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474th out of 750 books
—
3,792 voters
And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road
by
Margaret Roach (Goodreads Author)
Margaret Roach worked at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for 15 years, serving as Editorial Director for the last 6. She first made her name in gardening, writing a classic gardening book among other things. She now has a hugely popular gardening blog, "A Way to Garden." But despite the financial and professional rewards of her job, Margaret felt unfulfilled. So she moved...more
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
February 23rd 2011
by Grand Central Publishing
(first published 2011)
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Roach had a high level job with the Martha Stewart Corporation but in her early 50s decided to chuck it all and move to her upstate NY country home. Sound familiar? It is but Roach writes about more than the challenges of a somewhat neurotic career woman moving to the country and trying to conquer a new way of life. Her mission was to concentrate on gardening and in finding herself, but it's not easy to give up an identity that is so closely related to a lifelong career. Her "loudest" question f...more
I'm of two minds with this book. First mind: she's a beautiful writer. Sometimes the words she chooses are surprising but spot-on. I liked her stream-of-consciousness style, and I liked her as a person for the most part.
Then, round about the end of the book, she talks about the tragedy of getting a haircut by a "local" hairdresser, as opposed to the big-city one she'd gone to for years. Going to the local was so devastating that she actually cried. I thought it was really demeaning to whoever cu...more
Then, round about the end of the book, she talks about the tragedy of getting a haircut by a "local" hairdresser, as opposed to the big-city one she'd gone to for years. Going to the local was so devastating that she actually cried. I thought it was really demeaning to whoever cu...more
I have enormous respect for a diligent devotee of gardening and all things botanical and ecological (thus the birds, frogs, and Jack the cat that grace the book). Gardening (and nature) has saved my sorry soul many times over. Margaret Roach did a brave and ballsy thing and I applaud her for that. She seemed to plan very well from young age where she really was going in life -- she purchased a home in the country 20 plus years before her Manhattan escape. She was slowly and methodically followin...more
Works referenced:
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton-read?
Plant Dreaming Deep- May Sarton- read?
Memorable Passages:
When you are chopping wood, just chop wood.
I am a woman who increasingly basks in the quality of just enough, and not a pinch more.
Increasingly, it's not even the evening wine I desire, but simply to put down my story of me: my myth, one that I can grow older with in comfort and style. Since the old one no longer fits-like the wardrobe hanging in my closet, a vestige of a life left...more
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton-read?
Plant Dreaming Deep- May Sarton- read?
Memorable Passages:
When you are chopping wood, just chop wood.
I am a woman who increasingly basks in the quality of just enough, and not a pinch more.
Increasingly, it's not even the evening wine I desire, but simply to put down my story of me: my myth, one that I can grow older with in comfort and style. Since the old one no longer fits-like the wardrobe hanging in my closet, a vestige of a life left...more
I picked this book because it has that theme I love so much: moving from the hustle and bustle to a rural setting, one that involves a lot of gardening. This is probably my favorite non-fiction topic.
Then I started reading the book and almost went on a killing spree (not really); it was so irritating and frustrating. It was frustrating because I felt like I was island-hopping, jumping from one notable moment to the next non-annoying anecdote but with a LOT of noise and complaint in between. I'd...more
Then I started reading the book and almost went on a killing spree (not really); it was so irritating and frustrating. It was frustrating because I felt like I was island-hopping, jumping from one notable moment to the next non-annoying anecdote but with a LOT of noise and complaint in between. I'd...more
I heard the author interviewed and was intrigued enough to buy the book.
Let's just say she has read some many great books she was trying to be shelved next to and she didn't make the cut. There were some interesting points there but I found it all too repetitive and as if she needed an editor along the way badly!
She is no May Sarton but then again who is.
A wealthy corporate type leaves behind a high profile job to live closer to the soil in her country house.
Her fear of snakes was all too well...more
Let's just say she has read some many great books she was trying to be shelved next to and she didn't make the cut. There were some interesting points there but I found it all too repetitive and as if she needed an editor along the way badly!
She is no May Sarton but then again who is.
A wealthy corporate type leaves behind a high profile job to live closer to the soil in her country house.
