Australasian Journal on Ageing, Vol 23 No 4 December 2004, Bookshelf 203–206 203 Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. Bookshelf Bookshelf Bookshelf Bookshelf Bookshelf Bookshelf Age, narrative and migration: the life course and life history of Bengali elders in London Katy Gardner. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2002. ISBN 185973 313 1. £47.00. The Bangladeshi community in the Tower Hamlets area of London was probably unknown to many people prior to the publication of Monica Ali’s (2003) novel Brick Lane, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize among other literary awards. The central character, Nazneen, was married off by her family while still a teenager, to Chanu, a much older man who had already lived in London for many years when he returned to his village seeking a wife. Although Brick Lane is fictional, many of the themes contained within it are also found in Katy Gardner’s book Age, Narrative and Migration, a recent study of Bengali elders in Tower Hamlets. For example, the participants in both books seem to have seen very little of London outside the borough. Ali includes a comical account of Chanu taking his family to see the sights of London. Gardner includes a similarly amusing description of a trip by the women from the community centre to Harrods, which while only a few miles by minibus may as well have been a world away from Tower Hamlets, possibly the poorest borough in all of Britain. When first asked to review Gardner’s book, I must admit to wondering what relevance it might have for an Australian readership. However, right from the first page it was evident that many of the themes and issues in this book would find resonance with anyone providing health and welfare services to immigrant communities: This is a book about journeys, about travel and change, connection and disconnection. While many of the journeys we shall be hearing about involve travel over time and space, a physical shifting of bodies from one location to another, the chapters that follow will also be centrally concerned with another sort of movement; over time. Here, the journeys are just as physical, but the movements I wish to chart involve the passing of individual bodies through the life course . . . This is a form of travel that we all engage in, whether we like it or not. Unlike the wings of a plane or the wheels of a car, time never stands still. Our bodies grow and change and decay, we move from one “age” to another, endlessly reassessing our identities and our relationships to our bodies. ( p. 1) Likewise, mindsets alter over time. Several of the Bengali elders interviewed by Gardener and her male research assistant orig- inally came to Britain for what they thought was for a few years, imagining that they would eventually return home to Bangladesh. However, various factors seem to mitigate against a permanent return home, including being perceived as a for- eigner on trips home and realising that they would not fit in easily; having offspring who have grown up in Britain and con- sider this to be their home; and encountering a health system in Britain that they consider far more likely to be able to meet the needs of their ageing bodies. “So what!” I can imagine many of my Australian colleagues ask- ing, or “There’s nothing new here”. But while some findings may seem obvious, this is nevertheless a thoughtfully written monograph, which demonstrates the potential of anthrop- ology to enable us to learn more about the ageing process. Gardner theorises the ageing processes among transnational migrants in ways which encouraged me to think about the pos- sible issues for the various elderly migrant communities that I am familiar with in inner Melbourne, which would share some, but not all, of the concerns of Gardner’s study popula- tion. The tone of the book is thus one of being an inspired con- versation, which is a delight to participate in. One aspect of this book that I particularly liked was the separate analyses of the experiences of ageing and migration for male and female elders in the Bengali community in Tower Hamlets. As Gardner so ably demonstrates, these experiences may vary significantly and in situations where one sex greatly outnumbers the other (approximately four males to every female), conflation of both sexes could readily result in the experiences of one sex (male) being regarded as normative. In summary, while I can imagine that Age, Narrative and Migration will not be the highest of reading priorities for most readers of the Australasian Journal on Ageing, there is much to recommend this book. As ever, judging a book by its cover (or title in this case) can too readily result in worthy books remain- ing unread. Beth R Crisp University of Glasgow December 2004 23 4 Bookshelf Bookshelf Bookshelf Bookshelf Geriatric rehabilitation manual Timothy L Kauffman (Editor). Philadelphia: Churchill Livingstone, 1999. ISBN 0443076510 A$94.95 (soft cover). Supplier: Harcourt Australia. This manual is multi-authored, targeted at a range of clinicians, and aims to provide treatment ideas for thinking persons. This perhaps indicates some difficulties in being all things to all people. The many authors produce different writing styles. The audience is suggested to include doctors, nurses and members of the multidisciplinary team, whether they be students, seasoned practitioners, or new to geriatric care. The book provides advice on the science as well as the art of medicine – areas where efficacy has not been validated. It does