The Most Sacred Business Of

How Is It That, A Full Two Centuries After Jane Austen Finished Her Manuscript, We Come To The World Of Pride And Prejudice And Find Ourselves Transcending Customs, Strictures, Time, Mores, To Arrive At A Place That Educates, Amuses, And Enthralls Us? It Is A Miracle. We Read In Bed Because Reading Is Halfway Between Life And Dreaming, Our Own Consciousness In Someone Else's Mind.

Adolescence Is A Tough Time For Parent And Child Alike. It Is A Time Between: Between Childhood And Maturity, Between Parental Protection And Personal Responsibility, Between Life Stage- Managed By Grown-ups And Life Privately Held.

Now The Baby Boomers, I.e., Us, Are Getting Older, And Were Suddenly Discovering That There Are Great Things About Getting Older. You Have Time For Your Friendships And You Appreciate Them In Ways That You Didn't Before.

Sure Smokers Have Made Personal Choices. And They Pay For Those Choices Every Day, Whether Sitting Through An Airline Flight Dyingfor A Smoke, Or Dying For A Smoke In The Oncology Wing Of A Hospital. The Tobacco Companies Have Not Paid Nearly Enough For The Killing.

One Of The Things That Got Me On This Topic For This Book Was That When I Was Researching The Column I Wrote In 2009 Saying That I Was Stepping Down From My Column At "newsweek" Because I Wanted To Make Room For Newer, Fresh Voices Out There, I Discovered That In The Year I Was Born, 1952, The Average Life Expectancy Of An American Was 68. I Was Shocked By That Figure And Every Time I Mention It I Hear A Gasp From Somebody In The Crowd. Now, Of Course, We're More Or Less At 80, So That Means That We've Gotten 12 Additional Years.