Now Comes Good Sailing Writers Reflect on Henry David Thoreau |
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| Editor:
| Blauner, Andrew |
| ISBN: | 978-0-691-21522-8 |
| Publication Date: | Feb 2022 |
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | AUD $39.99 |
Book Description:
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From twenty-seven of today's leading writers, an anthology of original pieces on the author of Walden Features essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan * Kristen Case * George Howe Colt * Gerald Early * Paul Elie * Will Eno * Adam Gopnik * Lauren Groff * Celeste Headlee * Pico Iyer * Alan Lightman * James Marcus * Megan Marshall * Michelle Nijhuis * Zoë Pollak * Jordan Salama * Tatiana Schlossberg * A. O. Scott * Mona Simpson * Stacey Vanek Smith * Wen...
More Description
From twenty-seven of today's leading writers, an anthology of original pieces on the author of Walden
Features essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan * Kristen Case * George Howe Colt * Gerald Early * Paul Elie * Will Eno * Adam Gopnik * Lauren Groff * Celeste Headlee * Pico Iyer * Alan Lightman * James Marcus * Megan Marshall * Michelle Nijhuis * Zoë Pollak * Jordan Salama * Tatiana Schlossberg * A. O. Scott * Mona Simpson * Stacey Vanek Smith * Wen Stephenson * Robert Sullivan * Amor Towles * Sherry Turkle * Geoff Wisner * Rafia Zakaria * and a cartoon by Sandra Boynton
The world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), the author of Walden, "Civil Disobedience," and other classics. A prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism and technology, Thoreau even seems to have anticipated a world of social distancing in his famous experiment at Walden Pond. In Now Comes Good Sailing, twenty-seven of today's leading writers offer wide-ranging original pieces exploring how Thoreau has influenced and inspired them--and why he matters more than ever in an age of climate, racial, and technological reckoning.
Here, Lauren Groff retreats from the COVID-19 pandemic to a rural house and writing hut, where, unable to write, she rereads Walden; Pico Iyer describes how Thoreau provided him with an unlikely guidebook to Japan; Gerald Early examines Walden and the Black quest for nature; Rafia Zakaria reflects on solitude, from Thoreau's Concord to her native Pakistan; Mona Simpson follows in Thoreau's footsteps at Maine's Mount Katahdin; Jennifer Finney Boylan reads Thoreau in relation to her experience of coming out as a trans woman; Adam Gopnik traces Thoreau's influence on the New Yorker editor E. B. White and his book Charlotte's Web; and there's much more.
The result is a lively and compelling collection that richly demonstrates the countless ways Thoreau continues to move, challenge, and provoke readers today.