The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

by David Shields

New York Times bestseller
Best Nonfiction Book of the Year, TimeOut Chicago
Chosen by Artforum as one of the 25 best books of the year
Best Reads of 2008, Salon
Chosen as one of the twenty best nonfiction books of 2008, Seattle Times
Chosen by Amazon as one of its Significant Seven for February 2008 and one of the 50 best books of the year
Powell's Books New Favorite, Staff Pick
BookSense Selection
Finalist for the Washington State Book Award, 2009

Mesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being. Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers--from Lucretius to Woody Allen--Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality. The Thing About Life provokes us to contemplate the brevity and radiance of our own sojourn on earth and challenges us to rearrange our thinking in crucial and unexpected ways.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Philosophy, Essays, Death, Biography, Biography Memoir

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

David Shields is the author of fourteen books, including Reality Hunger (Knopf, 2010), which was named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications. GQ called it "the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010"; the New York Times called it "a mind-bending manifesto." His previous book, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (Knopf, 2008), was a New York Times bestseller. His other books include Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity, winner of the PEN/Revson Award; and Dead Languages: A Novel, winner of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. His essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Yale Review, Believer, Village Voice, Salon, Slate, McSweeney's, and Utne Reader; he's written reviews for the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times Book Review, Boston Globe, and Philadelphia Inquirer. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.

Reviews

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll Be Dead is a difficult-to-define, genre-crossing brooding and searching book that combines biography and biology in an obsessive musing on Death. David Shields’ father is 97. David Shields is obsessed with his father’s vitality and seemingly miraculous health and amazingly long life. So instead of simply being grateful, he wrote a book about his obsession with death and all the related gritty details therein.

Shields hasn’t so much written a book as he has compiled an veritable glut of information, facts, statistics, and quotes on the topic of Death. Oh, the quotes. The quotes are endless. An entire chapter is devoted to quoting people’s last words. But really, every chapter is devoted to quotes.

David Shields has some serious issues he’s trying to work out with this book. His book is obsessively devoted to the minutiae of life, death, ageing, and human decay. There are endless facts and statistics detailing the biological processes of human anatomy. In grappling with the abstract indefinite of life, Shields seeks security in the concrete comfort of exact statistics and facts of death.

Shields could have had a few sessions with a shrink. He wrote this book instead. At his daughter’s birthday party at a skating rink, he finds the place terrifying, observing that, “It’s all about amplifying kids’ sense of themselves as magical creatures and converting this feeling into sexual yearning – a group march toward future prospects.”

Huh. Writers.

Shields research was clearly exhaustive. The most fascinating parts of the book were the biological facts and figures coupled with historical quotes. The biographical/memoir sections were boring and distracting to the infinitely more interesting biological/anatomical examination of life and death. Shields spent far too many pages detailing, among other infinitesimal things, his truly disgusting acne as an adolescent, his bad back, and his father’s involvement in baseball. Shrug. I just couldn’t care less. And it’s too bad because Shields has unearthed some truly remarkable and interesting information:

“Brain scans of people processing a romantic gaze, new mothers listening to infant cries, and subjects under the influence of cocaine bear a striking resemblance to one another.”

And:

“Lyndon Johnson frequently urinated in front of his secretary, routinely forced staff members to meet with him in the bathroom while he defecated, and liked to show off his penis, which he nicknamed “Jumbo”; in a private conversation, pressed by a couple of reporters to explain why we were in Vietnam, LBJ unzipped his fly, displayed Jumbo, and said, “This is why.”

I’m not sure what any of this amounts too, and I don’t think Shields does either, but I found it highly entertaining and it kept me chuckling and shaking my head for the couple of hours it took me to read his book.

Shields’ focus is wandering and broad. He touches on everything from something called the “longevity movement” to eating disorders, intelligence, obesity, hair loss, and menopause:

“As women lose estrogen, their pubic hair becomes more sparse, the labia become more wrinkled, and the skin surrounding the vulva atrophies. The cell walls of a woman’s vagina become weaker and more prune to tearing; the vagina gets drier, more susceptible to infection, and – with loss of elasticity – less able to shrink and expand, less accommodating to the insertion of a penis.”

Thanks, David. I know we all needed that.

Shields quotes the seventeenth-century moralist Jean de la Bruyere as saying, “There are but three events in a man’s life: birth, life, and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.”

Of the numerous quotes, I wish Shields would take that one to heart and stop his obsessive whining and brooding about his dad and death and life and just lighten up; live a little. But such behavior that annoys me is the same neuroses that produced this book. Which I fairly enjoyed. So what are you going to do?

Read it, I suppose. And all the others.

[Denis · Rating 5 out of 5]

If, like this reader, you are somewhat obsessed with the topic of death, and that seemingly impending event at times puts a damper on your here and now, then you’ll likely be engaged while reading this memoir, too.

The book is very much homage to the author’s once spirited, indefatigable, and often annoying father, who is finally (at the age of 97) showing signs of mortality. In it Shields discusses different aspects of life, touching on birth, childhood, food, sex, etc.; and of course, death. The pages are also soaked with fascinating statistics and explanations of death and decay of the human body. Also interesting are the many famous (and not so recognized) quotes on dying and aging.

For example, the second paragraph of the book sets the mood and opens Shield’s straight-forward treatise on dying with this interesting fact (and no doubt to show the seeming insignificance of little ole you and I):

‘Human beings have existed for 250,000 years; during that time, 90 billion individuals have lived and died. You’re one of 6.5 billion people now on the planet, and 99.9% of your genes are the same as everyone else’s. The difference is in the remaining 0.1%.’

And this revealing (and perhaps relatable and depressing?) quote by Edmund Wilson at 68: ‘The knowledge that death is not so far away, that my mind and emotions and vitality will soon disappear like smoke, has the effect of making earthly affairs seem unimportant and human beings more and more ignoble. It is harder to take human life seriously, including one’s own efforts and achievements and passions.’

And this one, on the lighter side, by Woody Allen: ‘The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one’s going to make fun of you.”

As the title hints, this memoir is told matter-of-factly, without sentimentality, without philosophical meanderings. It’s a quick and simple read.

A critique that I read on this book mentions that the author is obsessing, and wrote this memoir instead of seeing a shrink. That’s totally possible and plausible, but this reader is glad that he’s shared it with us, instead. Another reviewer mentions that this book is life affirming. I don’t see it that way. Shields mentions, once, that ‘life, in his view, is simple, tragic, and eerily beautiful.’ But, nowhere else in this memoir is that view showed, or elaborated on. Life affirming? Perhaps, in a roundabout way. The topic of death and dying is articulated very well. So, maybe further exploration is unnecessary. Like for Shields, this book was somewhat cathartic for this reader, too.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 3 out of 5]

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.” -Oscar Wilde, dying in a tacky Paris hotel.

This is an odd little book that intersperses interesting, if not often morbid, factoids about the human body with the author’s recollections of his recently deceased father. One gets the definite impression that his father’s living to 100 years old definitely inspired Shields to ponder the forces behind how our bodies age.
While the facts are interesting, more interesting is the portrait of his father. A highly active man who was swimming laps into his mid 90’s, at times gregarious, self involved, vain, prone to vulnerability and emotional breakdowns, he is an interesting character to say the least.
If this book isn’t a loving portrait of him per se, it is a thoroughly introspective one where the author perhaps never really emotionally connecting with his father during their lifetime, seeks to do so by understanding the breakdown of his body toward the end of his life.
It is at times sterile, (considering how liberally Shields quotes death rates, fertility problems, and likelihoods for various diseases this is perhaps unsurprising) but still in interesting in its own unique way. By the end of the book I have to say that while his dad was interesting, I never really developed an attachment to or learned about Shields father. I wonder it Shields ever did.
As an aside, here are a few of the many interesting factoids here:

“Between ages 15 and 24, men are three times more likely to die than women, mostly by reckless behavior or violence, e.g., murder, suicide, car accidents, war.”

“Your IQ is highest between ages 18 and 25. Once your brain peaks in size at age 25 it starts shrinking, losing weight, and filling with fluid.”

“when you’re 45, your vocabulary is three times as large as it is at 20. When you’re 60, your brain possesses four times the information that it does at 20.”

“Beginning in your early 20s, your ability to detect salty or bitter things decreases, as does your ability to identify odors. The amount of ptyalin, an enzyme used to digest starches, in your saliva decreases after age 20. After age 30, your digestive tract displays a decrease in the amount of digestive juices. At 20, in other words, your fluids are fleeing, and by 30, you’re drying up.”

“Given a list of 24 words, an average 20-year-old remembers 14 of the words, a 40-year-old remembers 11, a 60-year-old remembers 9, and a 70-year-old remembers 7.”

“Everybody has a million hair follicles; only about 100,000 follicles have hair growing from them (blonds slightly more, redheads slightly fewer). The other 900,000 follicles are resting. Each strand of hair grows six inches a year, eventually reaches two to three feet in length, and has its own blood supply.”

“Every decade after age 50, your brain loses 2 percent of its weight. You have difficulty learning things and you remember less and less. Memory per se, the actual encoding of information isn’t diminished in a healthy, older person, but retrieval can be an excruciatingly slow process and take many more attempts.”

“For people in the 50-to-59 age group, the death rate is 56 percent less than it is for the general population; 50-to-59-year-olds are just too busy to die.”

[Darga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended to: people who will someday be dead

absolutely beautiful and amazing. i love this book so much i can't describe it. i'm going to make a point to read it once a year for as long as i live.

the book has so many interesting facts and quotes that i ended up dogearing almost the entire book, so i'll just include the prologue:

"this book is an autobiography of my body, a biography of my father's body, an anatomy of our bodies together- especially my dad's, his body, his relentless body.
this is my research; this is what i now know: the brute facts of esistence, the fragility and ephemerality of life in its naked corporeality, human beings as bare, forked animals, the beauty and pathos in my body and his body and everybody else's body as well.
accept death, i always seem to be saying.
accept life, is his entirely understandable reply.
why am i in love with easeful death? i just turned 51. as martin amis has said, 'who knows when it happens, but it happens. suddenly you realize that you're switching from saying Hi to saying Bye. and it's a full-time job: death. you really have to wrench your head around to look in the other direction, because death's so apparent now, and it wasn't apparent before. you were intellectually persuaded that you were going to die, but it wasn't a reality.' so, too, for myself, being the father fo an annoyingly vital 14-year-old girl only deepens these feelings. i'm no longer athletic (really bad back - more on this later). natalie is. after a soccer game this season, a perent of one of the players on the other team came up to here and said, 'turn pro.'
why, at 97, is my father so devoted to longevity per se, to sheer survival? he is - to me - cussedly, maddeningly alive and interesting, but i also don't want to romanticize him. he's life force as life machine - exhausting and exhaustive. rest in peace? hard to imagine.
mark harris, tryign to explain why he thought saul bellow was a better writer than any of his contemporaries, said bellow was simply more alive than anyone else, and there's something of that in my father. d.h. lawrence was said to have lived as if he were a man without skin. that, too, is my father: i keep on urging him to don skin, and he keeps declining.
i seem to have an oedipal urge to bury him in a shower of death data. why do i want to cover my dad in an early shroud? he's strong and he's weak and i love and i hate him and i want him to live forever and i want him to die tomorrow."


first of all, what an incredibly honest thing to have written about your dad when he's still alive. i can't imagine writing the things that are in this book knowing (hoping) that my dad would be alive to read them.

the relationship and competition between father and son is a huge focus of this book. the dad is twice the son's age, and in many ways is still the better, healthier man. shields is making peace with the fact that his dad is finally starting to slow down at 97, and will soon be dead, but he's simultaneously also making peace with the knowledge that he'll never make it that long himself, or be in as good a state if he does. he's also struggling with the idea of whether or not he would want to.

the book is also about the family as a whole. how does the son's wife and daughter impact his thoughts on life and love and sex and purpose and dying, and how did the father's father impact his?

this is also a sports book. shields' previous books were all about basketball, and his father was a sportswriter as well. sports were a major bonding point between them, and a point of contention.

the amazing thing is that the sports sections didn't bore me. between this book and all of chuck klosterman's stuff, i actually find myself curious about the beauty of basketball. these guys make me want to go shoot freethrows for the first time since grade school.

another big element of this book is an incredible array of statistics about life, gender, death, desease, and demographics. they're peppered throughout, and even though i recognized some of them as debatable, he uses them very well to enhance whatever story or philosophy he's currently dealing with.

the last element of the book is a huge selection of quotes from famous thinkers, as well as nobodies. a late section of the book includes thoughts on the meaning of life from people such as stephen jay gould, a cab driver, and ice-t. surprisingly the latter two had the more interesting things to say.

the book ends with a bunch of last words from famous people, including the last diary entry from the author's mother.

the book discusses in detail the biology and chemistry of being born, living, having sex, aging, and dying, and most importantly, how all those things are really the same thing.

it's not a sad book, or at least not any more than it's a happy book. it's got a bittersweetness to it that reflects the subject matter perfectly.

as someone who's almost 30 and trying to decide sooner than later what i want out of the rest of my life, this book seemed tailor made for me. i'm going to lend it out to all the introspective, slightly emo people i know.

[M. Sarki · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Our only certainty is to act with the body."___Ludwig Wiitgenstein

"The body never lies."___Martha Graham


This very morning upon finally reaching the last section of this book here, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, the final section sub-headed Old Age and Death, I felt relieved and somewhat anxious. The book has not been hard at all to read up to this point, but I was a little tired of all the foreplay as this final section is what I really came here for. All the writing leading up to this section was too much self-promotion and bellyaches about Shields' daddy not respecting him enough. Of course not all of the book up to this point should be perceived by me this way. It has had its good moments, and as I said, it hasn't been hard to manage my reading of this book even a little less methodically than I would want to portray it as having been. The fact is, I don't really like this Shields fellow, his personality, now that I have gotten intimate on some levels with him. Sometimes he has gotten a little too personal for my tastes, and the locker room intimacy I have never gone in for at all anyway. Sort of like gym class or showering together after pumping iron with the boys at the YMCA. It helps to like the personality of the writer that you are bent on reading. There have been plenty of characters I have liked through my reading, both good men and bad, but their personalities need to rise above their given character. And that goes for the women I read as well.

My wife was remarking to me the other day how much she enjoys autobiography, especially stories about a person's childhood. She has been reading two pieces from Truman Capote's Modern Library Original collection. She chose the titles, A Christmas Memory and One Christmas to read first, and lastly she will tackle the Thanksgiving piece. My Kentucky girl loves southern writers. She especially loves the simple things that takes her back to her own memories of her family and herself growing up. My wife says she is fascinated also by the strangeness of these writers such as Carson McCullers and Truman Capote. She got the biggest kick out of Capote's childhood relationship with his sixty-year old cousin. It intrigued her. Took her back to her birthplace of Versailles, Kentucky. Just recently her Aunt Chris died. My wife's dad, Bob, Chris's brother, died about two years ago. My wife has not stopped grieving over the loss of her father and she finds herself intrigued these days with old faded pictures and a new piqued interest in her family's history. Her dad's side is chock full of good old country-type kind, gentle, and interesting souls.

In this book I am reading by David Shields it strikes me that I am not at all like my wife in regards to enjoying tales about my childhood, let alone the history of my family. My memory is certainly not what it used to be either. I rarely recollect the same experience my older brother relates around the fire when all four brothers are gathered for our yearly visit together at my cabin up north. I noticed that the author's father has some of the same difficulty with his memories of the past and tends to embellish the facts, that is, if there are any. Shields is serious in his writing a chronological history of biological life from conception to the grave and paralleling his own life with the human history he has also been a part of. The halfway mark gets us nearer in the book to the more adult years which is more palatable for me. Even though there are parts of the first half I completely enjoyed, for the most part I found myself cringing at what mattered most to Shields as a kid, and probably not unlike most normal other kids like him. The problem for me is most of this stuff doesn't matter in the long run of adulthood. While reading this book I have begrudgingly learned so far through the countless statistics Shields has provided what I have already figured out for myself to be true: that I was below average in some things, average in others, and above average in even more. I could have been the star of my eighth grade basketball team, or been arrested with a gun to my head for painting graffiti on the overpass, and it all would be forgotten by now and forgiven as an adult. None of that stuff matters at all any longer. Doesn't even make very good stories to tell around the fire.

Upon reaching adulthood I began with a clean slate. My analogy for this position I am taking adheres itself to the fact that I did begin again from the beginning in my first career as a carpenter when I moved to Louisville after working my way up in the union carpenter ranks to a supervisor who traveled all over Michigan and was in charge of completing several important projects mostly located on our now abandoned airbases. It did not matter one hoot that years before I had also been to Alaska and lived on a remote island absent except for the two dozen loggers prepared to get more work as soon as the roads were built to get them further into the wilderness of this virgin wood. My job was to build a mobile logging camp for the road builders to live in and be hauled from island to island on enormous barges and then dragged off by giant tractors. All the foundations of these structures we fabricated were made from giant virgin spruce logs and they looked like enormous sleds before we built stick by stick the modern structures on them. All our outside communication was done by marine radio and every nail and stick of lumber was brought over to us on a barge. Years later when I moved with my wife and kids to Louisville at the age of thirty-one it was like starting over for me. These southern boys in Kentucky didn't know me, didn't really care that I had done all these things in the past, and often I was called "boy" as a way to demean me. Of course I managed to prevail, but I had never met more slow people in my life, both mentally and physically. Their snail's pace was excruciating to somebody like me who had always prided himself on working harder, faster, and smarter than anybody else in or near the vicinity of me. I am going the long way around this but what I am attempting to say is your childhood matters to what you ultimately become, but what you did to get there as an adult hardly means a hill of beans. All of life boils down typically to what have you done for me lately?

All this potential heartache and decay is is the reason I have made it this far in the book in light of the almost endless lists of Shield family accomplishments and conquests that never could possibly matter to anyone but himself. It feels a little like Shields is making his list for his stake in immortality. I hate to break it to him but in the course of things nobody interested in old age and death really cares what the little fellow did from birth through the eight grade. But all may be forgiven Shields in the last subsection. He is now into what matters most to me, and I trust, to most others as well.

The last section goes on for quite a few pages listing everything one can expect as they reach the dying stages of a normal life span. Shields also offers valuable information to those of us desiring to live forever, or at least lengthen our stay to longer than most others on our neighborhood block, or to achieve a longer life than those of us who grew up together. There is scientific evidence of the research and development that promises immortality as some point in our human existence, and not so far away as one might imagine. There is a chapter on famous last words which I found quite interesting, at least it made me think what I might have to say, if I indeed should get the chance. But the end is definitely in sight for old Dad Shields. He is fading fast. It is clear to me that once we start the serious downhill slide, and you will know when that is happening, that it isn't long until the end. And my wish is that it won't be bitter but instead a welcome finish to a long life lived well. The book is worth reading, and I am not familiar with another one like it, but it was certainly not as good a read as I had initially hoped for. And for that I blame the narcissistic personality of David Shields.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book because I am working on a project on mortality and awareness of death, expecting it to be some sort of non-fiction. What I got was a kind of weird autobiography about the author and his dad with a lot of side-stories and details nobody asked for.
Mixed up in that were a lot of scientific facts just randomly listed - maybe supposed to scare you? Parts of it felt really blunt and I just speeded through it trying to get it over with.

The two stars are earned by the parts in the book that actually talk about mortality without being cryptic and by Shields writing skill that is definitely there but is only shown in a few parts of this book.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Thing about Reading this Book is that . . . Someday You’ll be Finished

A near-terminal case.

Author David Shields runs this book along parallel and often intersecting tracks. One is a litany of facts regarding the birth, maturation and aging process. The other consists of reflections on his own life and, particularly, the life of his 97-year old father.

Not everyone will find this a novel; revelation (Hey – people age and die! Who knew???!) or a fascinating story.

The chapters offering straight biological facts and others that consist of a multipage succession of quotations seem like “filler,” a data vomit.

“The Thing About Life” stops just short of being a complete waste of time. Not a terrible book, but bordering on the lame-oh…Hence the two-star rating.

[Andrew]

David Shields writes like I do, and while normally this pisses me off, as I see my own inadequacy, with David Shields, I think, hey, I'm about as good as he is. And he's got all kinds of books published.

I mean, it's not bad, and it's a good, distracting read, but it's not near as important as it seems to think it is. I still enjoyed the little snippets strung together, I still appreciated the barrage of biological and biographical data, and I still appreciated the meditations on the relationship between father and son, particularly how that relationship unfolds with regard to the pursuit of athletic excellence (still a bit bitter about mon vieux not wanting to play backyard catch over here). Put this one in your beach bag this summer, even if it is about death.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times fascinating, at times boring, this book weaves the story of the author's father's life with the story of his own life with facts about life and death and quotes about life and death and last words of famous people and not-so-famous people. The main strength of the book was when it focused on death and presented tidbits and anecdotes in a creative, engaging way. The main weakness, in my opinion, was too many anecdotes from the author's life and family that were tiresome and only tangentially related to the topic. If you're writing about life and death, I guess, anything in fair game to throw in. I was glad to finish this book, but also happy I read it.

[Laura L · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book had a lot of interesting facts and ideas, but didn't really seem to get anywhere with it...except if you count the really groundbreaking point that people will die...but I guess I should have gotten that one by the title. I guess what I am saying is that with this book, you should judge it by its cover.

[Pamela J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because my husband came across a used copy at our neighborhood indie bookstore and bought it for me (the title made it a somewhat obvious choice for my project here).

The thing about life is that one day you’ll be dead is hard to describe. It’s partly just sketches about death, the aging of the human body, evolutionary biology, etc. Not to be one of those “I could have written that!” assholes, but those parts mostly contained things I already knew, stated in ways that I might have stated them myself. Still pretty interesting to breeze through.

On the other hand, though, The thing about life is also largely about Shields’s nonagenarian father who himself defies basically all of the lessons about mortality we’re supposed to be learning in here. This father has remained athletic and sexual into his 90s and still more or less refuses to internalize the belief that he will die. He stars in a number of charming anecdotes that I never could have been convinced to read if it had been billed as a book about some rando’s father, instead of a book about Death. So, despite being a book about Death, The thing about life turned out to be a pretty breezy read compared to some of my other choices.

Again, though, my current situation has heavily affected my experience of this book. Some of these books are perfectly aligned with what I’m going through, others are kind of anti-aligned. As Shields semi-incredulously describes his vital, ancient father, I can’t help but thinking of my only-sort-of-old, terminally ill father. For me, there is no satisfying juxtaposition to be had like that Shields enjoys between his more abstract musings on life and what he observes in his father.

However, since this book is 10 years old now, I read it with the recurring thought that Shields’s father must have died by now. I must admit that that tempered my jealousy significantly.

Although it was still a good read despite my crisis, I think this book would be better enjoyed by someone who thinks maybe it’s time s/he gave death a bit of thought, but not too much, like not to the point of tears.

[Fred · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing about this book is that sometimes it annoys. I actually decided to stop reading it when I was halfway through. But the other thing about this book is that often it's very interesting. Probably it's about half and half, and the half you like better (or the half you'll find annoying) will depend on what kind of writing you respond to.

There are roughly three modes of discourse in the book: the personal/family memoir, the straight scientific fact, and the liberal heaping doses of quotations from others.

The aspects of personal memoir are generally rather interesting. Shields's discussion of life as a quick progression toward sexual maturity and a long, long decline toward death is framed by a kind of sketchy dual biography of himself and his father. It's easy to see why he is fixated on his father, who is 97 at the time of the book's writing. He's a colorful guy, personable, quick with a story, and unrelenting in his desire to live as long as possible.

The scientific facts are often interesting, sometimes depressing in their bare expression of our biological condition. I often found these quite thought-provoking, although at times they provoked thoughts that preferred not to be disturbed. Anyone who is distinctly uncomfortable with contemplating his or her own mortality is hereby warned not to pick up this book. At other times, the litany of facts about the human body, how it matures, perpetuates its genetic code, and eventually breaks down feel too unleavened by some other voice. Fact after fact after fact can weigh on the reader, and after a while I felt justified in skimming some portions.

Finally, the cascade of quotes often have the same effect the scientific facts have. In fact, this is the least engaging aspect of the book. While Shields has plucked many excellent quotes and arranged them in a kind of conversation among themselves at times, this method felt unmediated by an authorial presence at times. Given that his more recent book, Reality Hunger, plays up this mode, it's clear he intended something like this. Perhaps in time this will seem brilliant. For now, given that I'm still very much attached to the kinds of storytelling traditions that Shields seems to find outmoded and restricting, this is where we part ways. I more often skimmed the quotes than I did the science, because, while there is a similar sense in both modes of reading an unmediated recitation of someone else's words, science has a tendency toward a direct, somewhat generic tone. I feel less assaulted by an array of literary "talking heads" when Shields layers on the facts, even if a glance at the source material would suggest he's operating at the same scant level of intervention in both cases.

Having been as annoyed as I've been with this book, I can't give it a particularly high rating. But since I found it compelling enough to come back to it even after quitting it, I can't give it a particularly low rating. Readers seem very much split on this one, either loving it or hating it. I did both in turn, so I'll land in the middle and hope that suggests both the worthwhile benefits of the book and the drawback inherent in its idiosyncratic execution. And in case you're on the fence, I'll reiterate the conclusion that's already featured prominently in the title: Everybody dies, even you.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead by David Shields is a brilliant book of nonfiction prose. Go no further. Add to cart. Check out. Not convinced? Ok, how about this? David Shields meditates on the body’s ungraceful trek to death by considering his young daughter’s athleticism, his own waning physicality at middle age, and his father’s insatiable virility. Did I mention his father is 97? As in his other books of nonfiction (e.g., Remote & Enough About You: Adventures in Autobiography) Shields mixes myriad modes of prose: reportage (w/ extensive research); anecdote & memoir; prose poetry (e.g. in recurring descriptions of night dreams, the prose shimmers); list-making (includes thoughtful, often contradictory quotes about sex & death from other writers & thinkers, past & present); literature, cultural, and film criticism. The writing goes where it wants to go. Example: early on Shields recalls poignant instances of youthful physical strength giving way to fear of pain; the next paragraph: “In the Bhagavad Gita, the human body is defined as a wound with nine openings.” The paragraph following describes a newborn baby’s slow, even ugly development. The effect of this collaging is to feel Shields’ fixation on the body, its imperfections (a whole chapter on acne!), its beauty, its grotesque endurance. (Add to cart. Check out.) I love how Shields’ prose pushes so effortlessly into insight: “I used to want to urge him [his father] out of this macho pose until I realized that it’s a way to cheer himself up, to avoid telling mild good-bye and good-night stories, to convince himself and us he’s still a tough guy from Brooklyn not yet ready to die.” The prose readily admits confusion & complicity and speaks the unspeakable often (see end of chapter titled “Rattlesnake Lake”!). Most notably Shields tells the story of his complex relationship with his father, with his father’s imperfect body as it relates to his own imperfect body. A reporter of his father’s life, Shields is in awe of his father one moment, envious another, disgusted the next. I know they have your credit card on file! Add to cart. Check out. In the end we see the writer’s deep, complex admiration for his father: “He showed me how to love the words that emerged from my mouth and from my typewriter, how to love being in my own body, how to love being in my own skin and not some other skin.” (Add to cart. Check out) This amazing book gives me another reason to be happy about being a father to my dear son.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly a litany of facts and statistics about life, aging, and death, many very interesting on their own, the most interesting aspect was what was written between the lines about the author's relationship to his own life and the life of his 97 year-old father. It made me wish the author had written a different book on the same subject - with more about why he seems to love his father and also wish his father would just hurry up and die already, why he seems compelled to independently investigate and re-check the veracity of all his father's often repeated family stories and then challenge his father if the story has been tweaked a little over time, why he is so apparently pissed off that he suffers from more physical complaints in his fifties than his dad does at 97, that he still doesn't measure-up to his own image of the man he thinks his dad thinks he should be.....I could go on and no. I guess having lost and then, after decades passed, regained loving contact with my own dad, who is 86, makes the remaining details of any time we have seem so precious. Or maybe relationships between fathers and daughters are not fraught with testosterone-fueled competition and envy.....I don't know. But I do know for sure that the son who wrote this book writes like a boy who is jealous and impatient, and what's so disappointing is that I had hoped to actually learn something about relationships between adult parents and children who have outgrown much of the hubris of maturing and can finally meet as genetically/spiritually related humans who all face death.

Some quotes from this book:
"That, finally, is all it means to be alive: to be able to die." J.M. Coetzee

'Victor Hugo said, 'Forty is the old-age of youth. Fifty is the youth of old-age.'"

".....much of the glory of sugar overload is way it mimics the biochemical frenzy of a full-blown block and crystallizes it into the pure adrenaline of a brief, happy high followed quickly by a crash. To me, sugar consumption is a gorgeous allegory about intractable reality and very temporal transcendence."

"I'm not so much a hypochondriac as a misery miser, fascinated by dysfunction."

[Sugarpuss O'Shea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book just didn't do it for me. It's a mishmash of biological facts, arbitrary author anecdotes, and random quotes that seemed to have been tossed into a bag & thrown together haphazardly. I don't know what I was expecting, but finding out how long Mr Shields' penis is, wasn't it.

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

you were intellectually persuaded that you're going to die, but it wasn't a reality.
from the prologue pxv

The body has no meanings. We bring meaning to it. p74

This book is a curious blend of biography, hard science, anecdote, social commentary, and quotations. Lots and lots of quotations, from a wide range of people, practically everybody you ever heard of who had something to say about the subject, plus some taxi driers and random folks the author has encountered.

The ancient Persians believed that the first thirty years should be spent living life and the last forty years spent understanding it. p92

The first forty years of life gives the text; the remaining thirty provide the commentary on it.
Schopenhauer quoted on p92

I dislike this perspective. It suggests that none of the events that happen after the formative years have much significance. It would also be useful if some of the basic techniques of mindfulness, self awareness, empathy and self-regulation, were taught in school. Yet this attitude persists, leaving us spinning our wheels in our separate boxes; or we can make it up as we go along. Whatever our choices, we're still gonna die.

If your try fails, what does it matter? All life is failure in the end. The thing to do is to get sport out of trying. p146 Sir Frances Chichester remarked after sailing around the world at age 60

My father (was) willing to die, but he doesn't want to be dead forever. p178

As I read it, it seemed as if this is a book less about dying than the process leading up to it. Aging is interpreted in various ways. Henry Miller, who finally died at the venerable age of 89. argued:

Who wants to be a hundred? What's the point of it? A short life and a merry one is far better than a long one sustained by fear, caution, and perpetual medical surveillance. 167

Sophocles in old age had a point though when he declared how "finally being free of sexual desire was like escaping from bondage to raving maniac." p131

Now that I am old enough to know it, I find myself agreeing with Picasso. alas.
One starts to get young at the age of sixty, and by then it's too late. p152

Not really a surprise that this book reaches no conclusions. 3.5 for GR 5/7

[joão morais · Rating 2 out of 5]

compilação de factos aborrecida

[SadieWhiteCoat · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not that I didn't get this book. I did, I swear. I understood it's deft switches between factual and autobiographical, the fluidity of the writing, the interesting premise, and it's not that I didn't enjoy it. For the most part, I did. It's highly probable that I am just too young to understand the loneliness of ageing and the imminency of death that the author obsesses over and troubles himself with. At 14, it all seems so distant, and maybe I'll read it again at 51 and understand Shields completely. But, reading it now, I thought it to be a cold, depressing book written by a sad, bitter man, but as a diary of obsession, it was deeply interesting.

The first part was the most difficult to get through. Titled "Infancy and Childhood", it gave biological facts and the author's personal anecdotes on the topic. Once I got to the second part, I enjoyed the book more because it felt as though he actually knew what he was talking about when it came to the troubles of adulthood. Perhaps it was the distance in years between when Shields was an adolescent and the time of writing, when he was 51, and the fallibility of memory forced him to draw conclusions on teen life through his 14-year-old daughter, which in turn put him in the position of being the older adult remarking on the lives of the youths, the position of being ancient and stale. Perhaps it's the inherent difference in the time periods themselves, between his teenage years in the '70s, and his daughter's in the late 2000s. But the reason I disliked this section so much was his focus on sex, his notes on sexuality in a skate park while watching his daughter and her friends (?!), his thoughts on the sexual undertones in the Spider-Man films, it seemed like some half-arsed theory he came up with based on the hormonal activity during this time in a human's life, and his own experiences, which a) could have been augmented in his memory due to the passage of time, and b) can't be taken as reality for everyone in any case. Now, he might be completely correct in his guesses, and I, as an adolescent myself, might not be far enough away from the topic at hand to confront it, but at any rate, the absolute unwavering confidence with which he says these things reeks of a middle-aged white cis straight man sharing his opinion without anyone actually asking or wanting to know.

The second and third parts, "Adulthood and middle age" and "Old age and death" respectively, were similar, both dealing with themes of decay, and both I enjoyed more. Peppered with interesting facts, quoting many famous people (and obsessively listing the ages at which they died), reading it felt like you were hurtling towards death itself. But, though this book was written to be deep and insightful, Shields only really says two things throughout the entire book. One is that each individual animal on Earth, including humanity, only exists to continue the species. The other is that we are all going to die. Neither is news. Maybe that's the point, but (and this may be a selfish thought, but bear with me) if the purpose of every human's existence is to create another person, whose existence in turn is to only exist for another person to exist, what is the point of happiness? Why do humans yearn for something more? Why do we strive towards understanding, towards achieving impossibility, towards nuance and complexity? Why is the human experience so unique, and why does humanity exist in this way at all?

This is where this book falls short. In reducing humanity down to statistics and biology, by focusing on the primal instincts of people, by simplifying life down to "sex and death", Shields paints human existence in one light. This could have been offset by the experiences of his father, his accomplishments, his hopes, his failings, the book could have been imbued with emotion and heart, but every biographical note Shields makes on his father drips with frustration, from the opening words to the final sentences. In almost every chapter he makes the case that death is a thing to be avoided without ever actually explaining why. The book is joyless and bleak, it is a conversation with a man who has one foot in the grave purely because he decided he did. If I told the author that for every death, there are two births, he would probably tell me that one day those two children will die, and their lives would have been meaningless. Forgive me, Mr Shields; you are a very good writer and your book is interesting, but I want to believe that life is a gift, and that the prospect of death makes it all the sweeter.

To quote Harry Chapin, musician, tragically dead at 38 in a car accident, who dedicated his life and time to feeding hungry children,
“It’s got to be the going, not the getting there thats good.”

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Biologist Steven Jay Gould said, “We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because comets struck the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance not otherwise available; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher’ answer, but none exists.”

Coming on the heels of listening to Blue Nights, this audiobook might be seen as a further descent into morbidity for me, but it's not depressing in the least. Simply stated, from the time we are born we are destined to die, but most of us forget to live each day as though that were true. Not that this is a call to carpe diem; there are no strictures or philosophising to be found, just a compendium of facts.

David Shields says that The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead is: "An autobiography of my body, a biography of my father’s body, an anatomy of our bodies together — especially my dad’s, his body, his relentless body." And that's what it is: Shields weaves together his own biological experiences (from debilitating adolescent acne and dreams of pro basketball playing -- until a broken femur sidelines him-- to middle age and balding and chronic back pain), his father's biological experiences (his lifetime of athleticism, sexual exploits, and watching him finally slow down in his mid-90s), and many interesting anatomical facts with quotes on aging and dying thrown into the mix. Each strand in the weave is interesting enough, but in the end, it's hard to feel like it makes a cohesive whole. Shields is a sportswriter, perhaps a very good one, but as a result this book feels more like reportage than literature, and the prosier bits feel a little overwritten. (And the long bit about everything on his Dad's TV, every show from channels 1-99, "each trying but failing to answer the question how to live a life" was soooo boring to listen to and, more than anything else, felt like a word-padding, unnecessary infodump.)

As he recognises that his father is approaching his end, Shields pins him down on the more fantastical family mythology. Were they really related to the famous actor Joseph Schildkraut? Well, maybe, it is an unusual name… Did he really play baseball on a star-studded semi-pro military team in Okinawa? Well, he was the team accountant and someone you never heard of was on the team… As his father seems obsessed with immortality and staving off death (a lifetime of regular exercise, eating abstemiously, enquiring into cryogenics), it felt a little mean-spirited that Shields would so firmly establish his feet of clay -- especially while he's still alive. At 51, and not enjoying his father's good health, Shields comes off as someone working through some Oedipal issues-- going so far as to report his own measured penis size and confessing that it doesn't measure up to the peeks he's taken of his Dad's equipment.

So, in the end, I found the biographical/autobiographical material somewhat interesting but tainted by an air of disappointment and jealousy, and the anatomical facts and quotes to be very interesting, but an afternoon on the internet would have yielded them just as easily. The scariest fact: We are, within the likely span of my lifetime, going to achieve a type of physical immortality. I don't have any particular fear of death (maybe because I never really believe it will happen to me), but I can't imagine living for hundreds (thousands?) of more years.

[Christopher Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Thing about life is that one Day You'll be Dead" is the book by David Shields, the balding, middle aged writer who has pain in several parts of his body and is coming face to face with the one thing every man, woman and child on the planet shares, death. No matter how rich, or how poor, how gorgeous or how hideous, we all die. It is just the natural way of things. The circle of life is the inevitability that everyone must come to terms with. Some of us gracefully and some of us kicking and screaming until the bitter end.

First, let me say, I read this book in three days. While some of you might do this kind of thing on a regular basis, it is no longer the norm for me. With kids, work, my personal writing, etc. reading is a luxury that has eluded my grasp more times than not the past few months. In this book, I thoroughly enjoyed the way David wove factual anatomical data with his own personal experiences and intertwined a few celebrity quotations in the mix so much I couldn’t put it down. It is both educational as it is biographical, which was a unique perspective when dealing with the rise and fall of the human species.

David, as we all are is different from his father and at the same time very similar. His father lived to be 105 years old, was obsessed with his physical well being and spent his entire life dealing with depression. Both father and son are, or were, keenly focused on sports and as with any hobby that a person enjoys it at times gives you an emotional outlet and connection you are not always expecting. It always seems the stubborn crotchety people are the ones who find a way to make it well into their old age, just by their refusal to give in or step aside.

