Writer and actor Miranda Keeling delights in the details. Her popular Twitter account captures small vignettes of daily life, mostly in London where she lives. Her first book, The Year I Stopped to Notice, chronicles a year of Keeling's observations--odd, funny, sweet or all of the above--organized by month. With chapter openers and occasional full-page vignettes done in pen-and-inks with watercolor wash by Luci Power, Keeling's book highlights these whimsical, poignant and just plain strange glimpses into people's lives.
Some incidents are sweet: "a little boy in Hackney waves at every single person he passes in his pram, and shouts: 'You're doing so well!' " Some are wry: "Woman knee-deep in mud at Glastonbury Festival: The trick is to keep moving or sink without trace." Some are cinematic: "A breeze blows fallen blossom across the grey pavement." Taken together, Keeling's words make up a kaleidoscope of everyday impressions, giving readers a sense of the glorious and the mundane all mixed together.
"It's the small moments, like the one you're having right now, that make up this book," Keeling notes in her introduction, recalling walks with her mother as a small child which began her love of noticing the everyday. "Read it in any order, at any time," she adds. As she travels on the Tube, peeks through windows of cafés or simply walks down the street, Keeling captures in words the melancholy, the delightful, the wacky and the wise. "May you remember to stop and notice," she urges readers. Her book is a charming celebration and a wonderful guide. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams