Margaret Louise Harris (Author of In the Shade of Oaks)

Margaret Harris rated a book it was ok An Irish History of Civilization: Volume 1 by Don Akenson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A more honest title for this doorstopper would have been, Don Akenson’s Salacious History of Humankind. By the end his perspective is bordering on pornography. Am glad I never had to sit through one of this guy’s classes. Essentially, he takes reporte ...more
Aug 17, 2024 01:20PM · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The story is not beautiful, but the writing of it most assuredly is. Many of us have loved someone who was self-destructive, but this man loves a couple of towns full of self-destructive people. In this book he made me love them too. Although I confe ...more
Aug 17, 2024 01:05PM · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book it was ok Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland by Malachy McCourt	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It began as a rather irreverently seeming parody of the history and mythology of Ireland. But I kept turning the pages to learn whatever his perspective might be on the selected Irish characters of prominence over the last several thousand years, and ...more
Aug 17, 2024 01:02PM · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book did not like it The Radetzky March (Von Trotta Family, #1) by Joseph Roth	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Bleak and dark. If you have the slightest inclination to feel depression, do not read this book. Every character in the story is portrayed as lonely, and most of them are alcoholics. In place of general moral principle for making life decisions, they ...more
Aug 17, 2024 01:00PM · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book did not like it The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland by R.F. Foster	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book is a revisionist history of Ireland, published in 1989 as a set of essays by six academic professors. I found it condescending throughout. I read it to the end, hoping to find at least one of the contributors who didn't simplistically descr ...more
Aug 17, 2024 12:57PM · 7 likes · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This story has a power I never expected. Am still considering whether it is more timely now or would have been so at the time it was finished in the late 1950s. It would, without doubt, have created a firestorm of public controversy at the earlier ti ...more
Aug 17, 2024 12:54PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Margaret Harris rated a book really liked it The Wind in the Forest by Inglis Fletcher	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Between 1940 and 1957 Inglis Fletcher wrote nine novels set in early North Carolina history. "The Wind in the Forest" is the ninth and is just as compelling as each of the others. The romantic plot here revolves around the 1771 Battle of Alamance, a ...more
Aug 17, 2024 12:49PM · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book it was ok County Wexford in the Famine Years 1845-1849 by Anna Kinsella	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I likely expected too much from this little book. It is mostly a recap of more general reports of the Great Irish Famine, with some specific examples of the official actions taken in County Wexford. A few individual families and/or farms are named, b ...more
Aug 17, 2024 12:48PM · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing Eastern Approaches (Reading Program) by Fitzroy Maclean	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book should be more renowned than it is. Since 1980 until now it rested unread on my shelf as a Time-Life Book-of-the-Month-Club issue. Had I read it then, I believe I would still profit by re-reading it now. The author was a most extraordinary ...more
Aug 13, 2024 04:38PM · like · see review
Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing Eastern Approaches (Reading Program) by Fitzroy Maclean	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book should be more renowned than it is. Since 1980 until now it rested unread on my shelf as a Time-Life Book-of-the-Month-Club issue. Had I read it then, I believe I would still profit by re-reading it now. The author was a most extraordinary ...more
Aug 13, 2024 04:30PM · like · see review

Margaret Harris rated a book it was ok

An Irish History of Civilization by Don Akenson

An Irish History of Civilization: Volume 1
by Don Akenson

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A more honest title for this doorstopper would have been, Don Akenson’s Salacious History of Humankind. By the end his perspective is bordering on pornography. Am glad I never had to sit through one of this guy’s classes.

Essentially, he takes reporte ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
by J.D. Vance

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The story is not beautiful, but the writing of it most assuredly is. Many of us have loved someone who was self-destructive, but this man loves a couple of towns full of self-destructive people. In this book he made me love them too. Although I confe The story is not beautiful, but the writing of it most assuredly is. Many of us have loved someone who was self-destructive, but this man loves a couple of towns full of self-destructive people. In this book he made me love them too. Although I confess to difficulty bringing myself to like some of them very much.

