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The View from Ninety
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  • Published: 7 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529154818
  • Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $36.99

The View from Ninety

Reflections on How to Live a Long, Contented Life

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
7 Oct 2025
EBook
12 June 2025
Audiobook
12 June 2025
Hardback
12 July 2025
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One of the major thinkers of our times reflects on how to live richer, more contented lives, drawing on wisdom built up over a lifetime

Over a span of seven decades, Charles Handy was, variously, a businessman, a writer, a philanthropist and a philosopher. Not even a stroke as he approached the age of 90 dimmed his intellectual curiosity or his immense zest for life.

In this, his final book, written from the vantage point of a contemplative old age and drawing on his articles for The Idler he shares his thoughts on the big questions with which we all grapple:

What things really matter?
What daily worries should we learn to treat as unimportant?
How do we become more accepting of ourselves and of those around us?
How do we discover purpose in our everyday existence? How do we cope with grief and loss?


Drawing in part on his own experience, in part on the wisdom of others, he sets out the principles of enjoying a fulfilled and contented life, and gently points the way to the practicalities of achieving it.
  • Published: 7 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529154818
  • Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $36.99
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About the author

Charles Handy

Charles Handy is an independent writer, broadcaster and teacher. He has been an oil executive, an economist, a professor at the London Business School, the Warden of St. George's House in Windsor Castle and the chairman of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. He was born in Co. Kildare in Ireland, the son of an archdeacon, and educated in Ireland, England (Oxford University) and the USA (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). His many books include The Empty Raincoat, Understanding Organizations, Gods of Management, The Future of Work and Waiting for the Mountain to Move.

portrait photo of Charles Handy

Also by Charles Handy

21 Letters on Life and Its Challenges
The Second Curve
Beyond Certainty
The New Philanthropists
Myself and Other More Important Matters
The New Alchemists
Reinvented Lives
See all

Praise for The View from Ninety

A guru

The Times

A wise and gentle commentator

The Guardian

Offers wit, wisdom and gratitude. […] Charles Handy’s 19th and last book is not his heftiest. But it may be, in some important respects, his weightiest. These final breaths of wisdom sacrifice little of Handy’s wit, charm and storytelling skill.

Andrew Hill, Financial Times

Rightly treasured as Charles Handy’s books are, his most important lesson may be his life. This collection of short reflections on life, work and people… reflects old age, but its spirit doesn’t. Handy’s later books are only indirectly about business… but paradoxically that is exactly why any business leader would profit from reading it. Sharp insights abound.

Simon Caulkin, Director Magazine