First published in 2009, and more recently in a paperback edition, Transcend presents “an easy-to-follow program” — “a comprehensive exercise program, sample menus and recipes, precise dosages for supplements, when and where to obtain blood tests, and many other helpful details.”

The program’s initial goal is “to slow down and in many cases to stop the processes that lead to disease and aging” so that we can “live — well — for decades longer than what we now consider a long life.” But the promise that Kurzweil and Grossman’s manual holds out is not just more years of healthy life. The aim is not longevity, but immortality. “If you stay on the cutting edge of our rapidly expanding knowledge, you can indeed live long enough to live forever.” […]

Note: This article is printed in the November 24, 2011 issue of the New York Review of Books.