Robert Gibbings was an artist whose etchings are still on display in major English universities. In the 1930s and 1940s, as he traveled the British Isles in search of scenery, he began taking notes and wrote a number of lyrical, gentle travelogues. He brought to the printed page an artist's delicate sensibility and sentimentality. "Lovely is the Lee" is the book he wrote after visiting his ancestral homeland, the area around Cork, Ireland. It is illustrated with dozens of his fine sharp etchings. It seems that in this case, the sentimental family attachments and his natural empathy for the people resulted in an especially fine book. It was a Book of the Month Club selection in 1945; more than two decades later I found a copy in a book case belonging to my grandmother. I read the book and realized it was something special. I asked my grandmother for it, and it is still on my bed stand today. If you are high strung, worrisome or neurotic, this book is almost therapy in itself. The descriptions of the landscapes are beautiful, and the people described are open, honest and unaffected. You almost feel Gibbings got a last glimpse of a world that has passed away amidst the technological ruckus of the 20th century. Once you read about how he was fitted for a suit by Taedy the Tailor, or listen by the fireside to Patsy Whelan's ghost stories, you'll want to cash in your CDs, burn your computer and take off for the back roads of the Emerald Isle as fast as you can. It is only the realization that Ireland, too, has changed that will stop you. "Lovely is the Lee" is a lyrical, gentle, and haunting book about a man who visited a land almost like Brigadoon. Except that it was real and unlike Brigadoon, it is never coming back.