In To Live in the Center of the Moment, Barbara Frey Waxman examines the emergence of the evocative literature of aging and demonstrates how these autobiographies challenge negative cultural associations of old age. Waxman has selected narratives that focus not on the broad sweep of a person's life but on the period when aging becomes central to the subject's definition of self. The author shows how assessing these literary autobiographies has changed her perceptions and helped her come to terms with impending old age.

Living and Dying at Murray Manor is a classic text that documents how the -work- of everyday life in a nursing home is accomplished. Jaber F. Gubrium spent several months at a nursing home as a participant-observer, involved in activities ranging from performing menial -toileting- work to serving as a gerontologist at staff meetings. The result is not a survey of statistics about nursing homes but an examination of the social organization of care in a single home the author calls Murray Manor. Gubrium's research reveals how staff, clientele, relatives, visiting physicians, and funeral...