About the Book
What makes a good life? And how do we live it? Though we've explored these eternal
questions through literature, art, and philosophy, the answers can actually be found much
closer to home - in the hard-won insights of ordinary people.
The individuals you will meet in this book aren't household names or celebrities, but
rather your grandparents, your neighbors, your teachers. In What's Worth Knowing, these
seventy-, eighty-, and ninety-year-olds share the single most important piece of knowledge
each has gained through a lifetime of living. Having raised children, made mistakes,
survived hardship, and ultimately discovered what truly matters, they've gleaned the
secrets of surmounting life's challenges and attaining its joys.
Agnes McDougal, who at ninety-eight can still taste the sweetness of an apple given to
her by a stranger on a train when she was seventeen, tells us that "kindness is never
wasted." Says Harold Jones, who in seventy-six years has never suffered a lonely moment,
"A good listener is someone who's not talking." Having lived more than eight decades in
the same small Massachusetts town, Bo Jackson concludes that "someplace else may always
seem better, but where nobody knows you, you're nothing." "Knowing you're going to die
really gets you moving," realized Arsene St. Amand, who was prompted to find true love at
last, six months before his death.
Whether they divulge the connection between honesty and wrinkle-free aging or impart
parenting advice gained through raising prize-winning tomatoes, the vibrant voices in
What's Worth Knowing express life's universal satisfactions and regrets with unforgettable
poignancy and wisdom.
