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  • You Could Make This Place Beautiful

  • By: Maggie Smith
  • Narrated by: Maggie Smith
  • Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (8 ratings)

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You Could Make This Place Beautiful

By: Maggie Smith
Narrated by: Maggie Smith
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Publisher's Summary

'Life, like a poem, is a series of choices'

In her long-awaited debut memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, award-winning poet Maggie Smith explores in lyrical vignettes the end of her marriage and the beginning of a surprising new life. With the spirit of reflection and empathy she's known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness and narrative itself.

It is a story about a mother's fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman's love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.

©2023 Maggie Smith (P)2023 Canongate Books

Critic Reviews

'In this lightning bolt of a debut memoir, Maggie Smith gives us the truth of healing in form as much as story: getting through is no pretty, linear narrative. It's one chapter forward and five chapters back. You Could Make This Place Beautiful gave me back a part of myself I thought was gone for good: the knowledge that beauty isn't something out there to find. It's in us.' (Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life)

'You Could Make This Place Beautiful is a sparklingly brilliant memoir-in-vignettes that only Maggie Smith could write. Yet this is a book for everyone - who among us has never had our world upended by the loss of a relationship? Maggie Smith's powerful mastery of language, and amazing ability to portray life in all its rich messiness, is on full display in this bold, brutally candid, and yes, beautiful, book.' (Isaac Fitzgerald, New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts)

'Listen, you may not need me to tell you what you already know about the shining star that is Maggie Smith, but you can certainly add me to the chorus of those singing her praises about You Could Make This Place Beautiful. Among her singular gifts as a writer are the way she swiftly brings her poetry to her prose; her willingness to show up to the page with aspirational levels of vulnerability, grace and joy; and a clarity of heart amid the heartbreak.' (Elizabeth Crane, author of This Story Will Change)

What listeners say about You Could Make This Place Beautiful

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thoughtful, beautiful, thank you.

Thoughtful, beautiful, vulnerable and honest. Thank you. Beautifully read by the author. I'll be returning to this book over the years.

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Amazing

Amazing. I feel so seen and heard by this generous storyteller. I would 100% recommend.

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Beautiful

I loved listening to the author read her own beautiful, sad, inspiring words. I would describe this book as life-changing. Maggie Smith’s wonderful way of looking at life is infectious. Highly recommend listening ☺️

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Someone said it’s life changing

Which is why I downloaded it.
I’m a freelancer too. I juggle the kids, the house, the families needs and work. I’ve never been treated like my work is in fact “real”. I’m always considered the lesser money earner.
If nothing else, it has opened my eyes to made me reevaluate many inequities in my home.

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Lyrically haunting

So very well written and narrated beautifully - I had not heard of ‘this’ Maggie Smith until this book and I will be looking for more of her books and poems. Ms Smith writes about how loss shifts the ground beneath our feet and how we gain strength and perspective as we move through what events happen to us along the way, events that are both within our control and those that are not. Highly recommend this book

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Long winded excuses for not telling a story

I felt ripped off by this book. It just never got started. The protagonist does not have anything of substance to say

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