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Henry David Thoreau: A Life Audiobook
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Publisher Description
"Walden. Yesterday I came here to live." That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau, and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place Thoreau in the American pantheon. His attempt to "live deliberately" in a small woods at the edge of his hometown of Concord has been a touchstone for individualists and seekers since the publication of Walden in 1854.
But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment in living at Walden Pond. A member of the vibrant intellectual circle centered on his neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was also an ardent naturalist, a manual laborer and inventor, a radical political activist, and more. Many books have taken up various aspects of Thoreau's character and achievements, but, as Laura Dassow Walls writes, "Thoreau has never been captured between covers; he was too quixotic, mischievous, many-sided." Two hundred years after his birth, and two generations after the last full-scale biography, Walls restores Henry David Thoreau to us in all his profound, inspiring complexity.
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“Paul Boehmer admirably narrates this massive biography…Thoreau’s own words are read in a distinctive voice. And, whether intentionally or not, Boehmer gives a slight New England lilt to certain words. For example, ‘man’ or ‘hand are nearly given two syllables: ‘mah-yan’ or '‘hah-yand.’ Boehmer’s authentic touches ground the audiobook in the New England roots of this great American.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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The wonder is that, given her book's richness, Walls still leaves the reader eager to read Thoreau. Her scholarly blockbuster is an awesome achievement, a merger of comprehensiveness in content with pleasure in reading.
— Publishers Weekly Starred Review -
“Superb…Walls paints a moving portrait of a brilliant, complex man.”
— New York Times -
“An engaging, sympathetic, and subtly learned biography that mounts a strong case for Thoreau’s importance…The details are sometimes wonderful..Walls’ Thoreau is truly a man for all seasons…Part of the power of Walls’ book is how she traces these liberal and humane preoccupations to the radicalism of his family and of Concord’s intellectual life.”
— Nation -
“Walls earns her keep, digging into Thoreau’s aphoristic letters and journals, finding acute reflections by his contemporaries and drawing a wonderfully brisk and satisfying portrait.”
— Times Literary Supplement (London) -
“[A] masterpiece…I found myself caught up in these New England lives all over again…On a foundation of rigorous scholarship, Walls resurrects Thoreau’s life with a novelist’s sympathy and pacing.”
— Washington Post
Awards
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Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography
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A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017
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A New York Times Notable Book
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About the Narrators
Paul Boehmer is an American actor best known for his numerous appearances in the Star Trek universe, in addition to Frasier, Judging Amy, Guiding Light, and All My Children. He is a 1992 Masters of Fine Arts graduate of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. As a narrator, Paul has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award.
Paul Boehmer is an American actor best known for his numerous appearances in the Star Trek universe, in addition to Frasier, Judging Amy, Guiding Light, and All My Children. He is a 1992 Masters of Fine Arts graduate of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. As a narrator, Paul has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award.