The Thoreau You Don't Know: The Father of Nature Writers on the Importance of Cities, Finance, and Fooling Around: Robert Sullivan: 9780061710322: Amazon.com: Books

The Thoreau You Don't Know: The Father of Nature Writers on the Importance of Cities, Finance, and Fooling Around: Robert Sullivan: 9780061710322: Amazon.com: Books





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Editorial Reviews

Review


Praise for Cross Country: “Sullivan takes us on a propulsive ride...By book’s end, you’ll feel pleasantly tripped out...wide-eyed at all the sights you’ve seen along the way.”A- (Entertainment Weekly)

Praise for Cross Country: “Sullivan adopts the mantle of an urban Thoreau.” (New York Times Book Review)

Praise for Cross Country: “’Cross Country’ is, by turns, grand, timely, intriguing...fascinating.” (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

Praise for Cross Country: “Sullivan is everybody’s dad on a long cross-country car trip -- setting schedules, getting lost and trying to make the whole experience educational.” (Washington Post)
From the Back Cover

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A New York Times Editors' Choice

Most readers think they know Henry David Thoreau: the solitary curmudgeon with the shack out in the woods. In this delightfully engaging book, Robert Sullivan gives us the Thoreau we don't know: the gregarious adventurer, the guy who liked to go camping with friends (even if they sometimes accidentally burned the woods down). Here is no lonely eccentric but a man who danced and sang, who worked throughout his short life at the family pencil-making business, who moved into his parents' house after leaving Walden Pond and always paid his father rent. Passionate yet whimsical, The Thoreau You Don't Know asks us to cast off our misconceptions as we reexamine our everyday relationship with the natural world and one another.

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Product details

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (March 8, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061710326
ISBN-13: 978-0061710322
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars 53 customer reviews
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Biography
Robert Sullivan is the author of Rats, The Meadowlands, A Whale Hunt, How Not To Get Rich; Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad, Cross Country, The Thoreau You Don't Know, and most recently My American Revolution. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York, A Public Space, Runner's World, Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, Rolling Stone, The Independent of London, The London Times and Vogue. He was born in Manhattan and now lives in Brooklyn, after living for many years in Portland, Oregon.
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Top customer reviews

Yelda Basar Moers
2.0 out of 5 starsDidn't feel it was a novel portrait of Thoreau...April 15, 2011
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

Now, if you're going to write a book called The Thoreau You Don't Know, you better give the reader something big and blazing that we don't know about him, especially to those diehard fans out there like me. Of course I'm writing this review from a different perspective since I do know a lot about him, having read Walden over ten times, and many biographies on his life. I can see what the writer was trying to do, show him in a different light than as a prophet of nature that lived in the woods. But honestly, I have to say I didn't learn much about Thoreau in this book that I didn't already know. I do like how the writer goes into the transcendental movement, and gives some context to his life. He also does an excellent job starting chapters. The sentences that begin each one grab the reader, and keep him interested. I think they are the best chapter beginnings I have ever read of any nonfiction book. Still after reading I didn't really get a sense of a new Thoreau, or the real Thoreau. The only way to do that is to read Walden many times and his essays, particularly the one on John Brown, the abolitionist. Then we see who this passionate man really is.
I wish the writer had changed the title of this book, because it is a great book for those who don't know much about him. I just felt the title was misleading to those who do.

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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 starsInvigoratingFebruary 21, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

I read this book as an absolute novice on the subject matter, but insofar as I "knew" Thoreau it was illuminating to read a more complete picture than I received in high school English (Sorry, Ms. Thomason!). I'll defer to the experts on the quality of the scholarship, but as a newcomer to literature I found it quite accessible and fairly engaging for a nonfiction book. I also appreciate that the author didn't take himself too seriously - as academics are wont to do.


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Martin Scharff
5.0 out of 5 starsInteresting take on ThoreauJanuary 12, 2018
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

See Thoreau in a new light. Kept me engaged throughout. Includes many insights as naturalist as well as civil rights activist.


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@finchgirl10
4.0 out of 5 starsgood order, no issuesJuly 8, 2013
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

I ordered this book for a graduate class. It shipped quickly, was in good packaging, and still had the library plastic cover on it. I felt like I was stealing from the library! But it's in great shape was a good buy.


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geoffrey fifield
5.0 out of 5 starsThoreau KnowledgeJune 19, 2013
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

I have been rereading Walden for a course I will teach in the coming school year. Robert Sullivan's book is very helpful in explaining the background of Concord and of Thoreau himself.


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Rock D
5.0 out of 5 starsThoreauvian mustNovember 27, 2012
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

As a Thoreauvian I enjoyed this book. It's witty writing and self deprecating humor from the author kept me intrigued when covering details that might have become stale.


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Corinne H. Smith
VINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 starsFINALLY! A fresh perspective from a writer who "gets" HDT!April 26, 2009
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

We Thoreauvians tend to hold our collective breaths and cross our fingers whenever we hear that someone has written a new book about our Henry. It doesn't much matter if the volume is biographical or analytical, or whether it's meant for an audience of adults, researchers, students, teens, or the very young. We are at once curious but skeptical. We hope the author got the facts straight. We wonder if reasonable conclusions were drawn. We agonize over what effect, if any, this new publication will have on Thoreau's overall reputation. Will we be able to recommend the title to friends of the fold? Or will it be something we'll have to apologize for? We scan the pages tentatively at first. We've been burned a few times in the past. We'd rather not have that happen to us again. Or to Henry David Thoreau, for that matter.

I am happy to report that, in my opinion, Robert Sullivan has passed -- nay, SURPASSED -- all of these tests with flying colors. He has successfully presented both Thoreau's life and his writings in an accurate and casually readable format. From the wording of the title, we may assume that the author's main goal was to dispel all of the myths and rumors that continue to surface about Thoreau: the very same ones that we devoted aficionados have had to attack and correct ad infinitum for lo these many years. So No, Thoreau was not a hermit; and Yes, he spent only one night in jail, etc. etc. etc. But Sullivan goes above and beyond that titled task. He dares to explain the nuances and changes in the Thoreau-Emerson friendship. He offers layman interpretations of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," "Walden," "Civil Disobedience" and other works with refreshing perspectives not seen in most academic treatments. And probably most importantly, he emphasizes how much language mattered back then: how much the origins and interplays of words were used to their greatest effects in anything that was written, with the wordsmith Thoreau as a stellar example. Sullivan not only centers Thoreau in the context of his own time; he also extends his concept forward to our own lives in the 21st century. Finally, someone has done what has been needed all along.

Other reviewers claim there's nothing new here. I beg to differ. The facts, sure, they're the same ones you can find in the traditional biographies by Walter Harding and Robert Richardson. But I will put this volume right next to those others on my bookshelf, knowing that this author's approach and intent is different enough to aptly supplement those classics. Another reviewer said that Mr. Sullivan was "neutral." I don't agree. He offers a "balanced" view when it comes to some of the mild controversies surrounding Thoreau's acts and writings. But I think the author has obviously gained respect for the proto-Transcendentalist, in a way that was perhaps unexpected even to him. I think he emerges on the "pro" side by the end.

Academicians may choose to pooh-pooh this book as a mere example of popular literature without real substance. If they do, that's probably because they're turning a few shades of green around the edges, and not just because it's time for Earth Day. This book is well researched and well written. Even the dust jacket, which at first glance appears to be a funky line portrait, has more to offer when the reader gives it a closer inspection. I doff my Thoreau Society ball cap to you, Mr. Sullivan. Well done!
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