Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Originally published in , Walden; or, Life in the Woods, is a vivid account of the time that Henry D.
Thoreau lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. It is one of the most influential and compelling books in American literature. This new paperback edition-introduced by noted American writer John Updike-celebrates the th anniversary of this classic work. Much of Walden's material is derived from Thoreau's journals and contains such engaging pieces as "Reading" and "The Pond in the Winter" Other famous sections involve Thoreau's visits with a Canadian woodcutter and with an Irish family, a trip to Concord, and a description of his bean field.
This is the complete and authoritative text of Walden-as close to Thoreau's original intention as all available evidence allows. For the student and for the general reader, this is the ideal presentation of Thoreau's great document of social criticism and dissent.
Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Henry David Thoreau. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Walden , please sign up. If you were to pick a season in which to read Walden, which would it be?
Abner Rosenweig Spring in my youth; Summer in mid-age; Autumn in my senior years; and Winter in old age. Walden should be read many times. It is truly a book for all …more Spring in my youth; Summer in mid-age; Autumn in my senior years; and Winter in old age. It is truly a book for all seasons! The redundancy of stating the same point in a million different irritates me to no end.
Does it get more substantial later? There are good bits, but you really have to work to get through the waffle. See all 16 questions about Walden…. Lists with This Book.
Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Walden. Jul 14, Riku Sayuj rated it it was amazing Shelves: philosophy , r-r-rs , favorites , ecology.
The first half is written by Thoreau, the accomplished philosopher and soars much above my humble powers of comprehension; the second half is written by Thoreau, the amateur naturalist and swims much below my capacity for interest. After reading about the influence the book had on Gandhi, I had attempted reading Walden many roughly four times before and each time had to give up before the tenth page due to the onrush of new ideas that enveloped me.
I put away the book each time with lots of fo The first half is written by Thoreau, the accomplished philosopher and soars much above my humble powers of comprehension; the second half is written by Thoreau, the amateur naturalist and swims much below my capacity for interest. I put away the book each time with lots of food for thought and always hoped to finish it one day. Now after finally finishing the book, while I was elated and elevated by the book, I just wish that Thoreau had stuck to telling about the affairs of men and their degraded ways of living and about his alternate views.
Maybe even a detailed account of his days and how it affected him would have been fine but when he decided to write whole chapters about how to do bean cultivation and how to measure the depth of a pond with rudimentary methods and theorizing about the reason for the unusual depth of walden and about the habits of wild hens, sadly, I lost interest. I trudged through the last chapters and managed to finish it out of a sense of obligation built up over years of awe about the book.
The concluding chapter, to an extent, rewarded me for my persistence and toil. In this final chapter, he comes back to the real purpose of the book: to drill home a simple idea - "I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.
I will of course be re-reading the book at some point and thankfully I will know which parts to skip without any remorse. View all 71 comments. Tg "The Universe is wider than our narrow views of it; still we live meanly like ants" Thoreau "For your truth to be truth it must have an edge to it " Em "The Universe is wider than our narrow views of it; still we live meanly like ants" Thoreau "For your truth to be truth it must have an edge to it " Emerson Tg "Circle round and round your life as a dog does his master's chase, your life is the richest when it seems the poorest, if a man constantly aspires, is "Circle round and round your life as a dog does his master's chase, your life is the richest when it seems the poorest, if a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?
Jan 02, Amanda rated it did not like it. I will go against the grain of society here and say that this was not worth it. Here's what I didn't like: Thoreau went off to "live by himself", when in actuality he was a mere 2 miles away from town and could hear the train whistle daily. Not exactly out there roughing it. He lived in a shack on land that a friend of his owned so he was basically a squatter. Most of the food he I will go against the grain of society here and say that this was not worth it.
Most of the food he ate he was given by townsfolk who were alternately intrigued by his way of living or felt sorry for him. These are the same people he is judging for their way of life, yet he is dependent on them! Also, and this may be just because I already strive for a simplified life, hardly a one of his truisms felt fresh or inspiring to me. It was a book full of self importance and judgement on society, not a man I would want to have an afternoon chat with.
