Customer Reviews

Walking

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4 star:		(5)
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More than any book, this argues for experiencing nature and preserving wilderness. Thoreau himself saw that fewer passenger pigeons were visiting and even then was aware of threats. Though first spoken in lectures on 1851, and 1856-1857, and published in June 1862 Atlantic Monthly, a month after his death, it still speak to us in the 21st century. For example ".. what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?", . "In wilderness is the preservation of the world." , "To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man". So lace up your shoes, grab your binoculars, and go for a walk and join the tribe of squirrels!

It is a perfect little book to carry with you for inspiration. It makes me want to take a walk... and the beautiful thing about this book is that it allows me to take a walk in my mind without ever leaving my office or room. I have and will continue to read it over and over.

I bought this book after reading about Henry David Thoreau in my high school literature book. He writes about his love of nature and tries to show others how to enjoy it. This book brings out the beauty of all the surroundings that many people pass by every day. It also encouraged me to get out and live up my ocasional stroll around the neighborhood. I took this book to school and it even helped relieve me a little stress. I recommend this book to all nature lovers.

The words of Thoreau are familiar to all those who have experienced life in the woods. His philosophies and observations are just as relevant today as they were when he first wrote them. In more eloquent words Thoreau explains how In the woods and wild places we find fuel for the soul. Without them we become stagnant in physicality and mentality. I recommend this book to anyone interested in conservation.

Short little essay by Henry David Thoreau about nature. Writer teaches us that simple walking can awake awareness about animals, trees and flowers around us. It is meditation on connection between wildlife and men, development of civilization from nurture thru nature and men's appreciation of the world outside of human villages and societies. It is amazing to read this piece that was created by a writer who died in 1862. With environmentlist movement of today, it is refreshing to find a piece by one of the early nature writers that teaches us to appreciate world we are born into. Thoreau teaches us to surrender to the world that has been in existance long before humans came to occupy it. While he is aware of limited ability of older men to sustain themselves in widerness, to him it is incomprehensible how women can live in confinment of the domestic life. I became interested in this writer after watching the film "Into the Wild", Now that I read this little piece, I understand how someone young and impressionable can fall under the spell of Thoreau's words about nature and the beauty of it, especially on the west side of the hemisphere.

Thoreau began WALKING by saying that he wanted to regard man as a part of nature, rather than a part of society. There were already enough people taking up the causes of society and that wasn't his purpose. Thoreau really walked, and sometimes it was for hours, unlike the half-hour walks he mentioned that others told him about and that they probably walked on the highway. He wasn't a highway walker, but instead walked in the forests and fields to observe, appreciate and commune with nature and himself. This freed Thoreau from the everyday problems of life and the civilized world around him.

Beauty was everywhere, even in the swamps, and he mentioned how he would love having a house built right at the edge of a swamp. Even in the first half of the 19th century, Thoreau noticed that forest land was being cut down in order to build houses. He turned out to be very prophetically correct when he said that eventually walking on the earth would mean trespassing on someone else's property, something that we have to be conscious of today. Thoreau spoke of improving "our opportunities, then, before the evil days come." By not taking advantage of getting outdoors and walking and really noticing nature, we would miss the enjoyment of it all.

I found this to be quite inspiring to urge me to get outdoors again and walk, no matter how far or long my endurance lasts. This essay is also very relaxing and thought-provoking to read. I especially loved how he spoke of trees and especially hemlocks, since the hemlock is my favorite tree. Thoreau says that if we listen to the "subtle magnetism" of nature that we will yield to it. During his day it might have been easier to do that, but those living in cities and suburbia today only see concrete jungles and row upon row of houses not unlike their own. We must take ourselves out of that setting to parks, wooded areas and walking trails for it to work as well today.

If Thoreau could come back today and see where he once went walking, he might think that the "evil days" have come. An excellent read for anyone who likes the outdoors, walkers or for relaxation.

Do you LOVE to walk @ a leisurely pace? Or hike just for the sake of getting outdoors & connecting with
yourself, the world around you? Then this is the book for you!! Me thinks( a Thoreauism) all bipeds who love the art of walking in all its glorious forms should have this in their library..with life today so over-burdening & stressful, who SHOULD'NT take up walking?? To walk, saunter or pace is refreshing, energizing, and there are many studies proving its therapeutic & health value. Its written to reflect the time in which he lived( pre-Civil War), so some of his grammar/ expressions are antiquated, but have value today. BIPEDS~LOVE YOUR FEET!! Get this book- and kindle your love of walking today!

ok it's old english, but it's classical masterpiece.
i recommend it to anyone that enjoy and dream of nature and the wild.

This was my second reading of "Walking" and, this time, I chose to read it in nature. That really made all the difference. I found myself hating it this last fall when I read it in the confines of my tiny little room. Surrounding myself in nature and allowing myself to annotate in the margins made me feel like Thoreau and I were on our own walk, having a conversation. Just like any long conversation there were moments I began to zone out and think about other things but overall it is a wonderful read and an experience I will probably have again.

An tribute to Nature and a call to the civilized man to express his true nature and individuality. I'm enriched, influenced and entertained by Thoreau's works and this one is no exception. Free from the herd metality, his observations and ideals sets you thinking. This book is about walking - sauntering through the higlands of the mind as well as through the pristine nature here on earth.

Random sampling from the book:

- Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Halk the walk is but retracing the steps.

- The landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not make that use of my figure. I walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in.

- At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned and the walker enjoys comprative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only - when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the PUBLIC road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.

- Hope and future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.

- ...for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantages of our actual ignorance