Readers may recognize Vivian Swift as the talented author and illustrator of When Wanderers Cease to Roam, an original book full of musings and watercolors depicting the pleasures of simply staying put. Much of Swift's life, though, has actually been spent trekking across the globe; she accumulated 23 temporary addresses within a span of 20 years. She has returned to travel as the subject of her second book, Le Road Trip.
Swift falls in love and marries a man named James; they quickly embark on a honeymoon trip to France. Both are experienced travelers; Swift, a lifelong Francophile, has previously lived and worked in Paris. As they travel through Normandy and Brittany to Bordeaux, and back to Paris via the Loire Valley and Chartres, Swift chronicles their adventures in words and pictures. Le Road Trip is a charming mix of contemplation of all things French, humorous travel tips and ruminations about new relationships. The book is typeset by hand and supplemented with beautifully illustrated watercolors in both black-and-white and color.
Like Swift's first book, Le Road Trip can be difficult to categorize; it is not quite a travel guide and not quite a memoir. Instead, it is perhaps best described as a wonderfully illustrated recollection of a near-perfect road trip, as told by a woman obviously in love with both her new spouse and the country of France. --Roni K. Devlin, owner of Literary Life Bookstore & More