Keep It Moving by Twyla Tharp [9/10]

A most unlikely minor miracle. Spy the cover of a sharp-eyed but older woman emblazoned with a title of “Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life” in a book shop, and you’d be forgiven for dismissing this as a lame How-To full of platitudes. Luckily, when I spotted this book, I was in the know, for I’d soaked up Twyla Tharp’s astringent, vital advice bible for writers and other creatives, The Creative Habit, back in 2006. Tharp is an iconic choreographer, so both her books come from the world of dance but her message in both books, which is that it’s all about hard work and discipline, transcend her world. Keep It Moving offers twelve robust chapters of advice from Tharp, pitched at my age and older (she is over 70), and each chapter includes a set of physical exercises (“Squirm,” “Jump for Joy,” “marking your day,” and so on) and each of these strikes me as valuable. The author evangelizes movement and attitude, cajoles, and preaches, all expressed in a vibrant, blunt, intelligent style. For someone like me in the target audience, Keep It Moving is one of the best exercise How-To books I’ve come across, and I heartily recommend it for all ages.