Age Is Just a Number and These Folks Prove It

COS COB, Conn. – In a new collection of stories filled with humor, wisdom, and inspiration, Chicken Soup for the Soul proves the adage that age is just a number. Just ask Beverly Burmeier, who decided in her seventies to pursue all her dreams, including taking a beginner trapeze class. She did so well that the instructors taught her additional tricks, and she’s gone on to try ziplining, hang gliding, parasailing, skydiving, and a host of other “scary” activities. Danny Thrasher and his wife broke out of their comfort zones, too, when they started their new life roaming the country in a motorhome. On the morning after their very first night on the road, they looked out the window and discovered that they had accidentally reserved a spot in a nudist RV park.

Stepping outside their comfort zones, shedding their possessions, starting second careers, and embarking on every kind of adventure are the tales these dynamic seniors tell in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Age Is Just a Number (Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC; Amy Newmark; November 3, 2020, 978-1-611590715, $14.95). “To remain young while growing old is the highest blessing,” says one German proverb, and according to Amy Newmark, publisher and editor-in-chief of Chicken Soup for the Soul, those blessings are the unifying theme in the 101 personal, entertaining stories in this new volume in the series. “These stories paint a wonderful picture of the freedom, enthusiasm, and just plain fun that people are having these days when they pass 60. As a 63-year-old myself, I totally get it. I’m doing more new things now than I ever did before, now that I’m an empty nester.”

While these storytellers are all in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and even nineties, they can sound like twenty-somethings when they recount their exploits. Take former professional dancer Queen Lori, whose daughters persuaded her to try Match.com when she was 87, around the time her new writing career took off. She met Mr. Right online and he proposed months later in the middle of, where else, the dance floor. They’ve been together for years now, living in their own cottage and still going strong in their nineties.

And what about those famous “senior moments,” and the gray hair, bald spots, and creaky joints that come along with all that wisdom and experience? The writers in this new book recount the foibles of aging with humor and healthy acceptance. The actor Melanie Chartoff, for example, shares a story about seeing her new husband’s bald spot for the first time as he bent over their luggage in the airport. Over the course of their long flight to Europe, she came to grips with the surprise, and by the time they landed the bald spot had become a new thing to cherish about him.

These pages are filled with comic relief, great advice, and inspiration for everyone who’s reached a “certain age” and still feels young at heart. The stories are enough to make anyone look forward to their “golden years.”

ABOUT CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL

Chicken Soup for the Soul publishes the famous Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. With well over 100 million books sold to date in the U.S. and Canada, more than 250 titles, and translations into more than 40 languages, the phrase “chicken soup for the soul” is known worldwide and is regularly referenced in pop culture. Today, 27 years after it first began sharing happiness, inspiration and hope through its books, this socially conscious company continues to publish a new title a month. It has also evolved beyond the bookstore, with a podcast, education programs, dog and cat food, licensed products, and video, television and movies through its subsidiary, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment.

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For a review copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Age Is Just a Number or an interview with Amy Newmark or a contributor: