SciFI man in space returns to future

Genre : Science Fiction, paper back, approx. 250-350 pages or so.
When Read: I read it sometime in the early to mid 1980's (30ish years ago!!!)

Plot : Set in the far future, an aging astronaut returns to earth to discover a world empty of people, only derelict buildings remain. In one room he finds two glass cabinets, he steps into one and a fine dust appears in the other, the cabinets turn out to be machines to reverse the aging process and he begins to get younger. There is another character, female I think, who thinks the astronaut is holding the secret to immortality...or something like that, my memory is a bit vague at this point. Anyway (I may be confusing two books at this point...) but it turns out the human race has been moved off world and are orbiting a moon or planet in some sort of suspended animation, and the astronaut is the key to humanity returning to earth....

If this story rings a bell I'd appreciate anybody getting back to me with the author or book title.
I loaned this book out to a friend and never got it back !!!

thanks in advance

brian.

I definitely think it's a Larry Niven book, just not sure which one. The cabinet/dust/aging thing is very familiar.

Thanks for replying - Larry Niven? I did buy a lot of his books, I'll have a look, might take a while though, he's a prolific writer...

It is Niven - A World Out of Time - the description of the glass cabinets is the clincher.

haha!!! found it, thanks amysisson for pointing me towards Larry Niven, the book is "AWorld Out of Time" by Larry Niven.

Here's the wiki entry for anybody else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_Out_of_Time

thanks to mart1n too for finding that about the same time I did :o)