EVENING STAR

This is one of Faith Baldwin's hearthside reveries (Harvest of Hope; There is a Season: etc.) and her almanac begins in September, ""a remembering sort of month"" and goes on the the ""blue ribbon days"" of October, November, ""a month of stillness,"" etc. In her occasional, intimate fashion, she writes about her activities, her friends and relatives, the ""sights and sounds"" of katydids or brooks or zinnias entwined with thoughts about peace, or balance, or serendipity and sometimes the words of greater thinkers (Emerson or Shakespeare). Some of it is festooned with decorator prose--June...""is the burgeoning month, bridal white, blush pink, deep pink, apple-jade green..."" but then there's a little common sense-- ""Nostalgia is charming if it does not become a way of life."" Still to a large extent it is the justification of these books along with their penultimate designation.