“Retirement Without Borders” ($19.95, Scribner) is for the handful of you who are surviving this economic hiccup just fine, thank you very much, and are still on course to make the move from employee to leisurely pensioner without having to do any transitional work as the granny cashier at McDonald’s. For the rest of us, this book is for dreaming, flipping through the pages with sections headed “Belize,” followed by “You wake up with the sun. You walk to the veranda and watch the waves breaking on the barrier reef.” Each chapter describes a different retirement destination, which are broken down by country and divided into two main categories, Latin America and Europe. Some of them sound almost affordable; each starts off with a similarly dreamy narrative. Next comes a box of “upsides” and “downsides” to spending one’s final days in that particular location, along with briefs on things such as the area’s climate, people, history, particularly appealing parts of the country, and the health care and medical offerings available. The information is brief and not intended to be exhaustive, but for those looking to do their initial research into the idea of retiring abroad, this isn’t a bad place to start — especially if you think through the authors’ well-argued reasons for and against taking the plunge at the beginning. Kyle Wagner