The autobiography is compelling—every page of it. But even as he professes to feel “different” from non-hillbillies, we nons can easily relate to every experience he describes. The intensely personal story happens to be intensely human, that fallible condition affecting everyone ever born. I have grown a little weary of repetitious political discussion of “the working class” vs. “the professional and business class,” in my belief and observation that doctors and pilots and bankers and business owners and managers also “work.” (Some lawyers and maybe a few academic professors also work.) And it surely is a given that one’s assignment to “the middle class” also requires work. In the USA there are so many, many people who have experienced all “three” or more(?) “classes” over their brackets of time on earth. Why must we peg ourselves in any particular economic category to wear like a badge of association or membership?

That said, I concede that I never before saw the potential restrictions than can be self-imposed within families—and conclaves of families—because of insecurities about “leaving the nest” (among other insecurities). I am grateful to Mr. Vance for spelling out how I am wrong for denying that a “class” of citizens may be either denigrated by outsiders or withdrawn into themselves to the point of crippling their own freedom to become self-supporting and thus self-accomplished. The Scots-Irish who are the ancestors of America’s modern day hillbillies were fiercely proud, self-sufficient families who played a large role in helping to win the American Revolution. We and they should not forget that heritage, in order to extend encouragement to the descendants who must re-learn strength and determination to heal their modern day wounds.

This is a beautiful and inspiring story, a gift to any reader. May it serve to restore hope to its readers in the Appalachian hollers—and to the readers of every other dysfunctional group of souls across this nation of opportunity. ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book it was ok

Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland
by Malachy McCourt

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It began as a rather irreverently seeming parody of the history and mythology of Ireland. But I kept turning the pages to learn whatever his perspective might be on the selected Irish characters of prominence over the last several thousand years, and ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book did not like it

The Radetzky March (Von Trotta Family, #1)
by Joseph Roth

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Bleak and dark. If you have the slightest inclination to feel depression, do not read this book. Every character in the story is portrayed as lonely, and most of them are alcoholics. In place of general moral principle for making life decisions, they ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book did not like it

The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland
by R.F. Foster

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This book is a revisionist history of Ireland, published in 1989 as a set of essays by six academic professors. I found it condescending throughout. I read it to the end, hoping to find at least one of the contributors who didn't simplistically descr This book is a revisionist history of Ireland, published in 1989 as a set of essays by six academic professors. I found it condescending throughout. I read it to the end, hoping to find at least one of the contributors who didn't simplistically describe history as "clashes of classes." But, alas, from the year 77 to the date this "history" ended in about 1987, the people of Ireland are portrayed as either tribal class, lordship class, vassal class, magnate class, rural class, noble class, peasant class, ascendancy class, tenant class, landholding class, rebels, militants, degenerates, priests, bards, high society, low society, and of course the ultimate Marxian assignments: bourgeoisie and proletariat. Herr Marx himself is cited for his "observations" about the hierarchy of status among populations, which does at least suggest a source for these professors' fixation upon categorizing everyone according to some social "status."

Besides general group classifications, each historical individual cited—from mythology through royal, political, literary, religious, military, or rebellious fields—is placed into one "class" or another, but if any is said to have moved from a birth class to another class during a lifetime, he or she is besmirched for some sort of betrayal. Every phase of the 2000-year-old history of Ireland is demeaned as it is summarized by these authors, and the conclusion on the final page seems to be that the Irish are hopelessly inept and unlikely to ever be able to govern themselves should they ultimately succeed in their recurring attempts to extricate themselves from rule by foreign invaders over the centuries.

How ironic that since 1989, the Irish have proved these writers to be wildly mistaken. I will have to find another book to teach me the history of the past 27 years, so that I will understand how a tourist to Ireland today finds such a clean, orderly, and exquisitely beautiful land filled with kind, generous, industrious, prosperous, gracious, and welcoming native citizens. How, indeed, did such a degenerate culture produce such vast numbers of musicians, writers, craftsmen, corporate executives, politicians, professional golfers, small business operators, large business managers, agricultural producers, and every other skilled occupation one might name, both at home and throughout the world?

Whatever accuracy is related about Irish history in this book is overridden by a tone of unnecessary snobbery that spoils the telling. ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing

Go Set a Watchman
by Harper Lee

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This story has a power I never expected. Am still considering whether it is more timely now or would have been so at the time it was finished in the late 1950s. It would, without doubt, have created a firestorm of public controversy at the earlier ti This story has a power I never expected. Am still considering whether it is more timely now or would have been so at the time it was finished in the late 1950s. It would, without doubt, have created a firestorm of public controversy at the earlier time, but might this little piece of literature have possibly prompted readers to think more carefully about their personal opinions—and behavior—during the succeeding decades of political turbulence? The one overriding reason to be grateful for the delayed publication, however, is that, had it been printed first, we would never have had the joy and comfort of the polished To Kill A Mockingbird. It seems somehow that publishing Mockingbird first, especially with the gift of its reproduction immortalized in film by Gregory Peck, we were "let down easy." No matter. I'm grateful to have lived long enough to read both of Harper Lee's masterpieces.

Do NOT, dear reader, pay much mind to the more prominent professional reviewers (from NPR, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time Magazine, New Yorker, New Republic, and assorted online commentaries/blogs) of Go Set A Watchman. They all seem to have missed the story's essence, which is that all of us human specimens carry a tragic flaw: the instinctive tendency to misjudge and misunderstand our fellow humans. Harper Lee, even at the young age at which she wrote these two books, possessed an insight that most of us fail to gain even after a long lifetime. She pleaded with us to make a greater—and deeper—effort at self-reflection. She even took the step of quoting directly for us a dictionary definition of bigot: "Noun. One obstinately or intolerably devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion." Ouch. We each try to tell ourselves that we are better than somebody else. Sometimes it is even true. But often it isn't. Atticus saw that when people's hearts were changed one at a time, new insight was more effective and secure, but when the lifetime rituals of a neighborhood were ordered changed by decree, a shared resistance was natural, even if wrong. He was not only wise, but humble enough to guide his friends to help themselves. By his kindness, he spread civility. Uncle Jack recognized the difficulties and consoled himself by reference to history and timeless literature. Both help Jean Louise to soften her animosity.

We accept Mockingbird because it allows us to sit in the balcony and look down on the bigots. In Watchman, there is more to struggle with. There are several scenes featuring mirrors. This is careful writing.

This book should not be judged until the last chapter, the last page, the last sentence. Maybe the reviewers did too cursory a reading, so that they misunderstood certain characters just as the protagonist Jean Louise Finch did. Maybe they also were blinded by their own prejudices, not to say by modern-day political correctness. I suggest allowing this "true fiction" to punch you in the stomach. Before choosing villains to suit your own narrative, look deeply inward. Harper Lee's two novels are partners. Both are classic. And we are blessed to have both, if only we will read with open minds. ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book really liked it

The Wind in the Forest
by Inglis Fletcher

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Between 1940 and 1957 Inglis Fletcher wrote nine novels set in early North Carolina history. "The Wind in the Forest" is the ninth and is just as compelling as each of the others. The romantic plot here revolves around the 1771 Battle of Alamance, a ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book it was ok

County Wexford in the Famine Years 1845-1849
by Anna Kinsella

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I likely expected too much from this little book. It is mostly a recap of more general reports of the Great Irish Famine, with some specific examples of the official actions taken in County Wexford. A few individual families and/or farms are named, b ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing

Eastern Approaches (Reading Program)
by Fitzroy Maclean

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This book should be more renowned than it is. Since 1980 until now it rested unread on my shelf as a Time-Life Book-of-the-Month-Club issue. Had I read it then, I believe I would still profit by re-reading it now. The author was a most extraordinary This book should be more renowned than it is. Since 1980 until now it rested unread on my shelf as a Time-Life Book-of-the-Month-Club issue. Had I read it then, I believe I would still profit by re-reading it now. The author was a most extraordinary man. A preface reveals that he was a graduate of Eton and Cambridge and spoke fluently five European languages, quickly learning others (such as Serbo-Croat and Greek) when traveling in the territories of foreign speakers. His exquisitely beautiful writing of the “travel” he did during the eight years of this memoir leave me hopelessly inadequate to review it—but I must try.

