EXTRA INNINGS: A Memoir by Doris...

EXTRA INNINGS: A Memoir by Doris Grumbach (Norton: $12.; 298 pp.). In “Coming Into the End Zone,” novelist Doris Grumbach recorded her thoughts on turning 70; five years later, she reconsiders her conclusions. Grumbach blends these reflections with journal entries from a year spent on a secluded cove in central Maine. Her descriptions of the changing seasons suggest the literary equivalent of the miniatures of planting and harvesting that adorn medieval books of hours. At 75, Grumbach seems more at peace with herself, and offers a thoughtful series of impressions on the rewards and losses of growing old in a notoriously youth-obsessed culture.