Walden - (Vintage Classics) by Henry David Thoreau (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In 1845, the American Transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau went to live in the woods near his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. For over two years he resided there largely in solitary, in a small cabin built by his own hands. Walden is his personal account of this time, in which he documents both his passion for the landscape and wildlife of Walden Pond, and his philosophical and political motivations for rejecting the materialism which continues to define not only America, but much of the modern world.

Review Quotes

"Walden can be taken as an antidote to apathy and anxiety. With its high spirits and keen appeals to the senses, it fortifies." --John Updike, Guardian

"A lovely read . . . Thoreau was ahead of his time, right down to his hipster beard." --Lauren Laverne, The Pool

"It is as philosophy, as one of the great self-help books, as a spiritual message, that is Walden at its most powerful." --Washington Post

"Like Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Walden is one of those seriously important books I feel I must have read and, if I haven't, I should, because seriously important people - Tolstoy, Marx, Gandhi - said that it changed their lives." --Sue Arnold, Guardian

About the Author

Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, the town where he would live for most of his life. Along with Ralph Waldo Emerson, he is the most famous of the American Transcendentalists. Benjamin Markovits has written for the New York Times, Granta, The Paris Review, and Esquire. His books include You Don't Have to Live Like This.