Book Review of
Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down

Lynn's Review

Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down by Ida Keeling is Ida Keeling’s memoir.

My husband and I listened to this on audio on a recent car trip. 

It is Ida Keeling’s memoir of her family’s coming to America, growing up during the Great Depression in New York, having kids, getting married, losing her two sons to violence, and eventually taking up running in her sixties. 

I enjoyed this memoir, but it was nothing like I expected. I think I would have enjoyed it more, had I realized it was essentially just a memoir. 

I say that because this book was listed on several book lists that I saw about books on running. Several of the books on the list were ones that I had read, and they were definitely about running. Running was the star of the book, so that is what I expected this one to be. It wasn’t. 

Ida Keeling took up running in her 60s to help deal with the deaths of her two sons. Once she started running, she loved it. She went on to set multiple running records for her age. It is amazing that she ran as she did in her 70s and 80s. 

I thought this book would be more about running and her running life. I was looking for inspiration for my goal of running again. But that is not what this book was. 

The running part of the book was only really the very end. I would say less than 10% of this book is about running. 

Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down by Ida Keeling is a memoir of someone who started running late in life, but it isn’t a running book. 

If I had realized that before starting it, I think I would have liked it more. I enjoy memoirs, so I liked this book. I just wish I had realized that it was more of a memoir than a running book. 

I will say the book is a bit scattered. Some chapters focus on a topic rather than a timeline, so the book feels scattered at times.