I am an anthropologist/folklorist and am distraught that Number Our Days is out of print. It can still be purchased online for a few cents and I keep extra copies to lend students. I use it every year as an exemplary example of an ethnography in my urban ethnography class. It is written with such intelligence, compassion, and in a clear manner that non-specialists can appreciate it. In my own work over the decades I have primarily interviewed elderly Italian Americans and elderly Calabrians in my great-grandmother's hometown. Every time I reread this book, I learn something new. I also cry every time. Barbara's close relationship with her grandmother I think taught her how to relate to the elderly as did my very close relationship with my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. We have lost so much when families live apart from their extended loved ones and when elderly connections are lost.
I am an anthropologist/folklorist and am distraught that Number Our Days is out of print. It can still be purchased online for a few cents and I keep extra copies to lend students. I use it every year as an exemplary example of an ethnography in my urban ethnography class. It is written with such intelligence, compassion, and in a clear manner that non-specialists can appreciate it. In my own work over the decades I have primarily interviewed elderly Italian Americans and elderly Calabrians in my great-grandmother's hometown. Every time I reread this book, I learn something new. I also cry every time. Barbara's close relationship with her grandmother I think taught her how to relate to the elderly as did my very close relationship with my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. We have lost so much when families live apart from their extended loved ones and when elderly connections are lost.