Love, Again: The Wisdom of Unexpected Romance
Jan 2015 · Sold by Ballantine Books
Ebook
224
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
In Love, Again, Eve Pell beautifully and thoughtfully concludes that life experience adds dimensions to the art of connection—and that we all stand to learn something from unexpected romance.
How do old people meet new loves?
Eve Pell was 68 when she convinced a friend to set her up with Sam Hirabayashi. Ten years her senior, Sam, a fellow runner, was handsome and sweet. Soon Eve and Sam were plunged into a giddy romance that began with a movie date. “It was crazy,” Pell writes. “It was wonderful.”
Pell wrote about their romance in a New York Times Modern Love column and received a wave of responses from people who recognized their own stories in hers. This thing, this late-in-life love: It’s growing, it’s everywhere, and it’s transformative.
In staggering numbers, old people are meeting and falling in love—in senior living facilities, in retirement homes, in bars, in grocery stores, on cruise ships, on the Internet—brazenly, quietly, unexpectedly. People once written off as too old for intimacy are having romances, beginning intense affairs once thought to be for the young.
Part memoir, part journey to a new frontier, Love, Again is illuminating and heartwarming. Speaking with poets and artists, a retired nurse and a retired coach, environmentalists, philanthropists, and teachers—couples whose partners’ ages range from 61 to 96—Pell reports on their relationships, from saying hello to knowing they’d found the one, from blending routines and traditions to overcoming judgments and challenges. These widows, widowers, divorcés, and never-marrieds open up about old love versus young, the thrill of sex, and the looming shadow of mortality.
At the core of this book is wisdom: what we all can learn from the experience, regardless of age.
• Fall in love with who someone is now—not who they someday might be.
• Always be honest, but don’t feel pressure to share everything.
• And most of all: The heart can continue to expand.
Advance praise for Love, Again
“A heartwarming, eye-opening, life-affirming journey to the final frontier of romance, this is a beautiful book about the possibility of late-in-life love and the life-changing lessons we all can learn from those who have been lucky enough to find it.”—Katie Couric
“Eve Pell’s career as an investigative reporter served her in discovering such couples and learning their stories, which, along with her own love story, she imparts with fluency and zest. Love, Again is a joy to read, full of humor and heart and sweet collective wisdom, a book for all ages.”—Susan Trott, author of the Holy Man Trilogy
“I remarried at 75 and have followed one hundred marriages from age 50 on. Eve Pell knows what she is talking about. Her book is touching, eye-opening, inspiring, and wise. In addition, it is beautifully written.”—George E. Vaillant, M.D., author of Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study
“In this inspiring exploration of fifteen late-in-life romances, Eve Pell illustrates the human appetite and capacity for romantic love at any age. As these men and women—widowed and divorced, gay and straight—share their stories of forging deep connections in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and, yes, 90s, they deliver a heartwarming message: We are never too old for new love.”—Jill Smolowe, author of Four Funerals and a Wedding: Resilience in a Time of Grief
How do old people meet new loves?
Eve Pell was 68 when she convinced a friend to set her up with Sam Hirabayashi. Ten years her senior, Sam, a fellow runner, was handsome and sweet. Soon Eve and Sam were plunged into a giddy romance that began with a movie date. “It was crazy,” Pell writes. “It was wonderful.”
Pell wrote about their romance in a New York Times Modern Love column and received a wave of responses from people who recognized their own stories in hers. This thing, this late-in-life love: It’s growing, it’s everywhere, and it’s transformative.
In staggering numbers, old people are meeting and falling in love—in senior living facilities, in retirement homes, in bars, in grocery stores, on cruise ships, on the Internet—brazenly, quietly, unexpectedly. People once written off as too old for intimacy are having romances, beginning intense affairs once thought to be for the young.
Part memoir, part journey to a new frontier, Love, Again is illuminating and heartwarming. Speaking with poets and artists, a retired nurse and a retired coach, environmentalists, philanthropists, and teachers—couples whose partners’ ages range from 61 to 96—Pell reports on their relationships, from saying hello to knowing they’d found the one, from blending routines and traditions to overcoming judgments and challenges. These widows, widowers, divorcés, and never-marrieds open up about old love versus young, the thrill of sex, and the looming shadow of mortality.
At the core of this book is wisdom: what we all can learn from the experience, regardless of age.
• Fall in love with who someone is now—not who they someday might be.
• Always be honest, but don’t feel pressure to share everything.
• And most of all: The heart can continue to expand.
Advance praise for Love, Again
“A heartwarming, eye-opening, life-affirming journey to the final frontier of romance, this is a beautiful book about the possibility of late-in-life love and the life-changing lessons we all can learn from those who have been lucky enough to find it.”—Katie Couric
“Eve Pell’s career as an investigative reporter served her in discovering such couples and learning their stories, which, along with her own love story, she imparts with fluency and zest. Love, Again is a joy to read, full of humor and heart and sweet collective wisdom, a book for all ages.”—Susan Trott, author of the Holy Man Trilogy
“I remarried at 75 and have followed one hundred marriages from age 50 on. Eve Pell knows what she is talking about. Her book is touching, eye-opening, inspiring, and wise. In addition, it is beautifully written.”—George E. Vaillant, M.D., author of Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study
“In this inspiring exploration of fifteen late-in-life romances, Eve Pell illustrates the human appetite and capacity for romantic love at any age. As these men and women—widowed and divorced, gay and straight—share their stories of forging deep connections in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and, yes, 90s, they deliver a heartwarming message: We are never too old for new love.”—Jill Smolowe, author of Four Funerals and a Wedding: Resilience in a Time of Grief
About the author
Eve Pell is the author of the acclaimed memoir We Used to Own the Bronx, in which she detailed her upbringing in a prestigious New York family and how she left that world of privilege for a career as an investigative reporter. She went on to report for three award-winning PBS documentaries and is an award-winning writer published in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Ms., Runner’s World, and other publications. She is a former staff reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting, taught journalism at San Francisco State University, and has won gold medals in international senior track and field competitions. She lives in San Francisco.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
