Taking Retirement: A Beginner's Diary Book

Carl Klaus kept a diary that straddled the year he retired as a university professor of nonfiction writing. The diary includes detailed and thoughtful observations of his feelings, the reactions of his wife and other friends, his gardening, and the meals he enjoys, some of which he cooks himself. The diary also includes a day by day post-retirement he and his wife took to western Canada and the U.S. It is best read and savored slowly. I read it over a four year period straddling my own retirement, and there were issues he faced that helped me identify and resolve some of my own challenges in this time. A diary necessarily makes one a bit self-centered. And that can get tedious for the reader over the course of a whole book, hence a four star instead of five here. But my reaction to the book is one of great appreciation for the courage and guidance it provided me.