This is a how-to book with a difference. Are you at a “certain age”? Worried that you will have a stroke? Develop Alzheimer’s? Be pushed into a nursing home? Most of us have visited incapacitated relatives in nursing homes or hospitals where well-meaning family members have displayed pictures of the patient as a younger person. This supposedly helps the staff remember that the patient is a human being with memories, friends, and family.

But what if you are proactive enough to choose your own possessions? Think about having your favourite mug, book, reading lamp, and CDs when you are plunked down in a senior’s home. Or your own favourite photos – maybe of your cat instead of your children. Lloyd’s entertaining and colourful spiral-bound book, endorsed by Alzheimer Groupe Inc, suggests what to store in your “hopeless chest” as insurance against that time when your memory fails and your family does your packing for you.

In the back of the book are pockets to hold your will and your Mandate of Dimished Responsibility – for the ultimate moving experience. This could have been a rather sad volume, but Lloyd celebrates life on every page. Lurching into the Looney Bin will give you something to think about. Just in case. mRb