This book was charming.

The author interviewed a bunch of people over the age of 100, and we get a sentimental glimpse at what their lives were like and how they were living at the time.

I would have liked a more detailed description of the people (body weights, diets, etc.), but the brief biographies did give some interesting tidbits.

All of these centenarians were born and raised in America, and all of them broke pretty much every “rule” for longevity that we find in health books. Most of them lived alone, or in nursing homes, with their spouses long dead. This contradicts the community focus of longevity research.

As far as I can tell, none of them followed any type of diet. But, though we didn’t get thorough physical descriptions, there was only one that sounded like they might be overweight. All of them except one lived most or all of their lives without much money, but none sounded even close to wealthy.

Some of them worked into extreme old age, most didn’t. Some stayed socially active. Most seemed to have a decent attitude. There weren’t many strong commonalities. I can speculate about some nutritional or lifestyle factors that might have helped them make it so long, but none of that is in the text.

A deeper analysis might have been more satisfying, but the writing was good and the author kept me engaged through this journalistic journey. It was touching and I almost dropped a tear at the end.

Worth reading.