Looking for the next great book on aging and longevity? Want to learn how to live a longer and healthier life? We’ve got the answers. Well not us, per se, but our fantastic lineup of authors sure do. Don’t miss your chance to bring your questions to world-renowned authors and experts—register now for the next Longevity Book Club event!

Featuring…

• Dan Buettner, author of Blue Zones: Secrets for Living Longer

• Noreena Hertz, author of The Lonely Century: A Call to Reconnect

• M.T. Connolly, author of The Measure of Our Age: Navigating Care, Safety, Money, and Meaning Later in Life

• Chip Conley, author of Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

• Danielle Arigoni, author of Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation

… And many more!

To understand elders' experiences of aging in place, sociologist Stacy Torres spent five years with longtime New York City residents as they coped with health setbacks, depression, gentrification, financial struggles, the accumulated losses of neighbors, friends, and family, and other everyday challenges. The sensitive portrait Torres paints in At Home in the City moves us beyond stereotypes of older people as either rich and pampered or downtrodden and frail to capture the multilayered complexity of late life.
 
These pages chronicle how a nondescript bakery in Manhattan served as a public living room, providing company to ease loneliness and a sympathetic ear to witness the monumental and mundane struggles of late life. Through years of careful observation, Torres peels away the layers of this oft-neglected social world and explores the constellation of relationships and experiences that Western culture often renders invisible or frames as a problem. Join us for our February Longevity Book Club, where Stacy Torres will highlight how people find support, flex their resilience, and assert their importance in their communities in old age.

Early relationships are the key to healthy brain development, resilience, and lifelong flourishing. Children need to be loved, to be valued, to interact, and to be listened to. When children have the space and time to play and explore through nurturing positive relationships, then children learn. But loving relationships are precisely what so many children are missing, and modern factors are making it more difficult for children to build these necessary bonds.

Love to Learn offers a vision for a future where learning is relational, and love is a literacy. It is a provocative paradigm shift, from child-centered education to relationship-centered learning. It weaves in stories of perseverance, empathy, creativity, and showcases innovations anchored in the latest neuroscience and technology advance – all driven by the desire to unlock the inherent human potential in any child.
 
Join us for our March Longevity Book Club, where Isabelle Hau will discuss how Love To Learn seeks to change how we raise our children, how we run early learning environments, and how we construct care-full communities.

In The Guarantee, Natalie Foster asks us to imagine an America where housing, health care, a college education, dignified work, family care, an inheritance, and an income floor are not only attainable by all but guaranteed, by our government, for everyone. As it stands, our current economic system is chock full of government-backed guarantees, from bailouts to bankruptcy protection, to keep the private sector in business. So why can’t the same be true for the rest of us? And how would it foster healthy aging in an era of increased longevity? Watch our December Book Club to learn more about Natalie Foster's vision for a new Guarantee Framework—rooted in real life experiences, collaborations with some of today’s most important activists and visionaries, and a concrete sense of the policies that are possible—and ready to implement—in twenty-first-century America.

In The Second Fifty, Debra Whitman provides a roadmap for navigating, and celebrating, the second half of life. Drawing on compelling stories from her own family and people across the country, interviews with experts, and cutting-edge research, she shares insights on brain health, the contributions and concerns of an older workforce, caregiving, financing retirement, and more. Whether you are approaching fifty, into your later years, or caring for someone who is, join us on November 6th to learn how The Second Fifty is an indispensable guide for living well in the twenty-first century.

Most wellness advice is focused on achieving and maintaining good physical and mental health. But Harvard-trained social scientist and social health expert Kasley Killam reveals that this approach is missing a vital component: human connection. Weaving together cutting-edge science, mindset shifts, and practical wisdom, Killam offers the first methodology for how to be socially healthy. An antidote to the loneliness epidemic and an inspiring manifesto for seeing wellbeing as not only physical and mental, but also social, The Art and Science of Connection is a handbook for thriving.

Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan? In Why We Die, Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former president of the Royal Society, takes us on a riveting journey to the frontiers of biology, asking whether we must be mortal. On August 7th, Dr. Ramakrishnan joined the Longevity Book Club to share more about the recent breakthroughs in scientific research and cutting edge of efforts to extend lifespan by altering our physiology.

In Ageless Aging: A Woman’s Guide to Increasing Healthspan, Brainspan, and Lifespan, aging and longevity expert Maddy Dychtwald provides a holistic and practical guide based on cutting-edge research that helps women take advantage of the scientific, psychological, and physical knowledge and tools to feel vital, youthful, and purposeful into your 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and beyond. On June 6th, Maddy joined the Longevity Book Club to talk about her research, and share actionable steps to help women increase their healthspans, brainspans, and lifespans.

