In her funny and wistful book, Reeve Lindbergh contemplates entering a new stage in life, turning sixty, the period her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, onced described as "the youth of old age."  It is a time of life, she writes, that produces some unexpected surprises.  Age brings loss, but also love; disaster, but also delight.  The second-graders Reeve taught many years ago are now middle-aged; her own children grow, marry, have children themselves.  "Time flies," she observes, "but if I am willing to fly with it, then I can be airborne, too." 

Age is only one of the many subjects that Reeve writes about with perception and insight.  In northern Vermont, nature is an integral part of daily life, especially on a farm.  Whether it is the arrival and departure of certain birds in spring and fall, wandering turtles, or the spring-time ritual of lambing, the natural world is a constant revelation. 

And of course there is family - especially with the Lindberghs.  Reeve writes about discovering, thirty years after her father's death and two and a half years after her mother's, that her father had three secret families in Europe.  She travels to meet them, learning to expand her self-understanding:  "daughter of," "mother of," "sister of" - sister of many more siblings than she'd known, in a family more complicated than even she had imagined. 

Reeve has kindly autographed this hardcover copy for our auction, and we cannot thank her enough!