Over The Hill And On A Roll

There are, broadly speaking, two ways for a book to address getting older. One is to sigh heavily into a cup of tea and begin itemising the collapse of civilisation, cartilage, and decent handwriting. The other is to publish itself under the title Over The Hill And On A Roll, which suggests that age is less a tragic descent and more a slightly wobbly but cheerful victory lap.

Written by Bob Phillips and published in 1998 by Harvest House Publishers, this is a book that clearly refuses to accept the dreary memo that middle age, later life, or general maturity must be approached with solemnity and orthopedic despair. Instead, it leans cheerfully into the comedy of getting older, treating birthdays, bodily quirks, memory lapses, and social absurdities not as disasters, but as excellent material.

And really, that may be the sanest response available. Because ageing is one of those universal experiences that everyone claims to understand until they are suddenly discussing back pain with genuine intellectual commitment and developing strong views about parking convenience. A book like this steps into that territory with a grin, observing that while youth may have speed, confidence, and knees made of spring steel, age has perspective, survival, and the increasingly valuable ability to leave a party early without apology.

Bob Phillips is very much working in the grand tradition of humour that says: yes, life is ridiculous, but let us at least enjoy the joke. The appeal here is likely to be broad and comfortingly familiar. This is the sort of book that notices the oddities of family life, birthdays, creaking joints, changing ambitions, and the strange fact that one day you wake up and find yourself making noises when standing up, as though narrating your own mechanical decline. It understands that advancing years do not automatically make one wise, serene, or distinguished. Often they simply make one more aware of how absurd everything already was.

There is also something gloriously defiant about the title itself. Over the hill is meant to be the insult, the phrase that suggests decline, irrelevance, the beginning of the long shuffle toward practical knitwear. But on a roll changes the mood entirely. It implies momentum. Mischief. Perhaps snacks. It transforms the whole enterprise from “resigned deterioration” into “unexpected sequel.” Not done yet, thank you very much.

Books like this are often at their best when given as gifts, especially by people who want to be affectionate while also committing a mild act of age-related cheek. It has the flavour of something that can be read in snatches, quoted aloud, left by an armchair, or deployed whenever someone becomes too dramatic about the passing of time. In that sense it belongs to a noble category of books: the ones that offer reassurance by laughing at the problem rather than pretending it does not exist.

This As New copy, from the gloriously unpredictable stockrooms of Crappy Old Books, is in excellent condition, which is more than can be said for many of the people likely to appreciate its contents. The contrast is part of the charm. Here is a pristine little monument to the art of ageing disgracefully but cheerfully, ready to be given, kept, displayed, or consulted whenever life begins making too many references to sensible shoes and digestive caution.

In short, Over The Hill And On A Roll is a buoyant, good-humoured celebration of growing older without surrendering either one’s wit or one’s appetite for finding life faintly ridiculous. It is not interested in pretending that age changes nothing. It simply argues, with a wink, that the changes may be survivable if one is prepared to laugh.

A fine choice for readers who prefer their wisdom lightly buttered, their humour affectionate, and their mortality discussed only on the understanding that everyone remains perfectly entitled to enjoy themselves.

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