Why You Need Henry David Thoreau

… He lived alone in a small cabin on Waiden Pond, of course, but he was far from being a misanthropic hermit. Part of the nature he so assiduously and poetically studied was human nature. In an eloquent assessment of this appealing figure, Edward Hoagland shows how Thoreau “is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.”