Le road trip A traveler's journal of love and France

If the traditional travel guide provides security with its objective detail, organizational structure, predictable outline, and recommendations-by-committee, Swift (When Wanderers Cease To Roam) charms by doing just the opposite. With honesty, whimsy, and subjectivity, she writes in a lively and authentic manner about traveling in her beloved France. She achieves this with her loose, stream-of-thought, anecdotal, and episodic style but especially through her drawings. Everything is covered-nightscapes, a bread guide, gardens, storefronts, a "what to pack" list, Cancale oysters, Bordeaux grapes, statues-with the spontaneity of a cafe session sketch that nearly belies its elegant detail and accuracy. They seem at once in-the-moment and a commentary on it. VERDICT Swift's narrative feels like a vacation. It's interested in the history of bridges and cheese and wine, takes notice of room decor and the contrasting tones of village streets at dusk and dawn, and wonders about (what must be) a town's laundry day and neighborhood cats. A fun, funny, and wonderful experience; highly recommended.-Ben Malczewski, Ypsilanti Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.