Leisureville, Andrew D. Blechman
Leisureville, Andrew D. Blechman
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Leisureville
Adventures in a World Without Children

Author: Andrew D. Blechman

Narrator: Johnny Heller

Unabridged: 7 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/08/2018

Synopsis

When his next-door neighbors in a quaint New England town suddenly pick up and move to a gated retired community in Florida called The Villages, Andrew Blechman is astonished by their stories, so he goes to investigate. Larger than Manhattan, with a golf course for every day of the month, two downtowns, its own newspaper, radio, and TV station, The Villages is a city of nearly one hundred thousand (and growing) missing only one thing: children.

In the critically acclaimed Leisureville, Blechman delves into life in the senior utopia, offering a hilarious firsthand report on everything from ersatz nostalgia to the residents' surprisingly active sex life. But this is more than just a romp through a retirement paradise; Blechman traces the history of the age-segregated retirement phenomenon, and travels to Arizona to show what has happened to the pioneering developments after decades of segregation. A fascinating blend of serious history, social commentary, and hilarious, engaging reportage, Leisureville is an important book on a major, underreported trend.

About Andrew D. Blechman

Andrew D. Blechman is an award-winning journalist who has been a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the Des Moines Register. His work has also appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, the New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune, among other publications. His first book, Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird, was widely praised in the media and featured on CBS Sunday Morning. Blechman currently divides his time between New England and Germany with this wife and daughter.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Clif

Would you feel abandoned if your long time neighbors after many years of community involvement suddenly announced that they are retiring and plan to move to a retirement community in Florida? Why are people willing to move away from a lifetime collection of friends and acquaintances to a place where......more

Goodreads review by Kristen

I’d love to have a chat w Andrew Blechman in 25 years. When he’s exhausted after raising his children, volunteering in his community all while paying exorbitant taxes.......more

Goodreads review by Ivonne

Andrew Blechman’s Leisureville: Adventures in a World Without Children was first published in 2009 — long before the presidency of Donald J. Trump was ever dreamed of. But the book was prescient in ways that I don’t think Blechman himself realized at the time. What Blechman chronicles is the increasi......more

Goodreads review by Patrick

Once upon a time in a far off land where senior citizens are required to drive like turtles in the passing lane and early bird specials begin at 3:30 in the afternoon, a mythical kingdom of glossy painted false-fronted shops, inestimable golf courses and cookie-cutter screened-in homes grew out of m......more

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