Book Review: Keep Moving by Maggie Smith

 

Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

by Maggie Smith

I have really enjoyed this book. If I didn’t need to write a review for it, it’s one of those books that I would have taken far longer to read, a little at a time, and mull over before moving on.

The physical format is a very satisfying thick, hardcover book, chunky and substantial in the hand. I like how the very short essays alternate with single page entries that work as a sort of meditation moment. The author says she wrote one a day to herself for some time to encourage herself.

There is much that is eminently relatable to me in this book of essays and affirmations, from the difficulties of motherhood post-partum, and the loss of sense of self, to my enjoyment of editing as a whittling down of words to a more “concentrated form.”

I really enjoyed her perspective of many ideas, from “commit to trying” to “what you are worth to someone else is not what you are worth.” I love the idea of looking at difficult times you are going through as your own superhero origin story.

She also provides, in one of her own experiences, a mention of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. I had never heard of the center but I’m looking forward to checking out their web site as a way to continue working on the ideas the author shares in this book. I suspect it will be very complimentary. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/

The one detraction that I feel I have to note comes from the size of the font on the essays and the color of the font on some of the short entries. The font is really quite small and while it is bold enough to generally read comfortably for myself, I have a feeling some people are going to find themselves squinting at it or getting a magnifying glass. A bigger font would have been wise.

Likewise, the light turquoise color of some entries is lovely, but on the smaller size font entries, it makes some words rather hard to make out on the white pages. In my humble opinion, the former was a choice which may lose some readers, the latter is quite simply a bad choice.

All in all, I am very glad to have the hard cover of this book on my shelf, and I think I will be going back to read it again.