Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life

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Henry Oliver

Second Act

What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life

Henry Oliver

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Paperback

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English

John Murray One
19 August 2025

Psychology of ageing; Self-help & personal development; Advice on careers & achieving success

""Henry Oliver is a rare talent: smart, funny and insightful. SECOND ACT showcases his wide reading, deep understanding and playful prose style. Read this book to discover why it's never too late for a second act in your own life.""

HELEN LEWIS, author of Difficult Women

Have you ever dreamed that you might be far more successful than you are today? Our society tells us over and over that if we're going to achieve anything, we'd better do it while we're young. But whether you're at the start of your career, sensing you're on the wrong path, or feeling unsettled later in life, you're likely wondering just how to reinvent yourself? Have you left it too late?

This book has answers. Late bloomers - individuals who experience significant success later in life - offer lessons for people who feel frustrated. This book encourages people to think about themselves as potential late bloomers and to discover and encourage and advocate for late blooming in others. After all, it's never too late to discover our hidden talents and our accomplish our goals - the road to success is never as straightforward as we are lead to believe. Julia Child didn't discover that she loved to cook until she was thirty-seven. Vera Wang started her design business at forty. And Michelangelo painted The Last Judgment in his sixties.

This inspiring, passionate book combines wonderful storytellingwith fascinating new research, to shift expectations around our life trajectories. You'll discover a range of blueprints for self-reinvention, pairing the newest insights from psychology and neuroscience with late bloomers' remarkable life stories, from Penelope Fitzgerald to Samuel Johnson, from Frank Lloyd-Wright to Malcolm X.

By: Henry Oliver
Imprint: John Murray One
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 196mm, Width: 128mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 260g
ISBN: 9781399813327
ISBN 10: 1399813323
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 19 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Henry Oliver is a writer, speaker, and brand consultant. He writes regularly for outlets like the New Statesman, The Critic, and UnHerd. He writes the popular Substack The Common Reader, which was recently mentioned in the Atlantic. In 2022, he was given an Emergent Ventures grant.