Living in families, though traditional and almost universal on this evolving planet, is experiencing an unplanned but effective attack, according to a new book.

Author Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at New York University, sees lessons to be learned. He sums them up in his subtitle: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.

What good is living alone? Isolate yourself from all your friends? No wife? No husband? No mother? And all that laundry to do? Babies? Maybe, later.

Klinenberg also collects interviews with older people who choose independent living rather than available alternatives as long as they can, though their stories are necessarily sadder than those of young people.

Though the short book is largely concerned with the United States, it devotes 10 vivid pages to solutions innovated in Sweden. Back in the 1930s social planner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Alva Myrdal opened a "collective house". It had 57 units for single women and single mothers, with a communal kitchen, a nursery and small elevator service to each unit for meal deliveries.

"Solitude, once we learn how to use it, does more than restore our personal energy," Klinenberg concludes. "It also sparks new ideas about how we might better live together."