This is about the ‘old old’, not the physically lively sixty- and seventy-year-olds, but octogenarians having a voice. The eighties are when it all begins to crumble. This book gives the young and middle-aged insights into the world of the elderly. It deals with frailty, loss, loneliness and death, but it is far from being a gloomy book: Hansen is a literary man and he uses extracts from novels and poems to help in exploring growing old. He balances lightness and seriousness and this book will have an acute relevance for its older readers.