As part of my list I included rereading two books. Until recently I haven't been a person who rereads. I can count on one hand the books I've read more than once -- Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, books of the Bible. I guess I've always thought it was a waste of time. If you've read something once, why read it again?
But my attitude has changed lately. I'm getting to the point where it's hard for me to recollect my so-called favorite books. Embarrassingly so. Is a book still a favorite if you read it ten years ago and can hardly remember anything in it? My favorite books list is becoming a list of books I know had an impact on me at some point, not really a list of books whose ideas and stories and characters I've thought about recently.
Walden is one of those books. The actual details of the book are pretty mushy to me now, but I can remember the fire that Walden started when I was 19. It was a volatile time in my life, and Walden was the spark that started the inferno. I remember questioning society itself, possessions, even food and drink. I remember feeling powerful, possibly for the first time in my life. I literally remember reading the passage about "castles in the air" and thinking, I need to read this again in a few years or else I'm going to forget how to live.
Ah, but of course I never read it again, and I did forget how to live :-).
I'm curious now, ten years later, will reading it again result in the same reaction? Walden is a dangerous book. Not if you read it, put it back on the shelf, and forget it. But if you really did live the way Thoreau describes in the book, this would be a different world.
I doubt I'll be ready to move to the woods after reading it for the second time. But after ten years of accumulating stuff, I think I need some dangerous philosophical ideas to put things into perspective.
I'm ordering the Kindle edition on Amazon and giving myself six weeks to read it. I'll update the blog with my reaction.
But my attitude has changed lately. I'm getting to the point where it's hard for me to recollect my so-called favorite books. Embarrassingly so. Is a book still a favorite if you read it ten years ago and can hardly remember anything in it? My favorite books list is becoming a list of books I know had an impact on me at some point, not really a list of books whose ideas and stories and characters I've thought about recently.
Walden is one of those books. The actual details of the book are pretty mushy to me now, but I can remember the fire that Walden started when I was 19. It was a volatile time in my life, and Walden was the spark that started the inferno. I remember questioning society itself, possessions, even food and drink. I remember feeling powerful, possibly for the first time in my life. I literally remember reading the passage about "castles in the air" and thinking, I need to read this again in a few years or else I'm going to forget how to live.
Ah, but of course I never read it again, and I did forget how to live :-).
I'm curious now, ten years later, will reading it again result in the same reaction? Walden is a dangerous book. Not if you read it, put it back on the shelf, and forget it. But if you really did live the way Thoreau describes in the book, this would be a different world.
I doubt I'll be ready to move to the woods after reading it for the second time. But after ten years of accumulating stuff, I think I need some dangerous philosophical ideas to put things into perspective.
I'm ordering the Kindle edition on Amazon and giving myself six weeks to read it. I'll update the blog with my reaction.
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