Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
Summary: A super boring, shockingly detailed account of the year Henry David Thoreau spent in the woods. Read his poems, not this.
“The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.”
I really like poems and musings by Henry David Thoreau, and because of this, I thought maybe I would really enjoy the book he wrote about his time in the woods.
I was very wrong.
It was not good.
Honestly, he seems to be caught up entirely in the minutiae of everything he did. Like he lists the number of boards it took him to build his house and the exact visitors that came, and how he took the depth of Walden Pond nearby. There are a few very powerful quotes and poems in the book, one of my favorite is above, but honestly, you should just read his published poems.
Don’t read this book. It is a combination of overly detailed and mind numbingly boring.
“The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.”
I really like poems and musings by Henry David Thoreau, and because of this, I thought maybe I would really enjoy the book he wrote about his time in the woods.
I was very wrong.
It was not good.
Honestly, he seems to be caught up entirely in the minutiae of everything he did. Like he lists the number of boards it took him to build his house and the exact visitors that came, and how he took the depth of Walden Pond nearby. There are a few very powerful quotes and poems in the book, one of my favorite is above, but honestly, you should just read his published poems.
Don’t read this book. It is a combination of overly detailed and mind numbingly boring.
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
consume less, own little, touch grass, live in the woods, watch birds, critique capitalism. thoreau said it all in 1845, nothing has changed!
the first half was mindblowingly good, I was excessively annotating. the second half was a total snoozefest.
the first half was mindblowingly good, I was excessively annotating. the second half was a total snoozefest.
hopeful
slow-paced
The sun is but a morning star.
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
inspiring
reflective
The more I think about this book. The more it annoys me. Being an environmentalist this books is posed as a sort of bible to simple living; but as I keep thinking about it I can’t help but feel this book is an exercise in privilege. The tone of classism is a condescending view the author pushes especially when he calls the only man who visits him (a farmer) and shows any kindness “a dog living a dog’s life.” And when people in a town he visits express concern or gossips about him he redacts and acts as if he is the correct and smart one in the situation. I was hoping for more self reflection on how nature affected him and the book has it but the overall mansplaining-like prose is annoying especially when the author compares his project of building a shack on a pond to a god creating a world you realize he is just an asshole. The “Live a simple by but removing one’s desires” message is the 1800s equivalent of an admitting really smart guy mansplaining empathy to you except unlike finance bros on shrooms I don’t believe Thoreau gained any deeper knowledge of himself.
Civil Disobedience is a fire essay so it gets two stars for that.
Civil Disobedience is a fire essay so it gets two stars for that.
Actually the most boring book I have ever read. Thoreau literally wrote down every thought he had and put it in a book and it shows. This man invented mansplaining.