Walden: Henry David Thoreau's Reflections on Life, 1813-1818

V B: Very Good

India on Dec 11, 2023

Luna: A friend of mine said many years ago that Walden was one of his favorite books. Then I always wanted to read. But I didn't read it until recently.

Thoreau lived during the height of the Industrial Age, distinguished by the rise of gigantic factories, expanding urban developments, and powerful machines such as steam engines. Turned off by the incessant busyness of this time, Thoreau withdrew from city life to live alone in the woods, in harmony with nature.

He was not a hard-core hermit or back to nature zealot, as one might assume. His ambitions were more philosophical than tied to a specific set of rules for what nature is.

Even though his message of simplicity may sound outdated, he lived a simple life with inner peace.
I love that.

United States on Dec 06, 2023

Shubham Gaikwad: it's nice book, must try to read this.

India on Nov 19, 2023

Nick: The frugal, yet fulfilling lifestyle that Thoreau lives in this book is something many of us can aspire to. There are also beautiful descriptions of nature that help you visualize Walden and really feels more like poetry than an autobiographical piece. His outlook on life and his wisdom are refreshing, and I love that the book is small enough and comes with a bookmark ribbon because it’s just the right size to fit in my work pants pocket so that I can read some during breaks.

United States on Nov 08, 2023

Steve: A very nice little book that is beautifully presented. Smaller than I thought it would be but that was actually a positive.

United Kingdom on Nov 04, 2023

MD ARMAN KHAN: I like this

India on Aug 29, 2023

DESDES: While I can't be sure, WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau is likely one of the books I was required to read in high school, and I viewed it as an assignment instead of appreciating the ideas the author shared. Many years later, I found it interesting and oddly comforting text.

Thoreau went to live at Walden Pond to see if he could survive without the luxuries of life and escape what he called 'over civilization.'

He writes:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience,...

United States on Jun 25, 2023

Chaitanya Sethi: For 2 years (1845-1847), Thoreau conducted a self-experiment. He built himself a cabin in the woods near Walden Pond, a simple shanty with the bare necessities. He arranged for his own food by growing crops. He cut down on 'civilization' and let it come to him instead. He sat and pondered about life, he wandered and observed nature. He read books, thought deeper, and aimed to discover the 'truth'. 7 years later, in 1854, he published his contemplation via Walden.

Walden is a reflection on multiple themes - the need to simplify one's life, to reconnect with nature, to reconsider the ever-increasing materialism and shallow nature of our interactions, and to find a purpose and identity in a world that forces you to conform. It suggests that if you must belong somewhere, it should be with nature first and civilization second. The book is serialized into 18 chapters that cover a year of his life.

It's not an easy read. Since it's a collection of diary entries, some topics struck my fancy and some not as much. There were some descriptions of the pond, the animals, and the trees that made me want to go to Walden pond myself but there were also long-winded write-ups that I...

India on Aug 19, 2020

KevinKevin: Bought the hardback copy. Do not buy it! Yes the actual cover is nice, is a deep purple color, but what's on the inside is what counts! Let me just tell you it it is terrible! Missing pages, and it is a literal photo copy!!!! Not even high quality photo copy but a blurry splotchy photocopy! Some words you cannot even read!!!! Not even close to worth the money it costs! If I could give it zero stars I would!

United States on Aug 16, 2016

John P. Jones III: And `Tis a shame that I cannot claim this is a re-read after 40 years or so. I can only cite the very well-worn cliché: Better late than never.

Walden is a pond, just outside Concord, Massachusetts, and for two years in the mid-1840's Henry David Thoreau lived a largely solitary existence there, in a simple wooden cabin which he constructed. This book is a collection of his mediations on the natural world, and a person's place in it. Thoreau also ruminates on an individual's place in society and certainly demurs about the hurly-burly existence led by so many, or, in an expression that I had always attributed to T. S. Eliot, but was first coined by him: "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

The first third of the book is on "economy," and the house that he built near Walden. He describes his labor, and provides a table indicating the total cost, and compares that with the annual rental cost of housing. Similarly, he covers his food, clothing and fuel expenses (the "essentials"), and the underlying theme remains the subject verse, taken from a Shaker song, "Simple Gifts," written about the same time: if you simplify your life, and rid yourself of the...

United States on Jun 28, 2010