Reinventing Home

Through these eloquent and personal essays, six women (including editors Stoner and Green) share insights on how to strike a balance between work and domestic lives, and how the home can be a place for self-discovery and nourishment. When Stoner, a mother of three and former newspaper manager, found herself exhausted and running on empty, she let her home life heal her by decorating a new country house, teaching her daughter to swim, and reading. Mary Beth Danielson, a graduate student and former minister, stresses the importance of rituals, such as sit-down family dinners (``Maybe it is our adult responsibility to create the routines that will hold us together when the world cracks around us.''p. 144 ), and Green, a journalist, explains why her bed, ``the primeval place,''p. 20 is the heart of her home. These musings over the concept of home range broadly from living alone to being a packrat to family relationships and conflicts over domestic activities, such as household chores, managing budgets and interior decorating. These authors convey the message that, in order to enjoy the homes they create, women must relax and temper the need to be perfect housekeepers. First serial to Lear's, Glamour and Ladies' Home Journal. (Mar.)