Walden [Paperback]

Henry David Thoreau (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

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--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Description

This is a beautiful new edition of Henry David Thoreau's masterpiece, WALDEN, featuring a cover painting of Thoreau by N. C. Wyeth. Published by American Renaissance Books (www.AmericanRenaissanceBooks.com).

Product Details

• Paperback: 186 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449544363
• ISBN-13: 978-1449544362
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #562,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, July 14, 2007

By	Martha Koelemay "earth child" (Pine Ridge, AR, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Walden (Paperback)

This book should be required reading for every high school and college student in every school in the country. Our narcissistic, throwaway, gadget-intoxicated society needs to hear Thoreau's message about the satisfaction gained through living simply, and about the difference between want and need. Not to mention his pronouncement that we do not own our possessions but are rather owned and enslaved by them.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Get another edition, February 27, 2009

By	Stephen Baker (Montclair, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Walden (Paperback)

This is a great book, of course. But this edition is awful. The font is tiny, the margins ridiculously thin. I was so disappointed to open the package and find this version.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Walden, October 19, 2009

By	Brian Flatt "Phaedrus72" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Walden (Paperback)

On my short list of all time favorite books, this one is up there at the top. It doesn't attain the #1 spot, but it's up there, definitely top five.

I think it is very interesting to read the reviews and notice that the vast majority of the bad reviews are coming from the young, mainly teenagers who were made to read this in school. The vast majority of the good reviews are coming from the older and the more wizened.

I think the youth of today are just so totally enamored with technology and what's cool and popular. I know I was when I was 17. But then you grow older and hopefully more wise, you live life a little and you no longer care about what's cool or what's popular, you are no longer so enamored with technology and you begin to see how technology is actually killing us. You have some perspective to temper the youthful idealism.

I just loved everything about this book, but I never read it until my 30's. If I had read it in my teens, I probably would have thought it pretty stupid.

I think Thoreau was a genius, both with words and how he lived his life. He did not live on Walden Pond his entire life, by the way. Walden pond was an experiment, not so much a way of life. His time there was meant to show people how superfluous most of our lives are, that it can be simplified, to our soul's benefit, not to mention the benefit of our fellow human beings and the world at large.

He was not a stupid man, he was educated at Harvard. He knew that his way was not the way everyone could or would live. He was not advocating a new social order. He was merely trying to prove a point, that people's lives are way too complicated.

It has been said that Thoreau was the anti-Benjamin Franklin. Realize that even in his day, Thoreau was ridiculed. It is no surprise that he would be ridiculed today, mainly by those who just simply could not live without their iPods.
I read Walden as an ideal and it made me sad. I would love to live my life in the way he did on Walden Pond, but I'm just not so sure how possible it is to live that way in today's world or even how desirable. There has to be a happy medium. You don't have to run out and live as a hermit in order to be able to appreciate Thoreau. There is beauty in the middle way, one can learn to make small changes in their lives, to try and live more simply, as many today are trying to do, to lighten our footprint on this earth, for the betterment of all.

I do believe that people's lives are too complicated, that they can't see the forest for the trees,that their lives are only about making more money so they can buy more things. They have lost their way in the world, they have forgotten, if they even even knew, what life is about.

But running out to live by yourself is not the solution either. I am reminded of the story of Christopher McCandless, whose story was made into the movie Into the Wild. He learned too late that true happiness is not real unless shared. That without love, life is meaningless. And THAT is the reason that living on Walden Pond by yourself is not the answer. We are here on this earth for each other, to love. Without love, life is meaningless.

To live on Walden Pond by yourself for a period of time, to find yourself, or to prove a point, is all well and good, but as a permanent way of life, it's not utopia.

And Thoreau knew this, after his time in the woods, he went back to civilization, but he never lost his soul and he knew how the soul was refreshed... with love, with learning, and with nature.