Childhood, adolescence, even the "twilight years" have been extensively researched and documented. But the vast terrain known as midlife—the longest segment of the life course—has remained uncharted. How physically and psychologically healthy are Americans at midlife? And why do some experience greater well-being than others?

The MacArthur Foundation addressed these questions head-on by funding a landmark study known as "Midlife in the U.S.," or MIDUS. For the first time in a single study, researchers were able to integrate epidemiological, sociological, and psychological assessments, as well as innovative new measures to evaluate how work and family life influence each other.

How Healthy Are We? presents the key findings from the survey in three sections: physical health, quality of life and psychological well-being, and the contexts (family, work) of the midlife. The topics covered by almost forty scholars in a wide variety of fields are vast, including everything from how health and well-being vary with socioeconomic standing, gender, race, or region of the country to how middle-aged people differ from younger or older adults in their emotional experience and quality of life. This health—the study measures not only health-the absence of illness—but also reports on the presence of wellness in middle-aged Americans.

The culmination of a decade and a half of research by leading scholars, How Healthy Are We? will dramatically alter the way we think about health in middle age and the factors that influence it. Researchers, policymakers, and others concerned about the quality of midlife in contemporary America will welcome its insights.

* Having a good life means having good relationships with others to almost 70% of those surveyed. Less than 40% mentioned their careers.

* Reports of disruptive daily stressors vary by age, with young adults and those in midlife experiencing more than those in later adulthood.

* Men have higher assessments of their physical and mental health than woman until the age of 60.

In this collection, twenty-four leading researchers analyze the middle years of the lifespan, paying close attention to the many different facets of adult development. They study the various changes that middle-aged adults experience—from children moving in and out to going back to work and dealing with promotions, firing, and topping out. This work explains how these different experiences interrelate and how a better understanding of them can foster successful midlife development.

Much of the past work on midlife has been limited by its use of cross-sectional data, its focus on clinical populations, and the analysis of only one target group. Using a diverse set of longitudinal data, this volume provides a broader perspective by examining the similarities and differences in the midlife experience as a function of gender, social class, and birth cohort.

Of interest to scholars as well as to those interested in the midlife period for clinical or personal reasons, this volume informs us of the enormous potential and promise amid the gains and losses of the middle years.

Most adults experience parenthood. But the longest period of the parental experience—when children grow into adolescence and young adulthood and parents themselves are not yet elderly—is the least understood. In this groundbreaking volume, distinguished scholars from anthropology, demography, economics, psychology, social work, and sociology explore the uncharted years of midlife parenthood. The authors employ a rich array of theory and methods to address how the parental experience affects the health, well-being, and development of individuals. Collectively, they look at the time when parents watch offspring grow into adulthood and begin to establish adult-to-adult relationships with their children.

With a strong emphasis on the diversity of midlife parenting, including sociodemographic variations and specific parent or child characteristics such as single parenting or raising a child with a disability, this volume presents for the first time the complex factors that influence the quality of the midlife parenting experience.

"A graceful, elegantly told ghost story that is at times frightening, at times heartwarming, often quite funny, and always an engrossing and fascinating read."
---Rodney Vaccaro, Emmy Award–winning Hollywood screenwriter and producer

"I started Friday night and got up Saturday morning with a desire to get back to it to finish. In my experience, if I wake up and the first thing on my mind is getting back to a book, it's a good book."
---Bryan Uecker, co-owner of The Book Nook & Java Shop, Montague, Michigan

"A spellbinding mystery of timeless love, loss, and a house that held all the answers. I couldn't put it down." 
---Judith Evans Thomas, coauthor of the Born to Shop travel books

"Living in a 100-year old Michigan farmhouse myself, I was totally pulled into the real possibilities Newhof's characters found themselves in. Ghosts and real life haunts made for a compelling read."
---Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen, author of the series Hazel Ridge Farm Stories

"Spirits and Wine is a can't-put-down novel that feels less like fiction and more like sharing a glass of wine with your best friends who go on to disclose the deeply disturbing, deadly things occurring in the lovely old house they planned to restore. Susan Newhof writes truthfully and with beautiful care, evoking the icy appeal of a small lakeshore town in Michigan while revealing the wretched secrets that cling to one dwelling. After reading this harrowing tale in one sitting, I am dying to ask the author---did these menacing events really happen . . . to you?"
---Jerrilyn Farmer, author of the best-selling Madeline Bean Mysteries

"If only the walls could talk---and they do in Susan Newhof's thrilling Spirits and Wine. Readers, be prepared for an absorbing adventure into John and Anna's journey to solve a century-old mystery wrapped within the walls of their newly purchased 'dream home.' Told creatively in tandem, the couple's story of life in pursuit of truth will leave you wondering just where the fact ends and the fiction begins. Keep the lights on and enjoy!"
---Beckey Burgoyne, author of Perfectly Amanda: Gunsmoke's "Miss Kitty"---To Dodge and Beyond 
 
It's a mystery and a ghost story, all wrapped up in one.

A newly married couple buys an old house in a small lakeshore town in West Michigan and finds it haunted by the dramatic secrets of its past inhabitants. As the couple settles in, disturbing events prompt them to investigate who those residents were, what happened to them, and why one spirit remains active. Could the Spanish influenza epidemic in the region, which resulted in the deaths of an unprecedented number of young, healthy adults in Michigan and elsewhere in 1918---19, and the resulting slew of orphans, have something to do with the spirit now haunting their house?

They are determined to discover the truth about their house, even if it jeopardizes their own safety.