Vivian Swift spent most of her 20s and 30s traveling to exotic places -- Paris, Ireland, Africa, Scotland, South America. So when she settled down in a village on Long Island, she decided to stay put for a while, and pay attention to the close-at-hand world. The result is a yearlong journal, hand-lettered, illustrated with her own watercolors and notes and some of her favorite quotations -- a cluttered, slightly jumbled hodgepodge, but an appealing one.
She has a nice eye for detail: She notes the various muds of March, the many different rains of April (pouring, drenching, drizzle, spritz, driving, dripping, soaking, mist), the constellations of July. Day by day, month by month, she takes you into her life, recounting not just that one year, but going back in time and spinning stories of her travels: losing an earring in Dublin, or buying fabric in Niger, or drinking tea in Buenos Aires. The book crosses the line into precious now and then, but its great warmth and intimacy make a bit of cuteness a forgivable sin.
LAURIE HERTZEL