Between 1937 and 1939 as a British diplomat to Moscow in his mid-twenties, he surreptitiously visited central Asian Soviet towns and cities under control of Stalinist Russia. All areas were “forbidden” to foreigners, so he was always followed by NKVD officers, and occasionally arrested, but he always managed to talk his way out of temporary captivity. His colorful descriptions of what he saw, how it compared with the history he had previously studied about the places (mostly “-stan” countries), and about his interactions with the various populations are beyond enlightening. Wintering in Moscow, he also attended a lengthy show trial of Communist Party “has-beens” which he relates in chilling detail.

When WWII began he joined the British Special Air Service and was assigned to North Africa, where he participated in attempted sabotage operations against the Germans and Italians in Benghazi and other desert areas. A side assignment was the carefully orchestrated kidnapping of a Persian general who was suspected (later documented) of collaborating with the Nazis. Then, after personal instruction from Prime Minister Churchill, he was sent to parachute into the Yugoslavian forest to meet with Marshall Tito in order to assess the capability (and true intentions) of a guerilla force reported to be fighting against the Germans in that Eastern side of the Adriatic. If the story wasn’t scary enough already, it sure became so now.

This is a side of World War II that I never before appreciated. The book is 550 pages of you-are-there action. But what a (cowardly?) relief to experience it from my arm chair eighty years later as a rather self-effacing hero so calmly tells it to me. ...more

Margaret Harris rated a book it was amazing

Eastern Approaches (Reading Program)
by Fitzroy Maclean

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This book should be more renowned than it is. Since 1980 until now it rested unread on my shelf as a Time-Life Book-of-the-Month-Club issue. Had I read it then, I believe I would still profit by re-reading it now. The author was a most extraordinary This book should be more renowned than it is. Since 1980 until now it rested unread on my shelf as a Time-Life Book-of-the-Month-Club issue. Had I read it then, I believe I would still profit by re-reading it now. The author was a most extraordinary man. A preface reveals that he was a graduate of Eton and Cambridge and spoke fluently five European languages, quickly learning others (such as Serbo-Croat and Greek) when traveling in the territories of foreign speakers. His exquisitely beautiful writing of the “travel” he did during the eight years of this memoir leave me hopelessly inadequate to review it—but I must try.

Between 1937 and 1939 as a British diplomat to Moscow in his mid-twenties, he surreptitiously visited central Asian Soviet towns and cities under control of Stalinist Russia. All areas were “forbidden” to foreigners, so he was always followed by NKVD officers, and occasionally arrested, but he always managed to talk his way out of temporary captivity. His colorful descriptions of what he saw, how it compared with the history he had previously studied about the places (mostly “-stan” countries), and about his interactions with the various populations are beyond enlightening. Wintering in Moscow, he also attended a lengthy show trial of Communist Party “has-beens” which he relates in chilling detail.

When WWII began he joined the British Special Air Service and was assigned to North Africa, where he participated in attempted sabotage operations against the Germans and Italians in Benghazi and other desert areas. A side assignment was the carefully orchestrated kidnapping of a Persian general who was suspected (later documented) of collaborating with the Nazis. Then, after personal instruction from Prime Minister Churchill, he was sent to parachute into the Yugoslavian forest to meet with Marshall Tito in order to assess the capability (and true intentions) of a guerilla force reported to be fighting against the Germans in that Eastern side of the Adriatic. If the story wasn’t scary enough already, it sure became so now.

This is a side of World War II that I never before appreciated. The book is 550 pages of you-are-there action. But what a (cowardly?) relief to experience it from my arm chair eighty years later as a rather self-effacing hero so calmly tells it to me. ...more

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