I will say the factual tidbits, (on one occasion there were two pages listing every channel and what was on TV at the time) lost me as pointless. It was a little overdone. The celebrity quotes got to be a little monotonous as well on occasion, but the majority of the novel had me mesmerized by its personal feel even while letting me know how eating a hamburger and fries was killing off all my vital organs. While it might be too late for me to make a large impact on my personal longevity I still enjoyed the book immensely.

If you happen to be somebody obsessed with death, this book is a must read. If you are a person obsessed with life then I would say ditto. If you are just the average Joe I still think you will find it engaging and very entertaining as well as enlightening. For all of us who fell asleep in health class as a teenager you might be surprised how many things you missed. The next time you order that brownie and ice cream for dessert keep in mind how many hours of your life you are sacrificing for that enjoyment. Then again, you might get hit by a bus on the way home so who really cares.

Great book and I would highly recommend it.

[Megan Posner · Rating 1 out of 5]

If it was possible to give a book a zero star review I would have. Where to begin with this flaming garbage pile of a book. I am an avid reader and I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through this book but somehow managed to do it purely driven by spite & the desire to write a review to hopefully save someone else the trouble of having to struggle through this manic episode in book form.

From the first to the very last chapter I could not stop myself from regularly exclaiming "WHAT THE F***K" at it's content.

This entire book was heavily saturated in blatant sexism, misogyny, ageism & even a little racism sprinkled through out. Upheld by bizarre quotes and facts and personal anecdotes.

I have never in my life read a book I was so over joyed to have ended.

There are too many examples to count in why this book should never have seen the light of day let alone be reccomend to read. I can't believe it was published at all.

I'll give just a few examples: the author claims anorexia to be almost a solely "female problem", says how cruel it was for a group of middle school girls to laugh at his elderly father who oddly puffed out his chest and tried to put on a show for them as "cruel" to the quote about adolescent girls getting public hair saying "if there is grass on the field it is fair game".
The best part about this book was that it ended.

The Author obviously has very deep seeded issues with aging and the aging process constantly complaining about his ailments.

There is also no reason someone should have an entire chapter dedicated to talking in detail about their penis size compared to his father and the average American. There is absolutely no reason that was nessicary to add in and something I wish I could un-learn.

Save yourself the time and energy. I personally would rather watch paint dry or read a VCR manual than ever read this disaster of a book ever again.

[Library Lea · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first the book is really interesting but the fascination the author has with comparing himself to his father is puzzling. I really didn’t need to know the size of his, or his dad’s, penis and some of his commentary about young girls is inappropriate and gross.

DNF

[Dana · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Thing About This Book Is That By Page 30 You'll Wish You Were Dead. If I didn't have to discuss this book on Tuesday for class I would burn in this weekend in our full moon bonfire! I'm that desperate to see the pages ignite. If the author won't do it for me with words and images I'll be forced to do it for myself. I can't tell if I'm so put off by his tone, his syntax, or his need to be so "telly". When there are scenes they creep up in long stretches of dialogue that is so un-organic and uninspiring. As an assigned book, which is the only reason I'll finish it, I feel this book represents everything my writing shouldn't be. At least some books I don't like inspire me to try to improve on the writer's failure, but Shields doesn't even offer me that satisfaction. Rarely would I give a book 1-star, but then again, rarely would I have forced myself to finish it. This book is comparable to my attitude to brussel sprouts when I was nine. Canned brussel sprouts! Unfortunately, I can't spit this book into my napkin and flush in down the toilet when no one's looking. Unfortunately!

I'm writing my review now, only 60 pages in, because I can't see it improving any by the end and I think this review is as harsh as any I'd feel comfortable enough to post.

I finished the book and my opinion hasn't changed. However, the last 8 chapters are, comparatively, the best.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sobering book at times, but also the book that made me realize I should start playing basketball again. Really, as I see it, I've got ten years left to play basketball and then a whole lot of years where it will no longer be possible.

The book is half-memoir and half meditation on death. I learned all kinds of interesting facts about death. Incidentally, the age of twenty-five is, in many respects, the peak of vitality. Our brains are as big and as active as they are going to be, both males and females are in sexual prime, our bodies are still pumping sex hormones like the humming reproductive factories we currently are--we're basically rock & roll incarnate. But after that, well, we start a slow decline and, at forty, things get really dicey.

We are put together in order to reproduce ourselves and once the peak reproductive period is over, our body lets itself go. Nature says, "Purpose served, case cloased. You're on your own now." The pineal gland says to the brain, "No more sex hormones for you!" And we start withering, desiccating, and dying.

For someone who believes that he dies all the way when his body dies, I have a vested interest in how it's all going to go down with my body in the years to come, but I do worry about fetishizing the whole thing.

[Bionicaisdeaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pues todo lo que dice la sobrecubierta y el fajín queda un poco sobredimensionado, la verdad. Esperaba mucho más de este libro. Al acabarlo se me quedó un poco de regusto de visión de Señor, quizá por los Hoop dreams en los que habla de deportes (masculinos) y de periodismo deportivo como nexo de unión entre el padre (un Señoro muy Señoro, por cierto) y él. Me han resultado largos y excesivamente ajenos. Como friki del dato curioso pero inútil, la parte que más me gustó del libro fueron las estadísticas y datos sobre posibilidades de muerte en cada franja de edad así como curiosidades varias del proceso de envejecimiento. Pero vaya, no te descubre la rueda como parece que te venda ese invento de marketing que es la sinopsis. En resumen, es la crónica de una relación padre-hijo marcada por las excepciones a la regla que constituye el padre en el proceso de envejecer (que ya va para el siglo el hombre...). Para terminar, hay un fragmento bastante definitorio en el libro que me gustó mucho y habla de la autocomplacencia del padre que se está quedando calvo, pero dice que todavía tiene muchísimo pelo. Ah, qué maravilla de benevolencia con uno mismo.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This humorous and immensely informative book follows the human life from birth to death. Told with self-deprecating humor, Shields frames the book both within his own middle-age ascendency along with his aged father who for so long seemed to defy the odds of dying.

Reading this book I often felt a sense of voyeurism, looking with morbid fascination at my own disturbing future unfolding before my eyes. Truly, it is not death I fear, but the dying. This book did little to disconfirm that fear; it only brought to light the gory details. Shields, however, only describes the physical failings scheduled into the aging process. For me, such an account reinforces the deep desire to truly live well in spite of and because of the valley of the shadow lying ahead. As the psalmist wrote, “My flesh and heart may fail me... BUT...” The rest of the psalm is full of hope. Momento Mori, but Carpe Diem. Aaah... those Latin blokes are full of wisdom.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wooo what a start!
"A fetus doesn't sit passively in its mother's womb and wait to be fed. Its placenta aggressively sprouts blood vessels that invade its mother's tissues to extract nutrients. A mother and her unborn child engage in an unconscious struggle over the nutrients. A mother and her unborn child engage in an unconscious struggle over the nutrients she will probive it. Pregnancy is, as the evolutionary biologist David Haig says, a tug of war: eash side pulls hard; the flag tied to the middle of the rope barely moves. Existence is warefar."

What happened to me! I'm rather shy and passive now! I wish I was the same when I was still in the womb! What happened along the way for me? What happened with those who seem to be the same as in the womb?

The beginning of this is making me feel pretty insignificant and not unique at all lol But kudos to those who have made a huge impact in our history. Now that how many people have lived and died and how many are currently living has been put into perspective.

I'm already laughing, he's a funny author so far.

So far I like that he includes the science and evolution through the stages of life.

Why do we age? What's the purpose of why we age? What is the purpose in aging for us when some other animals don't age like alligators and sharks. I like that he discusses the structure and function of things such as aging in animals.

Why do we breath less as we age? Whats the result? Is that part of the aging process... we breath less and it ages our body because of the lack of oxygen? Is that part of the whole picture that exercising is so beneficial... it also helps us to breathe more, something I don't think most people think about.

I wish he explained more about why he's sharing certain stories about his life. Some are straight forward but some I wish he explained.

I'm only slighly interested in his view points on women's development, what he's noticed, etc. I'm interested because I haven't seen or read much from a male's perspective. But to feel it's lacking is an understatement.

Sometimes I wonder where the author is going with these stories, they don't seem to have a string pulling them all together. It feels alot more random. What helps is that their unique stories that I haven't heard people bring up.

So far the way he writes, he'll have a story and lists questions that jumble through his head afterwards, and that's how I write. That's how I've written this so far. But I wouldn't write a book.

A story about playing basketball with friends where him and his friends new as soon as he took a shot at the basket that it would go in. Then next he quotes Martha Graham, "The body never lies." Why were they able to know with such certainty that the ball would go in? Was it a very good guess based on how the ball was travelling and how he made the shot? Or was it more innate? Another quote he uses after that story is from Nietzsche, "There is more wisdom in you body than in your deepest philosophy." Again he's touching on how these instincts although seemingly small serve a purpose. He also says, "We are all thrillingly different animals, and we are all, in a sense, the same animal," him and his other friends for that moment all had the same feeling of certainty. Coincidence? He thinks not. What's the purpose of having a feeling of such certainty? And as a group? Are we all connected?
When I read this it also made me think about feeling certain in the part of my life when it comes to a career. Will I feel that certainty? Is that feeling made for a reason? Is that the gut feeling? And should I pay more attention to that feeling and trust that it's right?

I'm starting to think I didn't like this author's writing style because it feels similar to mine and I didn't realize it before and the reason I don't like it is because I'm so critical of my own writing.

I loved the story of the octupus Aurora defending her eggs! It was so touching! The aquarists thought her eggs were sterile but it turns out they all weren't and nine baby octupi came from it. "Although Giant Pacific females usually die about the same time as their eggs hatch, mostly because they stop eating for months adn spend their energy defending their aggs, aquarist Ed DeCastro said Aurora appeared invigorated and that "she was still tending the eggs."

In the section of motherhood he brings up freudians take on why mothers and daughters argue when the daughter hits puberty, basically an evolutionary process that the daughter is now the one to continue the family making her sort of the head of the house in terms of subconscious evolutionary dynamics and that's why a father will typically side with a daughter unknowingly. It was a really interesting take on something that I've heard before but explained differently.

I find myself skimming the growth facts. But I liked, "Your face litereally grows away or out from its skull.""Noone know what causes puberty to begin." Oh okay that's why he's going over the changes in our body. What's the purpose of it happening at certain times? We don't know.

I skimmed his "bloodline."

"In "Is Acne Really a Disease?" Dale F. Bloom argues that, "far from being a disease, adolescent acne is a normal physiological process that functions to ward off potential mates until the afflicted individual is some years past the age of reproductive maturity, and thus emotionally, intellectually, and physically fit to be a parent." Dale F. Bloom's thesis seems to me unassailable."

"Brain scans of people processing a romantic gaze, new mothers listening to infant cries, and subjects under the influence of cocaine bear a striking resemblance to one another. According to Daniel McNeill, "Our pupils reach peak size in adolescence, almost certainly as a lure in love, then slowly contract till age sixty.""

Was it really necessary to share your d*** size mr. author? Yes, it does seem like American men are obsessed with sexual organs....

"The olfactory system - the sense of smell - bypasses all the brain's thinking processes and directs it information exclusively toward the regions that control sex and aggression... Male mince need it in order to respond to female fertility signals, and female pigs need it to be aroused by boards. In humans, scent no longer dominates sexual response; scent is nowhere near as significant for us as it is for the rest of the animal kingdom." "Humans and many other species find voices attractive. In humans, deep, husky voices - considered sexually attractive by both sexes - are also correlated with high testoterone levels and therefore potentially high sex drive and good genes."
"Fear and terror, not shared pleasant experiences, are more likely to result in mutual attraction. The release of stress hormones activates the brain's neurochemical systems that promote attachment bonds. In a famous experiment, an attractive woman interviewed young men on a swaying rope bridge 200 feet above a river, and also on the ground. Midway through the interview, she gave them her phone number. Over 60 percent of the men she interviewed on the rope bridge called her back; only 30 percent of the men on the ground did so."

It's different to see a man so interested in women's issues. Refreshing but weird but only because it doesn't happen often. It's sad.

"When anthropologist Suzanne Frayser studied 454 traditional cultures, she found that the average age for brides was 12 to 15; for grooms, 18.

The story about his teammate committing suicide has me wondering how to talk to youth about death, and especially suicide.

Note to self as I'm aging, ""Everyone has talent at twenty-five, the difficulty is to have it at fifty.""

Nicholas Murray Butler said, "Many people's tombstones should read, 'Died at 30. Buried at 60."

I'm wondering how I can help my man who is reaching his 30's. The author is bringing up all these stats about people hitting their 30's and up and how depressed they get.

"Former London Symphony Orchestra conductor Colin Davis said, at 38, "I think that to so many what happens is the death of ambition in the conventional sense. That great driving motor that prods you and exasperates you and brings out the worst qualities in you for about twenty years is beginning to be a bit moth-eaten and tired. I find that I'm altogether much quieter, I think. I don't love music any less, but there's not the excess of energy I used to spend in enthusiasm and in intoxication. I feel much freer than I've ever been in my life."

"Forty-five," said Joseph Conrad, "is the age of recklessness for many men, as if in defiance of the decay and death waiting with open arms in the sinister valley at the bottom of the inevitable hill."

"Those cliches of male midlife crisis- having an affair, for instance, or buying a red sports car - are, on a biological level, anyway, profound rebellions of the "rage, rage, rage, again the dying of the light." sort."

Fancy words thrown in, thought behind it, but lacking depth, at least continuous depth. Thoughts feels fragmented and forced. When he uses big words it just sounds like he's over exaggerating things.

"When Jerry Seinfeld said, "I can't get enough of my baby, but let's make no mistake about why these babies are here. They're here to replace us. They're cute, they're cuddly, they're sweet, and they want us out of the way."

"With the salmon and octopus and many other plants and animals, reproduction is, in effect, willful suicide. After reproduction, the body is a useless shell, so it's discarded. The body is, for all intents and purposes, the host, and the reproductive system is the parasite that brings the body to its death."

*
""In a Darwinian sense, the organism does not live for itself. Its primary function is not even to reproduce other organisms; it produces genes, and it serves as their temporary carrier. Samuel Butler's famous aphorism, that the chicken is only an egg's way of making another egg, has been modernized: the organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA.""
So I'm a host, DNA's host?

"Which is all our obsession with human beauty is, anyway: an evolutionary adaptation for evaluating others as potential producers of our child."

"People will say about an especially pretty little girl, "She's going to be a heartbreaker" which is, to me, an odd and revealing phrase. What does it mean exactly? It means that when she grows up, she will use her beauty as a weapon, and she is expected to do so."
I think of it as lots of people will be after her and well she can't date or like them all.. so hearts will be broken. Yes some people are irresponsible with other people's feelings.

"When human mothers give birth to high-risk, low-weight twins, they invariably favor the healthier twin, soothing, holding, playing, and vocalizing more with the twin more likely to survive. A mother has limited resources; she needs to know how much to invest in her new baby without endangering herself and the lives of her other children.

