Sign-In
Cart
Now What? Notes From the Front Lines of Old Age
Paperback
Biographies GeneralAging & Elder CareGeneral Parenting
Publisher Price: $21.95
ISBN13: 9781955826983
Publisher: Rattling Good Yarns Press, LLC
Published: Apr 19 2026
Pages: 156
Weight: 0.48
Height: 0.36 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
A memoir about aging that goes where most books won't-into the actual, daily, unvarnished reality of being old.
Nearing 90, feminist activist and award-winning author Sandra Butler delivers Now What? Notes From the Front Lines of Old Age, a bracing, big-hearted follow-up to Leaving Home at 83. Readers of that book called it a captivating and informing read that left them feeling so much more informed and much less alone. This book does the same-and then some.
In these sharp personal stories, Butler moves through doctors' offices and dining rooms, laundry rooms and long afternoons. She writes about the body's negotiations, the bureaucracy of care, the clatter of hearing aids, the hush of hard decisions, the tenderness of friendship, and the stubborn joy that keeps surfacing anyway. She takes on subjects most writers avoid entirely-sexuality, death, truth and lies, and the complicated tangle of multigenerational relationships.
Old age as it is actually lived: complicated, courageous, often funny, and still yours.
Order your copy today-and find out what it means to still be here.
Praise for Now What?Now What? Notes From The Front Lines of Old Age spoke to me. It provoked me to think, reflect on my own memories, do some Google research, and laugh out loud. I feel so much more informed and much less alone. I urge you to read Now What? so that you will, too.
-Ellen P. Chapnick, Former Dean for Social Justice Initiatives at Columbia Law School, Co-founder of Canvassing ConnectorsRare is the writer who tells the truth and is even funny. Sandra Butler, a true original, is an old queer woman who moved in her eighties to live in Tucson, Arizona, where she miraculously managed to create a new life. and tell us all about it in a captivating book. Amazingly, now, she gives us another wonderful book about what life on the front lines of old age looks like. Hers is a blueprint for us all to live with humor and joy, no matter what.
-Esther Cohen, Writer, teacher, cultural activistIn Now What?, Sandra Butler presents us with both reflections on her long life as a feminist activist and a model of aging with determined dignity, unflinching honesty-and gently ironic humor. The third on her journey from young-old to old-old, this book is an advance scout's guide for those of us in our perplexing 70s whose bodies, minds, and community ties have begun to shape-shift. Butler's account is a welcome model for mindful aging and a testament to truth-telling as a source of freedom for the teller and her readers.
-Rivkah Walton, Founding Director, Institute for Contemporary Midrash, Board Chair, Shtetl 2.0: Northwest Philly Jews & Friends Aging in CommunityAlso from
Butler, Sandra
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover