Meh.

I found "The Thing about Life" to be fairly pedestrian.  Shields lays out facts about the inevitable collapse of the the body in a fairly uninteresting manner.  I kept wishing for someone like John McPhee to come in and salvage a decent idea, but that never happens.  For the most part I found the book to be a long whine about how the author is getting old, cannot accept that, keeps wanting to relive his glory days as a young athletic boy,  and still hasn't resolved issues with his father, who doesn't seem to be as upset about getting old as his son is and want his father to be.  His staccato writing style was also irritating.  One can tell he is a sports writer.  Endless short sentences without the élan of a Hemingway.  I felt as if I was being beat with a stick by reading this book. Maybe I am not testosterone driven enough to give a shit about getting older. (I am the same age as the author), but I am more concerned with where I am in my life to worry about where I was.  Be here now.