Her fear of snakes was all too well...more
This book falls into a category I tend to call "white lady with deep thoughts doing yoga." And that is not entirely fair in this case, as Margaret Roach notes, more than once, that she used to do yoga but no longer does. I admire Roach for really doing what so many fantasize about in a gauzy way during crowded rides on the subway: she actually does leave the high-powered, exciting job in NYC to move to a tiny town and putter in her garden all day. But the writing here is so navel-directed, so me...more
While I was reading this I was thinking that it was a 4 star book - at first I didn't even like it and thought I might return it to the library mostly unread, but luckily I kept going and now I really have to give it 5 stars. Just beautifully written, for one thing, but it was more just Ms. Roach's story and how she was so able to explain who she really was, and who she was both becoming and leaving behind - I loved it. Full of good quotes and things to think about and if you believe in any sort...more
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I had forgotten that I reserved this book at the public library perhaps six months ago, having seen favorable mention of it in a blog I read. I usually enjoy works about the transition from a conventional career to a more self-sufficient life closer to nature, but this one was frustrating, even though the writing is lovely. It's very stream-of-consciousness in style, and to my way of thinking, borders on self-indulgent. As the reader, I felt ignored, as the author mulled over the deeper meanings...more
Interesting opportunity to follow the thoughts of the author as she leaves her corporate life behind. As someone who alsoenjoys solitude (which isn't the same as loneliness), it was easy to relate. An excellent memoir, well written and without excessive navel gazing. I enjoyed the small surprises.
*Note: This book was provided through the Barnes and Noble ARC program with the expectation of an honest review. My opinions are my own.
*Note: This book was provided through the Barnes and Noble ARC program with the expectation of an honest review. My opinions are my own.
I decided to write a review after reading the other reviews – which are all over the place. I get why: it is a very well written book, very introspective (by definition of a memoir about a woman going through a huge life transition), but not for everyone.
While I enjoyed Eat, Love, Pray, which this has been compared to, I feel that many women completely misunderstood that these women are sharing their journeys, and that each of us has to find our own journey (case in point: women on Oprah saying...more
While I enjoyed Eat, Love, Pray, which this has been compared to, I feel that many women completely misunderstood that these women are sharing their journeys, and that each of us has to find our own journey (case in point: women on Oprah saying...more
Margaret Roach's garden is beyond beautiful. I have toured her garden and seen her lecture and can only hope to achieve that kind of greenery masterpiece.
This book, though.. really needed a ghostwriter. No plot to speak of, distracting asides, chapters full of indecision and rambling. For someone so successful, she comes off as very unsure of herself. Why publish a whole book of your insecurities? She repeatedly interrupts her own sentences with phrases like "(did I just say that?)", making it...more
This book, though.. really needed a ghostwriter. No plot to speak of, distracting asides, chapters full of indecision and rambling. For someone so successful, she comes off as very unsure of herself. Why publish a whole book of your insecurities? She repeatedly interrupts her own sentences with phrases like "(did I just say that?)", making it...more
If trying to read A Widow's Story: A Memoir over spring break was bad timing, the arrival of this book on the last weekend of spring break was good timing. Exactly what I needed. Just as Roach was seeking peace on her own dirt road after years of living in the fast lane, I was seeking the quiet peace of this book after reading the turbulance of A Widow's Story. Perfect.
I love memoirs of people who find a deeper life in quiet places. This is one. And, as a person who left my version of the fast l...more
I love memoirs of people who find a deeper life in quiet places. This is one. And, as a person who left my version of the fast l...more
This is the story of a highly stressed executive woman/weekend country gal and her metamorphosis into a (well, almost) fearless, full-time country gal as she quits her big-name NYC position and pretty much everything else having to do with the city. Though she wouldn't call herself a "real" country girl, her earliest yearnings were for a house in the woods surrounded by gardens and terraces and creature-welcoming grounds and ponds of her own making. Indeed, she is now living out those yearnings...more
I was looking forward to this book and curious why it had a rather low average rating on Goodreads. At first I really admired the intricate, carefully crafted sentences--they almost made me think of someone assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle--but I ended up going 50 pages and out. First, I got irritated by the constant use of quotations. I think by the time I stopped reading, I must have heard from everyone from Socrates to Jimi Hendrix, sometimes three or four quotations on the same page. And the...more
I like Margaret Roach. Having traded a few tweets with her over the past couple of years, I feel like I know her--just a little bit--although I have never met her. So I was anxious to get my hands on a copy of her book.
