About this item
Highlights
- Robert Sullivan, the New York Times bestselling author of Rats and Cross Country, delivers a revolutionary reconsideration of Henry David Thoreau for modern readers of the seminal transcendentalist.
- Author(s): Robert Sullivan
- 368 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, Philosophers
Description
About the Book
Robert Sullivan, the New York Times bestselling author of Rats and Cross Country, delivers a revolutionary reconsideration of Henry David Thoreau for modern readers of the seminal transcendentalist. Dispelling common notions of Thoreau as a lonely eccentric cloistered at Walden Pond, Sullivan (whom the New York Times Book Review calls "an urban Thoreau") paints a dynamic picture of Thoreau as the naturalist who founded our American ideal of "the Great Outdoors;" the rugged individual who honed friendships with Ralph Waldo Emerson and other writers; and the political activist who inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and other influential leaders of progressive change. You know Thoreau is one of America's legendary writers...but the Thoreau you don't know may be one of America's greatest heroes.Book Synopsis
Robert Sullivan, the New York Times bestselling author of Rats and Cross Country, delivers a revolutionary reconsideration of Henry David Thoreau for modern readers of the seminal transcendentalist. Dispelling common notions of Thoreau as a lonely eccentric cloistered at Walden Pond, Sullivan (whom the New York Times Book Review calls "an urban Thoreau") paints a dynamic picture of Thoreau as the naturalist who founded our American ideal of "the Great Outdoors;" the rugged individual who honed friendships with Ralph Waldo Emerson and other writers; and the political activist who inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and other influential leaders of progressive change. You know Thoreau is one of America's legendary writers...but the Thoreau you don't know may be one of America's greatest heroes.From the Back Cover
A New York Times Editors' Choice
Most readers think they know Henry David Thoreau: the solitary curmudgeon with the shack out in the woods. In this delightfully engaging book, Robert Sullivan gives us the Thoreau we don't know: the gregarious adventurer, the guy who liked to go camping with friends (even if they sometimes accidentally burned the woods down). Here is no lonely eccentric but a man who danced and sang, who worked throughout his short life at the family pencil-making business, who moved into his parents' house after leaving Walden Pond and always paid his father rent. Passionate yet whimsical, The Thoreau You Don't Know asks us to cast off our misconceptions as we reexamine our everyday relationship with the natural world and one another.
Review Quotes
Praise for Cross Country: "Sullivan takes us on a propulsive ride...By book's end, you'll feel pleasantly tripped out...wide-eyed at all the sights you've seen along the way."A- -- Entertainment Weekly
Praise for Cross Country: "Sullivan adopts the mantle of an urban Thoreau." -- New York Times Book Review
Praise for Cross Country: "'Cross Country' is, by turns, grand, timely, intriguing...fascinating." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
Praise for Cross Country: "Sullivan is everybody's dad on a long cross-country car trip -- setting schedules, getting lost and trying to make the whole experience educational." -- Washington Post