Make me think of twin students
Sounds like siblings unknowingly or rather instinctually vy for parents love and affection. From this I guess a good strategy would to keep yourself healthy and looking good.
Does that mean teachers have a tendency to favor the "smart and good looking" children, and give less attention to others, for example, students who are on the spectrum.
Earlier the author discussed stats that say people automatically perceive those who are average weight to be more intelligent than those who are overweight. It seems like looks are important to us in order to deem who to give our time to in order to.... further the community... helping those who we think have the good genes.

"In Rabbit Run, published when John Updike was 28, he wrote, "The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us and we become, first inside, then outside, junk. Flower stalks."

"The weak links of the human body are exposed when people survive beyond the reproductive period. For instance, the thymus gland degenerates after your sexual maturation."
This is making me think I should live fast and die young! What am I doing trying to preserve myself for so long! I don't think I am, I'm just scared of living. But it'll be harder when I'm older I think to live my life as if I'm young.

Discussing how sexual urges decline with age, along with sexual hormones and organs.
"Sophocles, in old age, said finally being free of sexual desire was "like escaping from bondage to a raving maniac."

"Samuel Johnson wrote to a younger friend, "When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be forty-nine what I am now."

"Older people are more susceptible to distraction, have trouble coordinating multiple tasks, and have decreased attention spans. In simple tasks and common situations, the old do fine, but when exercise or other stress is added, they often struggle. Perhaps this is why some older people, finding it harder to cope, tend to start searching for comfort rather than excitement."
*
I'm realizing my mom constantly points out that she gets stuck while she's talking and then says she's getting older and seems to freak out a bit. I'm realizing now it's not the memory loss that's the big thing, it's that she's getting closer and closer to death and it's sinking in. Instead of telling my mom don't worry everyone forgets things sometimes, I should just give her a big hug.
I want to read about how to be a good daughter, how to be there for my aging parents in a strained marriage. At this stage in their life, they want comfort.

"The years between fifty and fifty-seven are he hardest," said T.S. Eliot. "You are being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down."

"At 59, Neil Young said, "When you're in your twenties, you and your world are the biggest things, and everything revolves around what you're doing. Now I realize I'm a leaf floating along top of some river." My father hates this way of thinking, finds it defeatist."
If this is all true, if we really are a host for DNA to survive, and we are just passing through, insignificant... then what's the point. Should we live our lives like this is all extra? Or not take it so seriously?

"Emerson said, "Tis strange that it is not in vogue to commit hara-kiri, as the Japanese do, at sixty. Nature is so insulting in her hints and notices, does not pull you by the sleeve, but pulls out your teeth, tears off your hair in patches, steals your eyesight, twists your face into an ugly mask, in short, puts all contumelies upon you, without in the least abating your zeal to make a good appearance, and all this at the same time that she is moulding the new figures around you into wonderful beauty which of course is only making your plight worse."
How to find peace when you're old?
This makes me angry with nature.
Is this what they also mean when they say life isn't fair?

"According to Noel Coward, "The pleasures that once were heaven/ Look silly at sixty-seven. At 68, Edmund Wilson said "The knowledge that death is not so far away, that my mind and emotions and vitality will soon disappear like a puff of smoke, has the effect of making earthly affairs seem unimportant and human beings more and more ignoble. It is harder to take human life seriously, including one's own efforts and achievements and passions."
Lots of these quotes are from writers, which most suffer from depression. Viewing death from a select few still.
If it's pointless to live so long, then why do we?

Aging seems like natures torture by means of deteriorating.

You literally see the world differently than you use to.
"As you get older, the corneal hue takes on a yellow tint, reducing your ability to discriminate among green, blue, and violet. Blues will get darker for you and yellows will get less bright. You'll see less violet. As painters age, they use less dark blue and violet."

*
Mantra: Just do it, you're going to die anyway. aka - you only live once
So what you're gonna die anyway.
"Sir Francis Chichester, after sailing around the world at age 66, said, "If your try fails, what does that matter? All life is a failure in the end. The thing to do is to get sport out of trying."
That idea is like a pressure valve, that goes along the same thought earlier as we take life too seriously. The idea is we should just go do it, and if we fail, who cares, we're going to die anyway.

*
I need to hug and kiss my parents more.. they're going through a lot right now.
"I think the old need touching," says the social historian Ronald Blythe. "They have reached a stage of life when they need kissing, hugging. And nobody touches them except the doctor."

"Edward Young wrote, "At thirty man suspects himself a fool; / Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan/ At fifty chides his infamous delay, / Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, ' In all the magnanimity of Thought / Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same."
"Leonardo da Vinci, who died at 67, said, "here I thought that I was learning how to live, while I have in reality been learning how to die."

"I wanted the Dodgers to compensate for some of the unrealized goals in my career. If I wasn't winning my battle to succeed in newspapering, union organizing, or whatever I turned to in my wholly unplanned, anarchic life, then my surrogates - the nine boys in blue - could win against the Giants, Pirates, et al. Farfetched? Maybe so. But I think it has some validity. In my case. Not in yours."
I wonder in what way I do this, I don't like sports. Who or what do I live through vicariously? I can't think of any right now but I'm sure I do it.

"British geneticist Steve Jones believes that the male of the species - given his shorter life span, declining sperm counts, and the decrepit nature of the Y chromosome - may be doomed to oblivion in 10 million years."

"For most of the last 130,000 years, life expectancy for human beings was 20 years or less."
What if we had the same outlook on life back then? Live your life to the fullest. What about goals, ambitions, intelligence? How different did they see life then? What was "living" to them? I guess in the grand scheme of time 20 years compared to 80 years isn't really a difference.

"Freud said, "What lives, wants to die again. Originating in dust, it wants to be dust again. Not only the life-drive is in them, but the death-drive as well."

Tells us why living sucks because we're dying and it's cruel then tells us how to live longer...

"There are now thousands of people worldwide in the "longevity movement" who believe it's possible to live for hundreds of years, perhaps forever. Very nearly everyone in the longevity movement is male. Because they give birth, women seem to feel far less craving for personal immortality."

"To make sure he lives long enough in order to be around, first, for the biotech revolution, when we'll be able to control how genes express themselves and ultimately change the genes; and, second, for nanotechnology and the artificial-intelligence revolution..."
"Millions of robots - "nanobots" the size of blood cells - will keep people forever young by swarming through the body, repairing bones, muscles, arter

[Levi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly can't decide how I felt about this book. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, based on a short excerpt that I had read, but of course that's not necessarily a bad thing. What it is is various bits of information about what happens to the human body as it matures, ages, and dies, interspersed with personal, memoir-type accounts of the author and his father, some of which careens a bit too far into the self-obsessed and solipsistic for my tastes (did we really need to know the size of David Shields's penis?). Overall, I'm not sure how it holds together, but there are some beautiful moments and some funny moments and many interesting facts incorporated into it. You certainly have to commend the author for tackling a difficult - perhaps the most difficult - topic.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am 3/4 of the way through this book, and the insertion of bodily decay facts has become intolerable. It's not cute after the first 20-30 pages. The narrator and the father are utterly unlikable in their own ways, although I must admit that some of the anecdotes are interesting, including the son playing bball and the father's early life. But at this point, I dislike the narrator so much that it is hard to go on. His whining obsession with his back pain and aging in general is obnoxious. I have experienced pain, disease, and death, and it is not something I would ever want to revel in the way Shields does. I will be skimming the last section so that I can return it to my dad, who enthusiastically lent it to me.

[Akie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was initially convinced that this was a novel and thus steered clear, but then I discovered that it is a collection of musings and essays on mortality. The mix of the extremey personal with the extremely clinical resulted in an uneven tone, but the focus was consistent. I liked the structure of exploring mortality from different age perspectives. I also enjoyed the exploration of the inevitable tension between the author and his father---parents and children are naturally antagonistic in certain circumstances, and Shields exploits their mental differences to heighten the drama of his recollections. As a series of meditations on mortality, it is interesting and intensely personal.