It's the new year, and let's just say 2009 is bringing a few teensy challenges to your friendly books editor.

With a son thinking he might like to attend college next fall - silly boy! - and an employer considering shutting off the lights, not to mention my paycheck, my personal recession is deepening faster than that worry line in Ben Bernanke's forehead.

It's gotten so bad I've been thinking there's only one appropriate response: Pity party! We're talking an all-out affair, complete with soaring violins, horns blaring Taps and one very fat lady singing at the top of her lungs. Oh yeah. And let's not forget the giant jug of frozen margaritas. (How else could a person stand all that noise?)

On the bright side, if there's one thing I've learned in my years pushing books, it's that there's an author ready to help with any and all dilemmas. And sure enough, when a book titled How to Live: A Search for Wisdom From Old People (While They Are Still On This Earth) arrived on my desk recently, I immediately expanded my party guest list.

If my world has shifted - and believe me, I know I'm not alone on this - who better to offer a rescue plan than a bunch of wise elders? Step up to the blender, oh masters of life, and share your pearls of wisdom while I pour you a drink!

How to Live, by New Yorker and New York Times contributor Henry Alford, sets a simple agenda. Alford's goal, he writes, is to interview "as many fascinating senior citizens as I can" and plumb their psyches for the lessons they've learned in life.

He seeks out notables, such as literary critic Harold Bloom and comedian Phyllis Diller, and non-notables, such as his worldly-wise mother. Along the way, he shares tidbits about aging, quotes from luminaries like Albert Einstein and his own thoughts, all laced with liberal amounts of humor.

Now, I've been around the journalism block long enough to know one thing: This is an idea that rises or falls on the people you find and the uniqueness of their insights. It also requires an author to sharply focus the search in order to avoid getting lost in the wilderness. "Wisdom," after all, is an ephemeral concept. Are you looking for wisdom about work? Marriage? Spiritual fulfillment?

Alas, we quickly learn that Alford is in desperate need of a GPS tracking device. He leaves the question open-ended and proceeds to stumble about, hoping he'll bump into something interesting.

Meanwhile, he doesn't spare us a single detail of the journey. He tells us who he meets and what they look like. He tells us how they gesture. He even tells us, on occasion, what color the sky was when he met with them ("the afternoon light was caramel- like"). What he often forgets to mention is what any of this has to do with wisdom.

Consider the case of faded screen actress Sylvia Miles. Alford tells us what she drinks and what sort of art hangs on her apartment walls. He even describes her grocery store habits. On one shopping trip, for example, she asks Alford to open a jar of strawberry-rhubarb preserves in the middle of the store. Is she about to deliver some heavy metaphor comparing the preserves to life? We hold our collective breath.

Surprise! "You have to open them to see if someone like me has already opened them," she says.

Take note, germaphobes!

Which isn't to say that we don't run into a few worthy characters. Alford also introduces us to Granny D (real name, Doris Haddock). Granny D has emphysema, arthritis, hearing aids and dentures, but that didn't stop her from setting off on a 3,200-mile walk across the country to publicize the need for campaign-finance reform - at the remarkable age of 89.

"We're all dying," she explains, "and we might as well be spending ourselves in a good cause."

"If you are afraid of death, you are afraid of life," she also mentions, "for living your life leads to death. Until you face death and see its beauty, you will be afraid to really live - you will never properly burn the candle for fear of its end."

Meaningful words, indeed. But for every Granny D, there's the pastor who thinks of napping as a form of prayer - and so what? There's the man who plucks all of his food out of a dumpster - not because he has some higher sense of purpose, but because he's cheap.

And let's not forget Bloom, who seems to be toying with Alford like a cat leading a mouse around with the smallest slice of cheese.

"You . . . write that wisdom is 'a Perfection that can either absorb or destroy us,' " Alford tells Bloom, trying to prompt him to say something profound.

"Which is why, on the whole, I would rather not absorb too much wisdom," Bloom responds. "I'll be seventy-seven in July."

Um. Gee. Thanks for that.

Surprisingly, it's Alford's mom who makes the most edifying reading. At 79, she dumps her husband of 23 years, due to his addiction to prescription pills. She's a gardener, a knitter, a watercolorist - a woman fully engaged in life but seemingly unafraid of death. (As she shops for a retirement community to move to, she amusingly refers to them as "finishing schools.")

Alford's mom seems to come as close as any to understanding the complexities of living: the need to juggle obligation to others vs. personal fulfillment; to acknowledge the past but live in the present. Like Granny D, she doesn't allow herself to be weighed down by too much introspection.

That's no doubt wise, but it sure doesn't offer much raw material for Alford's navel-gazing mission. With so little to work with, the author winds up delivering the thinnest of observations. "Wisdom is slippery," he allows. "It comes in many forms and guises."

In other words, it looks like I'm completely on my own when it comes to carving out a meaningful life should this Rocky crumble.

What's next?

Some serious soul-searching is certainly in order. (Well, that or serious TV time - whichever comes first.) And let's not forget my party plans. With the entertainment lineup all set, the only thing left to do is stock up on ice and little paper umbrellas.

As a wise man once said, when the going gets tough, the tough get margaritas.

thornp@RockyMountainNews.com 303-954-5419

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