Essays After Eighty

<p><strong>"Alternately lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny."--<em>New York Times</em><br/><br/>"Deliciously readable . . . Donald Hall, if abandoned by the muse of poetry, has wrought his prose to a keen autumnal edge." <em>-- Wall Street Journal</em></strong><br/><br/>His entire life, Donald Hall has dedicated himself to the written word, putting together a storied career as a poet, essayist, and memoirist. Now, in the "unknown, unanticipated galaxy" of very old age, he is writing essays that startle, move, and delight. In <em>Essays After Eighty, </em>Hall ruminates on his past: "thirty was terrifying, forty I never noticed because I was drunk, fifty was best with a total change of life, sixty extended the bliss of fifty . . ." He also addresses his present: "When I turned eighty and rubbed testosterone on my chest, my beard roared like a lion and gained four inches." Most memorably, Hall writes about his enduring love affair with his ancestral Eagle Pond Farm and with the writing life that sustains him every day: "Yesterday my first nap was at 9:30 a.m., but when I awoke I wrote again."<br/><br/><strong>"Alluring, inspirational hominess . . . <em>Essays After Eighty</em> is a treasure . . . balancing frankness about losses with humor and gratitude." <em>-- Washington Post</em><br/><br/>"A fine book of remembering all sorts of things past, <em>Essays After Eighty </em>is to be treasured." -- <em>Boston Globe</em></strong></p>