How to Live to Be 100

This book was adorable. It wouldn't be adorable to everyone, however. This is a a "dated" book, but it would be an excellent read for those who were around when George Burns was living (and much younger - preferably during those days in which he was doing stand-up comedy). Such readers will enjoy the name dropping in this book of other comedians popular in the 50's and 60's.

I'm 65 years of age myself at this time, but knowing that George Burns actually lived to be 100 years old, my age seems realtively quite young. I love the advice he gives in his book not to retire at age 65. He says to keep working or keep passionately involved with those things one likes the best.

My favorite line from this book is this:

"I still know one thing: it show more doesn't hurt to have a positive attitude. Even if you're going to fail, be positive about it. That way, you'll be a successful failure."

Keep on truckin', readers... show less

Even though he wrote this book in 1983 when he was 87 years old, George Burns actually did live to be 100. He obviously has some expertise in this area. However, because of the categorization as humor, and the author's reputation, I expected this book to be a rhapsodic ode to martinis and cigars, which it does contain, but also featured are a weeks' worth of menus for relatively healthy meals. The exercise chapter was also filled with effective exercises, with actual pictures of George (and some lovely young ladies) performing the activities.
It might be helpful for the reader to have at least a passing acquaintance with George's contemporaries, such as Phyllis Diller, Dean Martin, and Jack Benny in order to fully appreciate all the show more jokes. Burns died when I was 15 years old, and I had to look up on Wikipedia a couple of the folks he mentioned in order to find out whether they were famous or just friends of his. (They were all famous. He's quite the name-dropper.)
I did find the book amusing and was able to whip through it pretty quick because of all the pictures. I would recommend it, but probably only to people who are at least as old as I am or fans of vaudeville and vintage Hollywood. show less