up self-help tome, instead, it is as its subtitle advertises: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth). Of course, our elders may have been created equal, but not all have fulfilled their potential and Alford vets the aged for us. He rules out the crazed, the oft-quoted and the pap-peddlers. He allows the under-represented, the under-appreciated and the truly iconoclastic to share their insights. Phyllis Diller, the queen of self-deprecating comedy, reveals the energy-saving power of deflective positivity. Hyper-critical playwright Edward Albee explains how he can spin contempt into contentment simply by paying attention and remembering the happiest time is “Now. Always.” Granny D — no relation to Heavy — who walked cross-country to rouse apolitical Americans, stokes the public once more insisting we stop fearing Death or risk losing our lives. Author Harold Bloom, actress Sylvia Miles, aphorist Ashleigh Brilliant, Katrina-survivor Althea Washington and Sandra Tsing Loh‘s fodder-figure, Eugene, offer rational and irrational clues for how to get by, pull through and enjoy oneself even if we don’t always “succeed.” Wisely — what else? — Alford intersperses his interviews with his own familial inquisition that raises timely issues and untimely ends so dramatic, comedic, heart-breaking and uplifting that for a moment one wonders if he’s made it all up. Alas, the  aptly self-defined investigative humorist is honest in his recounting of his parents’ late-life divorce and his mother’s particular courage and… wisdom. So poignant are her experiences, so powerful the lessons to be gleaned from her responses to them, she is almost deserving of a co-author credit. And, she should be proud of her son who has spun her tale and her contemporaries’ stories into that most rare treat, a book that teaches, never preaches; a book that enlightens while always eliciting laughs. Now that’s HOW TO LIVE.