In beautifully written memoirs by some of the great women writers of America, The Quiet Center resonates with the wisdom gleaned from everyday life. Originally published in the pages of Victoria magazine in its first decade, the essays in this volume speak to and from a woman's heart. In this collection of highly acclaimed women writers (including Jane Smiley, Madeleine L'Engle, Diane Ackerman, and Carol Shields), we find the mystery and meaning in life's most ordinary passages and rituals, such as allowing the sound of a mother's lullaby to enter one's DNA, or learning to fall in love, or muddling through the stages of sisterhood. Although these essays originally appeared in Victoria magazine, they are untainted by schmaltz or flowery notions. Each piece speaks from precious years of spiritual reflection and carries the weight of world-class writers. --Gail Hudson Victoria, a Hearst magazine, has been described as one of the most successful consumer publications launched in the last decade. The short original essays collected here from its pages and introduced by its editor, Nancy Lindemeyer, are grouped under such topics as childhood, rituals, and "in the company of the past." For example, Susan Minot writes about the closeness of sisters, who form a "four-headed hydra." Madeleine L'Engle describes how not to "forget the obvious" lest we become "less human." Jane Smiley, a confirmed Janeite, tells of a male acquaintance who finally came to appreciate Austen's work. Diane Ackerman, in a section called "The Quiet Center of One's Life," describes feeding the deer who ravage her garden, happy that they "will survive at least one more day because of this food." The collection lacks biographical information about the authors but does provide good reading that can be dipped into. Appropriate for public and academic collections.?Nancy P. Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, N.C. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. In a world that gives tranquillity and beauty short shrift, Victoria magazine has proved to be an oasis for its readers, providing inspiration and guidance for infusing everyday life with simple elegance, serenity, and sensuality. Beautiful language, as Nancy Lindemeyer, the magazine's first editor, explains in her foreword, is an essential element in evolving an awareness and appreciation of beauty, and she and her fellow editors have published original pieces by an impressive array of contemporary writers. This volume collects the best of those essays and memoirs, celebrating, in the process, the first decade of a magazine that now boasts three million readers a month. Victoria 's contributors include Jane Smiley, Francine Prose, Susan Minot, Madeleine L'Engle, Carol Shields, and Diane Ackerman, and their diverse works are gathered under such topical headings as "Rituals," "Places of the Heart," "In the Company of the Past," "On Writing and Writers," and "The Quiet Center of One's Life." Truly a unique, lovely, and evocative anthology. Donna Seaman A collection of brief, rather shallow, sentiment-tinged essays and memoirs from some noted writers. Victoria's editors have gathered almost 70 glimpses of domestic existence from the first decade of their magazine. The pieces seem to agree in feeling that life is, in fact, pretty much a bowl of cherries: The relatives here (usually female) almost always get along, children never pout, affluence is common, and spare time goes into gardening or reading or remembering what one has read. There are bright moments, as when Madeleine L'Engle notes (with the wryness that keeps her saccharine rating below this volume's average) that `` `I can't do this and keep my integrity' usually means `I cannot do this and have my own way.' '' Or when Carol Shields argues that parties provide a unique illumination of character. Or when Maxine Claire links the development of her poetic voice to her mother's talent for improvisational piano playing. Most entries, though, are more banal. Judith Thurman, who spent a year in Paris, anticipates the ``Proustian glamour'' that will accrue to her son when, as an adult, he can say he once played in the Luxembourg Gardens. Living in a house previously owned by two sisters, Susan Schneider imagines their kindly presence; even a form letter to the deceased sisters gives her the feeling that ``the real message was: Remember us.'' Exuding the score-keeping attitude that gives good manners a bad name, Jane Howard informs us that her mother taught her to write thank-you notes and if she had ever had children, they certainly would have learned to do so, too. To the reader who imagines that everyone else leads better, happier lives, this book whispers, in a voice scented with equal parts of attar of roses and smugness: ``You're right. We do.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. PORCH SWINGS, OLD NOVELS, AND MEMORIES OF SUMMERS PAST Though many a house has sheltered me in the course of summers past