Listening to The Elders

How should we prepare for later life? And how should we all, as societies, prepare for our rapidly ageing populations? What are the secrets – personal and national – of growing older happily and well? Award-winning British travel writer Brian Schofield sets off on a deeply personal mission in search of the answers, visiting and interviewing elders in Afghanistan, Tobago, Japan, The Cook Islands, Calabria, Kenya, Tanzania and Florida, to uncover the Ten Rules of happiness and well-being in later life. His challenging, surprising discoveries encourage people of all ages to reconsider their relationships, families and communities, in pursuit of a culture that better embraces and celebrates the energies, inspiration and insights of all our elders.

How should we prepare for later life? And how should we all, as societies, prepare for our rapidly ageing populations? What are the secrets – personal and national – of growing older happily and well? Award-winning British travel writer Brian Schofield sets off on a deeply personal mission in search of the answers, visiting and interviewing elders in Afghanistan, Tobago, Japan, The Cook Islands, Calabria, Kenya, Tanzania and Florida, to uncover the Ten Rules of happiness and well-being in later life. His challenging, surprising discoveries encourage people of all ages to reconsider their relationships, families and communities, in pursuit of a culture that better embraces and celebrates the energies, inspiration and insights of all our elders.

Brian Schofield’s travel writing and journalism have appeared in The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, GQ, The New Statesman and Condé Nast Traveller. In 2003 he won the Visit USA award for best British travel writer covering North America. His first book, Selling Your Father’s Bones, was published in Britain, France and the USA, and was shortlisted for the 2008 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of literature by a United Kingdom or Commonwealth author under thirty-five. He teaches History and English at Hurstpierpoint College, Sussex, and lives with his wife, Harriet, and their two sons, Theo and Thomas. Praise for Brian Schofield’s writing: ‘His research has a modern, passionate eye for personal stories,’ Bronwen Maddox, THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR ‘He listens carefully to Native voices and emphasises their resilience then and now,’ THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ‘A quiet fury burns through his careful prose,’ Giles Whitell, THE TIMES ‘A compelling historical travelogue that’s told in fine, expressive prose,’ Piers Moore Ede, TRAVELLER MAGAZINE ‘A beautifully written account,’ Chris Hannan, SCOTTISH HERALD ‘Schofield’s book, which is admirably ambitious in scope, could well turn out to be a future classic,’ GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE