We had firefighters come to the house this week, instead of UPS! My book intake was low, but there’s something to be said for that old adage “slow and steady wins the race;” I’m racing against myself to shorten my TBR stack!
Bloomsbury USA sent me this gorgeous hardcover of Vivian Swift’s When Wanderers Cease to Roam. It’s full of whimsical drawings and watercolors, notes and observations on a year spent … at home! Here’s the product description:
A charming, illustrated celebration of puttering, doodling, daydreaming, and settling down after years on the road.
Following a lifetime of trekking across the globe, Vivian Swift racked up twenty-three temporary addresses in twenty years, finally dropped her well-worn futon mattress and rucksack in a small town on the edge of the Long Island Sound. She spent the next decade quietly taking stock of her life, her immediate surroundings, and, finally, what it means to call a place a home.
The result is When Wanderers Cease to Roam. Filled with watercolors of beautiful local landscapes, seasonal activities, and small, overlooked pleasures of easy living, each chapter chronicles, month by month, the beautifully mundane perks of remaining at home—from curious notices in the local paper to the variations of autumnal clouds. At once gorgeously rendered and wholly original, this delightful and masterfully observed year of staying put shows us how the details of travel and the details of our lives remain with us—how they can nurture and sustain us, and how the past and the present become, in the end, intertwined.
I underlined a few parts of that description because I can tell, even without yet reading the book cover-to-cover, that this will be a great “stop and smell the roses” reminder.
OK, I’m off to make hot chocolate for my kids now; it’s a cold raw day here, and making hot chocolate is one of those beautifully mundane perks of remaining at home (“not very exciting” as Eric Carle’s The Mixed-Up Chameleon would say) … but I know they’ll enjoy it! Maybe I’ll put that in my book one day 
I got this one yesterday, and I agree, it is absolutely beautiful. I can’t wait to read it.
When Wanderers Cease sounds wonderful. It’s true, if we all slow down a bit there’s a lot of beauty in everyday stuff. I’m going to have to look that one up.
That looks like a beautiful book. I regret not requesting it!
My Friday Finds are here.
Kathy – it’s another raw day here. I think I’ll sit down with a cup of tea this afternoon and leaf through it. I don’t know if it’s meant to be read cover-to-cover …
Ti – The book came at just the right time for me, as I’ve been “stuck” home with sick kids and resented (a bit!) missing my usual morning outings. I reversed my attitude just by looking at a few pages.
Avis – *Wanderers* is light and whimsical, from what I’ve seen. I’m looking forward to really reading it later today.
Dawn, this book seems very unique and it does appeal to me, especially at this particular stage of my life.
I agree that cups of hot chocolate and hot tea are a definite perk of remaining at home. I used to make hot tea at work too, I guess, but it wasn’t the same as curling up in bed or on the sofa to drink it!