Reading this book was like peaking into someone's head. It wasn't all pretty and tidy. It was a little messy, a little happy, a little sad, a lot confused. Her move from NYC to the country didn't happen overnight, but her transition to a country lifestyle certainly did. To read th...more
Reading this book was like peaking into someone's head. It wasn't all pretty and tidy. It was a little messy, a little happy, a little sad, a lot confused. Her move from NYC to the country didn't happen overnight, but her transition to a country lifestyle certainly did. To read th...more
My husband's coworker has decided to take early retirement. She and her husband bought a small cottage with a beautiful garden which they plan to maintain and to enlarge. I saw Margaret Roach's "And I Shall Have Some Peace There" at the library and was fascinated by her similar plan. That is until I actually read Roach's book. This book is nothing but rambling nonsense. There is no direction or purpose. She writes of boyfriends and hired matchmakers and her cat and her strange childhood. I found...more
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Margaret Roach's gorgeous tale of trading in the fast lane for her own dirt road had me coveting a summer home and my own green patch of garden.
I was most impressed with her transformation from shopper at SAKS Fifth Avenue to a nubby-cardigan homebody tending her soil.
And I Shall Have Some Peace There is an eloquent, impressive book about how one woman searched her soul to find peace in growing things not crunching numbers.
Of course: one could argue Roach could afford to trade in her City life f...more
I was most impressed with her transformation from shopper at SAKS Fifth Avenue to a nubby-cardigan homebody tending her soil.
And I Shall Have Some Peace There is an eloquent, impressive book about how one woman searched her soul to find peace in growing things not crunching numbers.
Of course: one could argue Roach could afford to trade in her City life f...more
I picked up this book because I enjoy the author's garden blog. Basically this memoir is about Margaret Roach, a Martha Stewart Living executive, who leaves the fast lane in NYC in order to garden full-time in the country.
I think I would have liked this book if I were a different person with different experiences. I am not over fifty, or a career woman who works crazy hours. I'm not neurotic, or afraid of lightening and snakes and going outside without earrings on, nor am I a person who plunks d...more
I think I would have liked this book if I were a different person with different experiences. I am not over fifty, or a career woman who works crazy hours. I'm not neurotic, or afraid of lightening and snakes and going outside without earrings on, nor am I a person who plunks d...more
Since I follow her blog and enjoyed her gardening book, I came to this with high expectations. Once you realize this is the story of a seeker, the neurotic and often self-absorbed narrative makes more sense. But I feel disloyal even writing these words of criticism! After all, if you want a gardening book, read "A Way to Garden." Here she writes about leaving the corporate world behind for a self-made rural life that seems, in the end, to be making her happy. She earns points for the courage it...more
When the most interesting part of the book is how her neighbor plows her driveway after snowfall, we're in trouble. Sentences like this didn't help: "And so from the glimpse on my birthday in June to the 9/11 morning in the driveway and into the wooden box out back, and then, before long, into a whole cottage of his own (a heated shed behind my house that became Jack's, cat door and all), before winter wrapped itself around us that year, my days with Jack began."
The premise is compelling, but th...more
The premise is compelling, but th...more
Overall I found this book interesting. The author leaves her high powered job for life in the country doing her passion, gardening. Her goal is to mark her transition into this new life, from too much thinking, too much doing to learning how to just be and live in the moment. I think she makes some great strides in achieving her goal, and I think she thinks she has achieved it by the end.
To that end, I find it really interesting that a person who is trying not to think so much and learn to live...more
To that end, I find it really interesting that a person who is trying not to think so much and learn to live...more
I was disappointed that she didn't describe more fully what it is like to work for Martha Stewart and MS Omnimedia, though there may be a confidentiality agreement that prevents her from doing so.