I understand that at the time, his ideas were totally out there and revolutionary, but he is too bombastic about the whole thing, as if he himself had single handedly figured it all out. I was seriously dissapointed and hope Emerson will be better. View all 49 comments. Lori R. I felt the same about this book. It was disappointing. Dennis Aubin The best description that came to me was that he was "arrogantly living a simple life".
The best description that came to me was that he was "arrogantly living a simple life". Jun 13, Jeremy rated it really liked it Shelves: classics , essays , read-for-school. If Thoreau were alive today, I bet he'd be one of those guys who won't shut up about how he "doesn't even own" a television.
Curiously, however, I don't think he'd smell bad. And he'd find Radiohead neither overrated nor God's gift to modern music.
Just a talented band with a few fairly interesting ideas. View all 18 comments. Reading Walden was kind of like eating bran flakes: You know it's good for you, and to some degree you enjoy the wholesomeness of it, but it's not always particularly exciting.
The parts of this book that I loved the philosophy, which always held my interest even though I sometimes didn't agree with Thoreau , I really loved, and the parts that I hated the ten pages where he waxes poetic about his bean fields, for instance , I really hated. I also got the impression that Thoreau was the kind of Reading Walden was kind of like eating bran flakes: You know it's good for you, and to some degree you enjoy the wholesomeness of it, but it's not always particularly exciting.
I also got the impression that Thoreau was the kind of guy I could never be friends with. In Into the Wild which I read at the same time during intervals when Walden became too much to bear , Jon Krakauer describes Thoreau as "staid and prissy.
That said, there were parts of his philosophy that I want to try to carry out in my own life, and I know that this is a book that I'll refer to again and again throughout my life. But will I ever read the whole thing through again? View all 17 comments. Walden is a phenomenal piece of writing that has the power to completely alter your way of thinking and the way in which you see the world.
To put it plainly, I feel like I have been looking for Walden or a book like it for my entire life. It is a book a about a man who has had enough of society and all its trappings; it is a book about a man who understands that modern life is inauthentic and false: it is not a reflection of how we ought to be living as per our biology and our natural animal Walden is a phenomenal piece of writing that has the power to completely alter your way of thinking and the way in which you see the world.
It is a book a about a man who has had enough of society and all its trappings; it is a book about a man who understands that modern life is inauthentic and false: it is not a reflection of how we ought to be living as per our biology and our natural animal instinct. And to regain some sense of authenticity, he goes to live in the woods by himself.
He builds his own home with his own hands; he grows his own food; he practices frugality and minimalist living; he turns his back on materialism, consumerism and society at large: he tries to live in way that is completely true to himself. Reading this today as a vegan and an environmentalist with a mind attuned to contemporary ecological concern, reveals just how important books like this are.
Back then Thoreau understood how easy it was to live off plant-based food. He understood that it was cheaper, cleaner, and not detrimental to his health. And he wanted to be totally off-grid. I find historical examples of this fascinating because they are examples of how some writers understood exactly what was needed for the development of humanity.
And here, as in many cases, eating plant-based food is utilised to become more natural and to, as Thoreau puts it, eat like the animals do. I feel like Thoreau has been reading the work of Rousseau here, but he never mentions him. Despite this, Thoreau does also hunt and fish in the book, but his mind always turns back to the animals involved and what harm his actions are causing them.
He knows it is time to change and to move forward. It is worth mentioning here that Walden is quite dense, and the archaic prose and lofty descriptions will scare away many an immature reader. It is the main criticism levelled at the work here on Goodreads. But I think it is really worth sticking with because there is some true wisdom in its pages.
View all 9 comments. The never quite understood philosophy of a man who swam against the current of mainstream beliefs. Sorry I borrowed these words from comments about another review, a good friend, not stealing though, these are my own scribbles, repeating the impressions here. Henry David Thoreau a native of Concord, Massachusetts, a pencil maker, the family business which financed his expensive Harvard education and published the at first neglected books.
A disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson and at his urging in 18 The never quite understood philosophy of a man who swam against the current of mainstream beliefs. A disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson and at his urging in , built a log cabin that he lived in for two years on the shore of Walden Pond it was his friend's land.
Thoreau first day the 4th of July a good omen, future generations will be greatly influenced by his writings "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation", " Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer", " All good things are wild, and free".
The beauty of the lake, its peacefulness, the surrounding forest, plants, animals, birds in the sky , fish in the water all contribute to the enchanting magic, such thoughts by Mr. Thoreau were formed in a large part by his stay in paradise here. Curiosity his greatest strength and worse enemy, fellow citizens considered the unconventional person odd and maybe unhinged.
However the gentleman by himself erected a very comfortable home, small but cozy, kept him warm in the winter and cool in summer, and during the very heavy , fearsome, rather frightening to say the least, rains storms In the frigid winter when the pond freezes he walks to the middle and measures its depth by dropping a rock tied to a string after punching a hole in the ice He was never lonely, friends and acquaintances frequently came to see the strange man to his annoyance, too much, he felt happiest alone looking at the blue and sometimes green lake always changing color.
Viewing a hawk in the air diving and rising, repeatedly just joyful to be alive, this was what he believed also, nature is glorious, nothing better on Earth. A solitary figure looms, inside a little boat floating on the water's surface, contended, not caring if he Thoreau caught any fish, watching hour after hour dazzling birds on trees, animals searching for food some put outside by him for them to eat, observing the wild untamed creatures, writing down their habits , on paper, fascinated.
Nonetheless a newfangled contraption, a train roars nearby, so-called civilization creeps closer. This book celebrates the magnificence of the world, and man's destroying its beauty, this must not occur, prevent this crime and preserve nature, Mr. Thoreau believes and the Legend began with a single man in the woods Still people want to make money, they will try by any means to do, the constant dilemma An important work for those interested and should be read.
Besides Henry David Thoreau was a fine writer and terrific onlooker View all 11 comments. If you find yourself having difficulty sleeping, this book is a fantastic cure for insomnia. Just writing a review about it makes me want to lie my head down and close my eyes. That being said, I suppose Thoreau's pretentious, self-righteous douchebaggery was extremely revolutionary for the time it was written. He went to live in a shack in the woods and decided that gave him the right to impart truisms about life.
Some of them are almost interesting, too, except that Thoreau's prose is so overwr If you find yourself having difficulty sleeping, this book is a fantastic cure for insomnia. Some of them are almost interesting, too, except that Thoreau's prose is so overwritten and dull that you have to work really hard to dig out the gems underneath. View all 7 comments. I've read Walden many times now since that first time in high school. I will always love this book, and it reveals itself anew with each reading.
When I first encountered Thoreau in high school, his words rang in my soul like a prophet's manifesto. Free delivery to Azerbaijani regions for any orders! Welcome Guest. Add to wishlist. Publishing house: Wordsworth Editions Ltd. Author: Henry David Thoreau. Add to cart Add to cart Preorder One click buying. In addition to recording his interior life, Thoreau is a devout observer of the landscape in terms that recall, among others, the reportage of Daniel Defoe in A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain :.
However, the uncompromising transcendental message of these first chapters gets rather blurred in the middle of the book. His solitary cabin boasted just three chairs, but he writes:. Faced with such distractions, Thoreau developed an effective means of diverting gawkers and thrill-seekers from his cabin:.
Why It's a Classic: Thoreau's Walden is a classic because it comes out of one of the great bastions of American literature known as transcendentalism, and it celebrates freedom and individualism in the face of an oppressive government. Thoreau did not agree with the condoning of slavery and resolved to take to the woods to avoid paying taxes to an uncivil government. From Walden we learn how to march to the beat of a different drum.
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