Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of And I Shall Have Some Peace There by Margaret Roach

And I Shall Have Some Peace There by Margaret Roach

And I Shall Have Some Peace There

Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road

by Margaret Roach

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2011, 272 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

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 to her weekend house upstate in an effort to lead a more authentic life by connecting with her garden and with nature. The memoir she wrote about this journey is funny, quirky, humble--and uplifting--an Eat, Pray, Love without the travel - and allows readers to live out the fantasy of quitting the rat race and getting away from it all.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. A moving, eloquent and joyously idiosyncratic memoir." - Kirkus

"Readers may appreciate her candid, stream-of-consciousness style in this memoir, but it is too unstructured and inchoate to be as satisfying as her other work." - Publishers Weekly

"Roach limns a reflective odyssey for affirmation and acceptance that blends Zen-like wisdom with zany escapades." - Booklist

"And I Shall Have Some Peace recounts her transformation from urban routines to bucolic simplicity. A fine read for Walter Mitty rural folk." - Barnes and Noble

This information about And I Shall Have Some Peace There was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Margaret Roach

Margaret Roach has been a columnist at the New York Times, fashion editor at Newsday, the first garden editor for Martha Stewart Living magazine, and the editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. In 2008 Roach left New York City for her home upstate, where she is a consultant and avid gardener, keeping fans up to date on her blogs "A Way to Garden" and "The Sister Project". Roach is the author of A Way to Garden, named Best Garden Book of the Year by the Garden Writers' Association of America, and Groundcovers, part of the Burpee American Gardening Series, and co-authored The Natural Habitat Garden.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked And I Shall Have Some Peace There, try these:

  • Dispersals jacket

    Dispersals

    by Jessica J.. Lee

    Published 2025

    About this book

    A prize-winning memoirist and nature writer turns to the lives of plants entangled in our human world to explore belonging, displacement, identity, and the truths of our shared future

  • Brood jacket

    Brood

    by Jackie Polzin

    Published 2022

    About this book

    An exquisite new literary voice - wryly funny, nakedly honest, beautifully observational, in the vein of Jenny Offill and Elizabeth Strout - depicts one woman's attempt to keep her four chickens alive while reflecting on a recent loss.

  • Serious Face jacket

    Serious Face

    by Jon Mooallem

    Published 2022

    About this book

    From the discovery of the author's face in a century-old photograph to a triple-amputee hospice director working at the border of life and death, here are thirteen hopeful, heartbreaking, and profound essays from "one of the most intelligent, compassionate, and curious authors working today" (Elizabeth Gilbert).

We have 10 read-alikes for And I Shall Have Some Peace There, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

More Biography/Memoir

Browse all Biography/Memoir books

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
Who Said...

They say that in the end truth will triumph, but it's a lie.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.