Liz Garrigan

July 12, 2012 Vivian Swift, the author of When Wanderers Cease to Roam (2008), abandoned her garden trowel and Adirondack chair, packed her bags, and doodled enough during her honeymoon in France to write a book about the experience. Swift’s ode to travel—and to France, too, though chiefly to travel—includes hundreds of her own watercolor illustrations, notes, and captions, which make the book feel more like an intimate collection of remembrances and a kind of quirky catalog of travel recipes than a straight memoir. “Travel is a lot like sex,” writes Swift. “It’s very personal, prone to fads, and competitive; and we’re all secretly curious how other people do it.” Swift will discuss and sign Le Road Trip at 2 p.m. July 14 at Parnassus Books in Nashville.

May 8, 2012 Sissy Spacek may be a Hollywood legend—she’s best known for her Academy Award-winning portrayal of Loretta Lynn in the 1980 film Coal Miner’s Daughter—but her stories are refreshingly devoid of unwanted pregnancies, drug and alcohol addiction, marital abuse, family dysfunction, or devastating divorce. Spacek’s new memoir contains no shocking bombshells, no reprisals, not even the faintest hint of relationship retaliation. The book is quite simply the account of a charmed and happy life, of family love and loyalty, of cherished children and pets, of gardens watered in pajamas. On May 13, as part of the Salon@615 series, Spacek will discuss My Extraordinary Ordinary Life at the Nashville Public Library at 3 p.m.