Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

Walden, or Life in the Woods is not a book that I had ever really considered reading but It was selected as a book for one of the discussion groups I belong to and when I looked it up and read what it was about it did sound like it could be interesting, and it is just one of those books a person feels they should read.

I have to say now, I am enjoying it a good deal more than I ever would have thought. It truly is quite a captivating book and there is some wonderful prose.

The book gives Thoreau's personal account of his experiment in "simple living" as he calls it. Tired of what he views as the bounds of civilization and people becoming slaves to their feeling of need for unnecessary luxury items, and being consumed by work which gives them no satisfaction and prevents them from intellectual pursuits.

Thoreau seeks freedom and independence, the desire to live purely for himself and be content in his life and have the time to spend upon the things which are fulfilling to both body and mind and he believes it is a mode of living that anyone is capable of if only they realize that they don't need to fill up thier lives with "stuff" and that many of the things which they work in order to earn the money to obtain they could live without.

There are some beautiful descriptions of nature and the wildlife which becomes his companions, and it is wonderful the way in which he cohabits with the natural world around him and lives in harmony with the earth.

The book is definatly a most read for fellow nature lovers, though there is the risk that it will make you want to throw off the shackles of society and civilization and flee into the wilderness.

Wonderful book, and yes, it does make you want to run into the wilderness! I just wanted to mention it because several years ago I received a beautiful "coffee table" version with full-colour photographs of Walden Pond alongside the text - one of the best Christmas gifts ever! It made my extremely limited selection of books I could take along when I moved from the US to the UK a few years ago.