Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing the natural world, chronicling the customs of pre-contact hunter-gatherers and the secret lives of deer and dogs. In this book, the capstone of her long career, Thomas, now 88, turns her keen eye to her own life. The result is an account of growing old that is at once funny and charming, intimate and profound - both a memoir and a life-affirming map all of us may follow to embrace our later years with grace and dignity.

Growing Old explores a wide range of issues connected with ageing, from stereotypes of the elderly as burdensome to the methods of burial that humans have used throughout history to how to deal with a concerned neighbour who assumes you're buying cat food to eat for dinner.

Written with wit and compassion, this book is an expansive and deeply personal paean to the beauty and the brevity of life that offers understanding for everyone, regardless of age.

One of the most widely read American anthropologists, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has observed dogs, cats and elephants during her 50-year career. She wrote The Hidden Life of Dogs, a ground-breaking work that spent nearly a year on the New York Times bestseller list. Her book on cats, Tribe of Tiger, was also an international bestseller. She lives in New Hampshire on her family's former farm, where she observes deer, bobcats, bears and many other species of wildlife.