Shields has written a fascinating, frustrating, but entertaining inquiry into life’s biology and the consequences for living and dying.  Sandwiched between his 97 year old father, Milt a retired sportswriter living in a senior community in CA, and his 14 year old daughter, Natalie, Shields is a 51 year old married writer living in Seattle and spending most of his time trying to understand the parallel processes of living and dying.  With page after page of statistics which he never references or even refers to general sources,  (e.g. ’men lose 3% of their skeletal weight per decade; women lose 8 percent; given a list of 24 words, an average 20-year old remembers 14 of the words, a 40 year old remembers 11, a 60 year old remembers 9, and a 70 year old remembers 7) Shields shows  that life peaks in the 20’s (related to the primary drive to reproduce our genes) and then gradually goes downhill with men racing to the bottom faster than women since the latter are more critical to reproduction.  The author adds a large dollop of quotations about death from sources as varied as Woody Allen and Aristotle to make the point that everyone dies and that it is biologically determined. (Zola:  ‘I am spending delightful afternoons in my garden, watching everything living around me.  As I grow older, I feel everything departing, and I love everything with more passion.”   Woody Allen “I don’t want to achieve immortality though my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying.”  One can resist and fight, but it’s going to happen, though his father’s attitude and wellness at 97 prove that it’s a crap shoot as far as your own experience.  At the end of the day, it’s all about how you live your life and manage your death.  Not new news, but a well done book about the old topic.