Many read­ers are already famil­iar with Madeleine Kunin, the for­mer three-term gov­er­nor of Ver­mont, who served as the deputy sec­re­tary of edu­ca­tion and ambas­sador to Switzer­land under Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton. In her newest book, a mem­oir enti­tled Com­ing of Age: My Jour­ney to the Eight­ies, the top­ic is aging, but she looks well beyond the phys­i­cal tolls and explores the emo­tion­al ones as well. And she has had an extra­or­di­nary life: gov­er­nor, ambas­sador, fem­i­nist, wife, moth­er, pro­fes­sor, poet, and much, much more. 

As recent­ly report­ed in the New York Times, a girl born today can expect to live to the age of nine­ty, on aver­age (boys, on the oth­er hand, can expect to live until age eighty-five). Life expectan­cy, for many, is increas­ing, yet peo­ple rarely con­tem­plate the emo­tion­al changes that come along­side the phys­i­cal changes of aging. Madeleine wants to change that. Com­ing of Age: My Jour­ney to the Eight­ies takes a close and inci­sive look at what it is like to grow old. The book is a mem­oir, yet most impor­tant of all, it is an hon­est and pos­i­tive look at aging and how it has affect­ed her life.