Now Comes Good Sailing
Now Comes Good Sailing

Author: Andrew Blauner

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-10-19

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0691230951

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From twenty-seven of today’s leading writers, an anthology of original pieces on the author of Walden Features essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan • Kristen Case • George Howe Colt • Gerald Early • Paul Elie • Will Eno • Adam Gopnik • Lauren Groff • Celeste Headlee • Pico Iyer • Alan Lightman • James Marcus • Megan Marshall • Michelle Nijhuis • Zoë Pollak • Jordan Salama • Tatiana Schlossberg • A. O. Scott • Mona Simpson • Stacey Vanek Smith • Wen Stephenson • Robert Sullivan • Amor Towles • Sherry Turkle • Geoff Wisner • Rafia Zakaria • and a cartoon by Sandra Boynton The world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), the author of Walden, “Civil Disobedience,” and other classics. A prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism and technology, Thoreau even seems to have anticipated a world of social distancing in his famous experiment at Walden Pond. In Now Comes Good Sailing, twenty-seven of today’s leading writers offer wide-ranging original pieces exploring how Thoreau has influenced and inspired them—and why he matters more than ever in an age of climate, racial, and technological reckoning. Here, Lauren Groff retreats from the COVID-19 pandemic to a rural house and writing hut, where, unable to write, she rereads Walden; Pico Iyer describes how Thoreau provided him with an unlikely guidebook to Japan; Gerald Early examines Walden and the Black quest for nature; Rafia Zakaria reflects on solitude, from Thoreau’s Concord to her native Pakistan; Mona Simpson follows in Thoreau’s footsteps at Maine’s Mount Katahdin; Jennifer Finney Boylan reads Thoreau in relation to her experience of coming out as a trans woman; Adam Gopnik traces Thoreau’s influence on the New Yorker editor E. B. White and his book Charlotte’s Web; and there’s much more. The result is a lively and compelling collection that richly demonstrates the countless ways Thoreau continues to move, challenge, and provoke readers today.

Henry David Thoreau for Kids
Henry David Thoreau for Kids

Author: Corinne Hosfeld Smith

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2016-02-01

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 1613731493

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American author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau is best known for living two years along the shores of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and writing about his experiences in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, as well as spending a night in jail for nonpayment of taxes, which he discussed in the influential essay "Civil Disobedience." More than 150 years later, people are still inspired by his thoughtful words about individual rights, social justice, and nature. His detailed plant observations have even proven to be a useful record for 21st-century botanists. Henry David Thoreau for Kids chronicles the short but influential life of this remarkable American thinker. In addition to learning about Thoreau's contributions to our culture, readers will participate in engaging, hands-on projects that bring his ideas to life. Activities include building a model of the Walden cabin, keeping a daily journal, planting a garden, baking trail-bread cakes, going on a half-day hike, and starting a rock collection. The book also includes a time line and list of resources—books, websites, and places to visit that offer even more opportunities to connect with this fascinating man.

Walden Warming
Walden Warming

Author: Richard B. Primack

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 022606221X

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“An unnervingly close-to-home perspective [on] the dynamics and impact of climate change on plants, birds, and myriad other species, including us.”—Booklist In his meticulous notes on the natural history of Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau records the first open flowers of highbush blueberry on May 11, 1853. If he were to look for the first blueberry flowers in Concord today, mid-May would be too late. Warming temperatures have pushed blueberry flowering three weeks earlier, and in 2012, following a period of record-breaking warmth, blueberries began flowering on April 1—six weeks earlier than in Thoreau’s time. In Walden Warming, Richard B. Primack uses Thoreau and Walden, icons of the conservation movement, to track the effects of a warming climate on Concord’s plants and animals, with the notes that Thoreau made years ago transformed from charming observations into scientific data sets. Primack finds that many wildflower species that Thoreau observed, including familiar groups such as irises, asters, and lilies, have declined in abundance or disappeared from Concord. Primack also describes how warming temperatures have altered other aspects of Thoreau’s Concord, from the dates when ice departs from Walden Pond in late winter, to the arrival of birds in the spring, to the populations of fish, salamanders, and butterflies that live in the woodlands, river meadows, and ponds. Demonstrating the effects of climate change in a unique, concrete way using this historical and literary landmark as a touchstone, Richard Primack urges us to heed the advice Thoreau offers in Walden: to live simply and wisely. In the process, we can minimize our own contributions to our warming climate.

Walden's Shore
Walden's Shore

Author: Robert M. Thorson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2014-01-06

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 0674728408

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Walden's Shore explores Thoreau's understanding of the "living rock" on which life's complexity depends--not as metaphor but as physical science. Robert Thorson's subject is Thoreau the rock and mineral collector, interpreter of landscapes, and field scientist whose compass and measuring stick were as important to him as his plant press.

Faith in a Seed
Faith in a Seed

Author: Henry D. Thoreau

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 1993-03-01

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781597262873

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Faith in a Seed contains the hitherto unpublished work The Dispersion of Seeds, one of Henry D. Thoreau's last important research and writing projects, and now his first new book to appear in 125 years. With the remarkable clarity and grace that characterize all of his writings, Thoreau describes the ecological succession of plant species through seed dispersal. The Dispersion of Seeds, which draws on Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, refutes the then widely accepted theory that some plants spring spontaneously to life, independent of roots, cuttings, or seeds. As Thoreau wrote: "Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders." Henry D. Thoreau's Faith in a Seed, was first published in hardcover in 1993 by Island Press under the Shearwater Books imprint, which unifies scientific views of nature with humanistic ones. This important work, the first publication of Thoreau's last manuscript, is now available in paperback. Faith in a Seed contains Thoreau's last important research and writing project, The Dispersion of Seeds, along with other natural history writings from late in his life. Edited by Bradley P. Dean, professor of English at East Carolina University and editor of the Thoreau Society Bulletin, these writings demonstrate how a major American author at the height of his career succeeded in making science and literature mutually enriching.

Thoreau's Living Ethics
Thoreau's Living Ethics

Author: Philip Cafaro

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2010-01-25

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0820336661

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Thoreau's Living Ethics is the first full, rigorous account of Henry Thoreau's ethical philosophy. Focused on Walden but ranging widely across his writings, the study situates Thoreau within a long tradition of ethical thinking in the West, from the ancients to the Romantics and on to the present day. Philip Cafaro shows Thoreau grappling with important ethical questions that agitated his own society and discusses his value for those seeking to understand contemporary ethical issues. Cafaro's particular interest is in Thoreau's treatment of virtue ethics: the branch of ethics centered on personal and social flourishing. Ranging across the central elements of Thoreau's philosophy—life, virtue, economy, solitude and society, nature, and politics—Cafaro shows Thoreau developing a comprehensive virtue ethics, less based in ancient philosophy than many recent efforts and more grounded in modern life and experience. He presents Thoreau's evolutionary, experimental ethics as superior to the more static foundational efforts of current virtue ethicists. Another main focus is Thoreau's environmental ethics. The book shows Thoreau not only anticipating recent arguments for wild nature's intrinsic value, but also demonstrating how a personal connection to nature furthers self-development, moral character, knowledge, and creativity. Thoreau's life and writings, argues Cafaro, present a positive, life-affirming environmental ethics, combining respect and restraint with an appreciation for human possibilities for flourishing within nature.