By Karen and Erica

Since we have retired we have taken special interest in books about—what else—us. There are not that many. Millions of books address financial planning, which is not our forte, but few really speak to who we are and what we want.

We can recommend these.

No Stone Unturned: The Life and Times of Maggie Kuhn (1991), is the autobiography of one of our greatest advocates. After Maggie Kuhn was made to retire, she became a fierce activist against agism, and helped to found the Gray Panthers. We knew who she was when we were younger, but we were focused on other battles and paid little attention. We’re sorry we were so self-centered. Her story is fascinating and fun (affairs with younger men played a big role in her life), and she must have been, too. Some choice quotes:

On retirement: My coworkers had gotten together and bought me a sewing machine—a beautiful gift but a miscalculation of how I planned to spend my time. I never opened it.

On the media: Old people were never seen in [television] commercials, unless they were hawking dentures or laxatives. They frequently were shown wearing turn-of-the-century clothing. An older character was never portrayed as sexually attractive or passionately in love—unless as a joke. In television dramas we were depicted as serene sages preoccupied with the past. Our voices high-pitched and querulous, we were shown as stubborn, rigid, forgetful and confused.

On her affair with someone fifty years younger: Besides, many older women are attractive and sensual—and many younger men don’t go for just Barbie dolls.

Ms. Kuhn might have enjoyed Ashton Applewhite’s contemporary book, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Agism. It is a lively read—Ms. Applewhite is also a fine TED talker—with attitude. She takes the message forward:

Ageism, unlike aging, is not inevitable. In the twentieth century, the civil rights and women’s movements woke mainstream America up to entrenched systems of racism and sexism. More recently, disability rights and gay rights and trans rights activists have brought ableism and homophobia and transphobia to the streets and the courts of law. It is high time to add ageism to the roster, to include age in our criteria for diversity, and to mobilize against discrimination on the basis of age.

We have also been greatly enlightened by a couple of books that provide the data to support the reality we know we are living.

The Longevity Economy: Unlocking The World’s Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood, Market (2107), by Joseph Coughlin, is key. Mr. Coughlin Is the Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab. Agelab’s objective is exactly congruent with Lustre’s:

In 1900, life expectancy for much of the industrialized world was under 50. Today, living well into one's 70s, 80s and beyond can be expected. How will we spend and make the most of our 30-year longevity bonus? Longevity requires new thinking.

This data-driven book supports what we instinctively learned—that despite the data no-one seems to understand who we are and what we want. A key paragraph:

How many would-be, life-improving products have never come into existence, either because businesses refused to consider older consumers as worthy of innovation or because they rushed too readily to fulfill demands that fit some stereotypical idea of age without stopping to assess whether those demands matched reality?

What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age (2020), by Ken Dychtwald and Robert Morison, is also full of information. The authors are founders of Age Wave, an enterprise devoted to explaining to the rest of the world the powers of the Baby Boomer demographic. The book echoes what we have been saying since we started Lustre—and introduces a phrase we like: time affluence.

 [R]etirement is currently undergoing a dramatic transition. Due to increasing longevity – particularly of women – and the aging of the Boomers, the swelling ranks of retirees are forming an unprecedented social and market force. And since today's cohorts of older men and women are psychologically, culturally, and financially different from previous older generations, they have new and far more diverse aspirations and dreams for their retirement lifestyles. As a result, there's a far bigger upside to aging – and one that is largely untapped. The opportunity is hiding in plain sight. Seizing it is going to require a fresh appreciation for today's and tomorrow's retirees: who they are; what they'll want to feel, eat, drive, wear, and share; and how they'll want to enjoy and find purpose in their decades of newfound time affluence.

Finally, there are the handbooks that offer step by step guidance for figuring out what to do after you retire. Perhaps the most-read is Don’t Retire, Rewire! It was written by Lustre’s old friend Jeri Sedlar, with her husband, for Boomers who retire from high powered jobs and are at a loss about what to do next. The authors take you by the hand and lead you forward. Another in this genre is the recently released Retirement By Design, by Ida Abbott, one of Lustre’s new friends! Also a great how-to book for recently retired professionals.

Let us know if you have read a good book on that best of all topics—us!