Middle Age

Middle age, a time when the body is both at a peak and at the beginning of collapse, marks, for many, a period for radical reappraisal of one's life and way of living. The sense of time running out can lead to a period of dramatic self-doubt. In Middle Age, the philosopher Christopher Hamilton explores the moods, emotions and experiences of middle age, seeking to describe and analyse that period of life philosophically. Drawing on the experience of his own epiphanic "mid-life crisis" as well as a range of writers - from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, to Larkin and Eliot - Hamilton presents a thought-provoking and candid analysis of the nature of middle age.

Christopher Hamilton is Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at King's College London. His books include Living Philosophy: Reflections on Life, Meaning and Morality. He is 44.