The usual cliches of a middle aged American woman going to expensive spiritual retreats particularly grated on my nerves.
I felt that the book was repetitive and not edited with sufficient rigor. I also felt that she could have benefited from the example she quoted, Little House in the Big Woods, which i...more
The usual cliches of a middle aged American woman going to expensive spiritual retreats particularly grated on my nerves.
I felt that the book was repetitive and not edited with sufficient rigor. I also felt that she could have benefited from the example she quoted, Little House in the Big Woods, which i...more
This book was VERY slow. I agree with other readers it seemed to me like a ton of rambling about snakes and such. I had a hard time following it. I had an extremely hard time getting through to the end. Not interesting & unrealistic. Of course she has tons of money from her former job with Martha Steward to go off & live in the middle of nowhere & do whatever she wants...not many of us can do what she is doing. It seemed to me (and others from our book club) that she was trying to fi...more
Took a while to finish this- very dense in thought. Loved the way she brought in so much literature, philosophy & natural history... I learned a lot about gardening, plants, frogs & snakes.
Much of this hit home. Like me, the author prefers her own company to socializing. She loves observing nature, especially her "frog boys" -(I delight in watching my own frogs in the backyard pool) Roach does, however, have FAR more ambition and expertise than I do re gardening & preserving her pr...more
Much of this hit home. Like me, the author prefers her own company to socializing. She loves observing nature, especially her "frog boys" -(I delight in watching my own frogs in the backyard pool) Roach does, however, have FAR more ambition and expertise than I do re gardening & preserving her pr...more
I'm starting to like memoirs. This is written by the former editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Let me tell you, when this book starts SHE IS A MESS! She decides to leave her job, New York City, and her high-paced life in exchange for life at her country house. It's like an internal dialogue of her figuring out her purpose in life (her mantra is "Who are you if you are not margaret.roach@marthastewart.com"). I liked it, it was interesting to see her relaxing into herself, and...more
I was so disappointed in this book. It sounded potentially great and, in fact, she's a very talented writer. For a while it was interesting. But she never moved beyond being sooooooo boringly self-congratulatory. Examining the minutiae of the whole of her life in unending degree. I found it was making me tense to read it - the very opposite of my purpose in choosing it. A sad disappointment. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone, unfortunately. By the time I'd finished half of it, I skimmed to see...more
I hate to give a book one star...but this book drove me bonkers. The writing made little sense and when it did you just wanted to yell get up and do something. The whole book was about her being OK with sitting around and watching birds and frogs instead of working. The writing rhythm was very odd. And there was A LOT of taking about bird watching. I thought she would talk a lot about adjusting to the rigors of maintaining a large garden and the work involved there but the book mostly focused on...more
This was a book that I expected to love because the author has a lovely gardening blog that I enjoy and a promising back story of her escape from NYC and corporate America (she was a bigwig at Martha Stewart) to her garden sanctuary in the country. I had hoped for some gardening essays, some thoughtful but practical commentary on her experience...anything but what actually ended up on the page, which was chapter after chapter of rambling, free-form self doubt and the recurring question of who sh...more
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I was so disappointed by this book. I loved the premise: big city girl quits her job and moves out to the country, spending her days working in the garden and achieving self-actualization. Exactly the sort of escapism that you would never have the luxury to do yourself, but would adore having the opportunity to read about.
I think I gave up somewhere between 100 and 150 pages in. She starts out with her thoughts all cluttered, and I felt pretty frenzied and unenthusiastic about what I was reading...more
I think I gave up somewhere between 100 and 150 pages in. She starts out with her thoughts all cluttered, and I felt pretty frenzied and unenthusiastic about what I was reading...more
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"I garden because I cannot help myself," says Margaret Roach, and "The Backyard Parables" (January 2013) shares what she has learned about horticulture, and life, in the process of digging ever deeper. In December 2007, Roach walked away from New York City and her job as EVP/Editorial Director of Martha Stewart, because she craved other rewards: solitude, a return to the creativity of writing, and...more
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“SHE OF NOBODY ELSE'S BIDDING: That is who I am now--someone who has not done what anyone else said since July 2008, though not because I am either disobedient or a slacker.”
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