On May 1st, author of the global bestseller "The 100-Year Life" and Professor of Economics at London Business School Andrew Scott joined the Longevity Book Club to discuss his new release "The Longevity Imperative: How to Build a Healthier and More Productive Society to Support our Longer Lives." Andrew chatted with Ken and Martha about the individual, social, political, economic, and cultural changes required so that all of us—regardless of age—can live lives that are not just longer but healthier, happier, and more productive.

In Tough Broad, Caroline Paul dives into the research on aging, but also accompanies older women on bird-watching outings, sea kayaking excursions, swim laps, and walks in the park, among other outdoor adventures, and begins to see her own future in a new and dazzling light. On April 2nd, Caroline joined the Longevity Book Club to discuss the scientific research, cultural studies, psychology, and personal stories behind Tough Broad, and helped us learn more about the importance of embracing the outdoors in our fifties, sixties, seventies and beyond.

Our population is aging—by 2034, the US will have more people over 65 than under 18. Despite the evidence that climate change is severely impacting older adults, we’re not prepared to address the needs of older adults and other vulnerable populations in the face of a changing climate. On March 6, community resilience and housing expert Danielle Arigoni joined the Longevity Book Club to discuss how to best plan for both the aging of our population and the climate changes underway so that we can create safer, more livable communities for all.

New York Times bestselling author and co-founder/CEO of The Modern Elder Academy “reminds us all to savor the wisdom, self-knowledge, and joy that accompanies [the middle decades] of our lives” (Father Richard Rohr) and “provides a clear blueprint for creating the lives we want” (Gretchen Rubin). In Learning to Love Midlife, Chip Conley offers an alternative narrative to the way we commonly think of our 40s, 50s and 60s. Drawing on the latest social science research, inspiring stories, and timeless wisdom, on January 25th Chip joined the Longevity Book Club to reveal 12 reasons why life gets better with age.

In The Measure of Our Age, elder justice expert and MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, M.T. Connolly investigates the systems we count on to protect us as we age. Weaving first-person accounts, her own experience, and investigative reporting, she exposes a reality that has long been hidden and sometimes actively covered up. But her investigation also reveals reasons for hope within everyone’s grasp. On November 30th, M.T. joined the Longevity Book Club to map the challenges of aging and present powerful tools we can use to forge better long lives for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Economist and international best-selling author Noreena Hertz combines over a decade of research with firsthand reporting to bring us The Lonely Century: a hopeful and empowering vision for how to heal our fractured communities and restore connection in our lives. On October 4th, Noreena joined us to discuss the bold and thought-provoking account by “one of the world’s leading thinkers” (The Observer) of how we built a lonely world, how the pandemic accelerated the problem, and what we must do to come together again.

National Geographic Explorer and #1 best-selling author Dan Buettner has traveled the globe to uncover the best strategies for longevity, which he found in the blue zones: places around the world where higher percentages of people enjoy remarkably long, full lives. On September 6th, Dan met with Ken and Martha to reveal the newest longevity discoveries from The Blue Zones Secrets to Living Longer, and to discuss the importance of community, movement, purpose and much more.

On July 13th, Ryan Frederick joined us for a Longevity Book Club conversation on his book, Right Place, Right Time. Ken and Martha explored with Ryan the pros and cons of different living options, discussed which tools will help you evaluate your living situation, unpacked specific housing models, and considered how the landscape of housing is changing.

On June 14th, Ken and Martha met with Hal Hershfield to discuss the science behind “Your Future Self”, learned more about the mental mistakes we make in thinking about the future, and heard some practical advice for imagining our best future so that we can make that a reality.

On May 2nd, the Longevity Book club welcomed Rob Schwartz to discuss his recent release, The Wisdom of Morrie. Morrie Schwartz, the beloved subject of the classic, multimillion-copy number one bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, explores questions about life, purpose and what it means to be human in this profound work on living and aging joyfully and creatively. Edited by his son, Rob Schwartz.

On April 12th, 2023, we welcomed Myra Strober and Abby Davisson to the Longevity Book Club, authors of Money and Love: An Intelligent Roadmap for Life’s Biggest Decisions. Myra and Abby met with Ken and Martha to discuss how to better balance our decision-making using research-based insights and offer tools to help you feel more confident in making life’s most important decisions.

On March 1, 2023, we kicked-off our Longevity Book Club series with brain health expert Dr. Marc Milstein, author of The Age Proof Brain. Longevity Project chair Ken Stern and Stanford Center on Longevity Associate Director Martha Deevy talked with Marc about the future of aging, recent research in brain studies, and tools for maintaining brain health as you age.