Rating: 
Summary: down to earth and back to nature
Review: Walden is a wonderful book from which I obtained many hours of enjoyable reading. Though its tone is generally serious, it can at times be light. When he does slip in some humor it comes at an unexpected time and caught me off guard giving me a good laugh. I found many of his ideas very thought provoking. His account of how he built his cabin and his remarks about food and shelter were for me fascinating. I found it a very warm and friendly book with much to think about and obtained from it many referrals to complement my reading list. I Thoreau-ly recommend it!
Rating: 
Summary: One Great Book
Review: I truly admire Thoreau's courage to be a pioneer in his time. He proved his point to be true that life can be perfected through simplicity and by using nature as an example. But his excessive detail that goes on for pages describing the shape of a pond may bore some readers.
Rating: 
Summary: An good work
Review: This one is long and boring. It was hard to get through, and it is largely repetative. Thoreau, considered the first enviromentalist, writes about his 2 year experiences in Walden Woods, on the pond. Thoreau stresses simplicity and individualism, as most transcendentalist,the latest philisophical literary movement,did. The well read reader should read this one to say that they have read Walden.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful and owning great meaning, a must read
Review: Walden, just the name brings immediate thoughts and images. A wonderful read which makes you think, and reaffirms the important things in life. If this book doesn't change you, your probably dead already. Should be required reading.
Rating:
Summary: The cheese stands alone (and in the woods)
Review: This book screams simplicity! In this book, Henry David Thoreau takes an extended look beyond human nature and human habit. He brings forth a new and exciting view point on life and teaches how to live in happiness without the confusion of mechanical materials. I had to read this book for a 9th grade Language Arts assignment, and I had never heard of Walden or Thoreau before this project was assigned. When I completed this book, I felt very refreshed. It encouraged me to take a second look at my own life, and simply discard of the things which were causing complications or confusion. This book stretched past the limits and capacity of my mind as a 9th grade student. It forced me to think. Judging by the majority of my peers, I am convinced that anything that would force them to THINK harder, deserves 5 shining stars.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful Exploration into Personal Satisfaction
Review: Walden invites us to re-examine and weigh our priorities in life. It maximizes the value of our present experience, emphasizes the richness of nature, and diminishes the value and rationality of our struggle for material success. The book is filled with quotes and ideas that inspire a renewed energy and fresh approach to life. It awakens a sense of appreciation for simple pleasures. It promotes a perspective that reflects a more innocent set of values -- that challenge the world's judgement of a man by the money he earns, the car he drives and the possessions he amasses. In an era where excess spells success, it is calming and thought provoking to read about the Thorough's two years in the woods. It strikes a chord of things that we have known all along but have perhaps forgotten. The sights, sounds, and experiences of nature and the scenery provides us with a sensory scale to weigh our priorities and pursue new directions in our lives. Can we attain personal satisfaction and hapiness by simplifying our lives? This book inspires us to try.
Rating:
Summary: The "bible" of the frugal living movement
Review: I loved to read Walden and it made me think alot about frugality and what I really need. In fact, it started my own very special adventure into frugality. For anyone interested in the "historical background" of frugality (if there is such) read it. A must have for the frugal person.
Rating:
Summary: Simplicity after all
Review: When I read Walden never imagine me looking into my deepeast voice inside me. Never before I took a break to hear the sounds of my soul and to look at me like i did after i read the words and the phrases that like poems Thoreau give us. Money, love, freedom and silence are some of the topics and sublime instants that I would never unrespect in my life again. After all, thats the legacy we got from our parents and the most important gift we'll leave to the new generations around this new world that start with the century 2
Rating:
Summary: Reflective, yet limited
Review: Thoreau was a reflective man. He asked pertinent questions, but just didn't go far enough in his search. As a pagan, he was unaware of the realities of Jesus Christ. In spite of his limited vision, he had some profound observations at times. One of my favorites is: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak. Should he turn his spring into summer?"
Rating:
Summary: It stands by itself
Review: I found myself, overall, agreeing with one of the reviewers when he stated specifically that "Walden" is not a book to be read purely for enjoyment, it is not a thrilling read or even a very deep one in general but then one must remember in which time we live and the style used by Thoreau is one of the mid 19th Century which was prone to the type of writing he uses. Anyone who has read other novels of the time or rather written in that period will find similar styles eg James Fenimoore Cooper, Charles Dickens etc. In addition this is not a novel but rather a retelling of experiences of one man in his own adventure as he would put it. That is not to say that Thoreau does not illuminate or at times give remarkable insights especially when it came to some of the people he met who had fascinating ways of life eg the woodcutter. The book varies from downright mundane and tedious to being very insightful and beautiful. Its amazing how someone can do this as he writes, verging from one extreme to the other. But then it was written from journal notes as he lived his life in the woods over two years experience and during that time a person changes as he adapts to his new way of life. At first its very exciting and new, any new experience is always full of a kind of life shock whether it be painful or joyful, the thinking mind, the mind absorbed in everyday "safe" tasks which define the "normal" life are absent in this new environment which requires new creative energies to survive, after a while this way of life becomes the accepted one and starts to be drained of the vitality it possessed at the beginning as one is fully acclimatised to it and it becomes the norm, after this stage comes the usual safety associated with the walls created to keep life ordinary rather than really being alive. This is hard to do when living in the woods by yourself where you need constant awareness to survive unless its a little too close to civilisation which provides the safety net which Thoreau always had available to him. But still during the period where he was very much alive and aware, life is lived without need for too much unnecessary thought, and this is the place from where insights and great creativity burst forth. If one wants to know what it is like to be really truly alive in the moment and you are afraid to try it yourself and would rather read about it then try the books "Abstract Wild" by Jack Turner or "Grizzly Years" by Peacock. Am I wrong to criticise Thoreau so much ? Yes and no, eg Yes:see the comments by John Ralston Saul on exactly this aspect of Thoreau's writing, No: look at your own life or mine for example, in each case we do not escape this ordinary life we ourselves create. For the purely lived life expressed in poetry look at the poems by Basho, no clearer or more beautiful expression of life has yet been written. I say written not lived, lived can't be written down in full only a brief glimpse or shadow of it is possible even with Basho. As regards what is said it often betrays Thoreau's astonishingly well read mind, quotes from the Baghvad Gita or other Hindu texts surprise because in Throeau's day very few people would ever have bothered to read the Indian works, the average American thought his own life and European works to be far superior. Thoreau often quotes Latin, often without reference, and the notes at the end of the book are very helpful. Thoreau's experience becomes the one Americans want to live at least without being in too much danger as he would have been in the true wild still available at that time in the lives of say the trappers or mountain men of the Rockies or any native American. As such it is an in between way of living wild. So Thoreau's work is definitely worth reading even for only the historical value or the literature it represents. It stands by itself.
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