In my parade of writing about books I’ve finished in the last few months but not had enough time to blog about is this one by David Shields that I picked up on a lark — I suspect that the sneaky Amazon recommendation engine got me again. But in a mostly good way. I didn’t totally like the writing in this one — found it a bit stiff — but the subject is one that I’ve been thinking about a lot: how we grow up and age, how we get from being born to old age and eventually dying. I think the reason that Shields wrote this was to reflect on his relationship with his father, as his father gets older (in his late nineties as of the writing, and still apparently going strong). The book is structured as an intertwining of 2 trains of thoughts: (1) memories of his relationship with his father, and (2) mostly physiological descriptions of what happens to our bodies at various stages of our lives. A good book, and thought-provoking, but not the most engaging thing I’ve read lately.
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