Walden has to be one of the most unread books ever assigned in high school (despite being probably the book most often assigned in high school). PowellsBooks has a short, insightful appreciation.
Powells: As many critics have pointed out, Thoreau didn't really go off into the wilderness. The land on the banks of Walden Pond on which he squatted and built a crude cabin was within walking distance of Concord, and train tracks were only half a kilometer away. He wasn't much of a woodsman; one reason he wasn't too welcome in Concord proper is the previous year he and a friend had inadvertently started a forest fire that burned 300 acres (they were trying to cook fish they had caught).... More.
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