Embracing Your Second Calling

April 12, 2010
Like more than 40 million other middle-aged American women, Bourke is coming to terms with aging. A successful businesswoman and author (The Skeptic’s Guide to the Global AIDS Crisis
), Bourke was depressed by her 50th birthday. She uses the biblical story of Naomi from the Book of Ruth as a model for life’s second act. Life inevitably entails loss: of youth, social status, physical robustness. But what comes next can be rich and authentic, Bourke argues. The author draws much on her own life and circumstances in sketching an arc for fulfillment through service to what is truly important. Some may find her too self-absorbed, a common complaint about the sizable baby boom cohort. But many of her age peers will find something of use in the many practical suggestions she offers, or nod in agreement with one of many insights. Bourke is at her best when she writes about the trips to Africa she has taken, which moved her quite literally outside her comfort zone. This is a book that women of a certain age may wish to give to friends.