Exploring Thoreau’s Walden

Description

Walden is Thoreau’s spirited guide to a higher life. Written in chiseled poetic prose, it is one of the greatest works in American literature. Thoreau’s call from the barnyard roof to live more simply, use nature’s resources more wisely, preserve wildness and resist mindless consumerism is more relevant today than ever. It invites us to show up for our own lives and live in a more intimate relationship with nature. We will explore it over five weeks, beginning with the long opening chapter, “Economy.” We will follow the book’s seasonal cycle, from summer to the following spring, as Thoreau moves from his dense but humorous critique of conformity and materialism in America to his soaring and life affirming conclusion, which suggests the possibility of a resurrection in our lives now, while we yet live.

Richard Higgins is a writer, freelance book editor and the author or editor of five  books, including Thoreau’s God, from the University of Chicago Press, and Thoreau and the Language of Trees. A former staff writer for The Boston Globe, he is also the coauthor of Portfolio Life and a volume editor of Taking Faith Seriously from Harvard University Press. Richard lives in Concord and is a graduate of Holy Cross, Columbia Journalism School and Harvard Divinity School. He has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Century and American Scholar.