About the book
Shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction as well as a finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize, Sixty is a wickedly honest and brutally funny account of the year in which Ian Brown truly realized that the man in the mirror was...sixty. By the author of the multiple award-winning The Boy in the Moon.
Sixty is a report from the front, a dispatch from the Maginot Line that divides the middle-aged from the soon to be elderly. As Ian writes, \"It is the age when the body begins to dominate the mind, or vice versa, when time begins to disappear and loom, but never in a good way, when you have no choice but to admit that people have stopped looking your way, and that in fact they stopped twenty years ago.\"
Ian began keeping a diary with a Facebook post on the morning of February 4, 2014, his sixtieth birthday. As well as keeping a running tally on how he survived the year, Ian explored what being sixty means physically, psychologically and intellectually. \"What pleasures are gone forever? Which ones, if any, are left? What did Beethoven, or Schubert, or Jagger, or Henry Moore, or Lucien Freud do after they turned sixty?\" And most importantly, \"How much life can you live in the fourth quarter, not knowing when the game might end?\"
With formidable candour, he tries to answer this question: \"Does aging and elderliness deserve to be dreaded--and how much of that dread can be held at bay by a reasonable human being?\" For that matter, for a man of sixty, what even constitutes reasonableness?
Editions of Sixty
- Paperback
- ISBN 9780307362858
- AltFormat
- ISBN 9780307362841
- EBook
- ISBN 9780307362865
Read an Excerpt
Shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction as well as a finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize, Sixty is a wickedly honest and brutally funny account of the year in which Ian Brown truly realized that the man in the mirror was...sixty. By the author of the multiple award-winning The Boy in the Moon.
Sixty is a report from the front, a dispatch from the Maginot Line that divides the middle-aged from the soon to be elderly. As Ian writes, \"It is the age when the body begins to dominate the mind, or vice versa, when time begins to disappear and loom, but never in a good way, when you have no choice but to admit that people have stopped looking your way, and that in fact they stopped twenty years ago.\"
Ian began keeping a diary with a Facebook post on the morning of February 4, 2014, his sixtieth birthday. As well as keeping a running tally on how he survived the year, Ian explored what being sixty means physically, psychologically and intellectually. \"What pleasures are gone forever? Which ones, if any, are left? What did Beethoven, or Schubert, or Jagger, or Henry Moore, or Lucien Freud do after they turned sixty?\" And most importantly, \"How much life can you live in the fourth quarter, not knowing when the game might end?\"
With formidable candour, he tries to answer this question: \"Does aging and elderliness deserve to be dreaded--and how much of that dread can be held at bay by a reasonable human being?\" For that matter, for a man of sixty, what even constitutes reasonableness?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Sixty about?
Shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction as well as a finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize, Sixty is a wickedly honest and brutally funny account of the year in which Ian Brown truly realized that the man in the mirror was...sixty. By the author of the multiple award-winning The Boy in the Moon.
Sixty is a report from the front, a dispatch from the Maginot Line that divides the middle-aged from the soon to be elderly. As Ian writes, \"It is the age when the body begins to dominate the mind, or vice versa, when time begins to disappear and loom, but never in a good way, when you have no choice but to admit that people have stopped looking your way, and that in fact they stopped twenty years ago.\"
Ian began keeping a diary with a Facebook post on the morning of February 4, 2014, his sixtieth birthday. As well as keeping a running tally on how he survived the year, Ian explored what being sixty means physically, psychologically and intellectually. \"What pleasures are gone forever? Which ones, if any, are left? What did Beethoven, or Schubert, or Jagger, or Henry Moore, or Lucien Freud do after they turned sixty?\" And most importantly, \"How much life can you live in the fourth quarter, not knowing when the game might end?\"
With formidable candour, he tries to answer this question: \"Does aging and elderliness deserve to be dreaded--and how much of that dread can be held at bay by a reasonable human being?\" For that matter, for a man of sixty, what even constitutes reasonableness?
What core themes, tropes, or subjects are explored in Sixty?
Biography, Literature and Literary studies > Biography and non-fiction prose > Biography: general
Where can I read a sample of Sixty?
You can read an official preview of the few pages here https://www.book2look.com/book/9780307362858
Who is/are the Author/s of the book Sixty?
Ian Brown
What are the ISBN numbers for the physical and digital editions?
Sixty is available as paperback(ISBN 9780307362858) and altformat(ISBN 9780307362841) and ebook(ISBN 9780307362865)
Where can I buy Sixty online or support local independent bookshops?
You can buy Sixty from below