Walden

I have been looking forward to read this book for a long time now... and finally started it. I have completed around 26%, and this book is so very good. I am sure this will go into my re-read list. Walden

"To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will ask the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem." ~ Walden

"for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day." ~ Walden

I'll have to pull my copy out and see how far along I am. It's one of my started-but-unreads from last year.

Tortilla Flat sometimes seemed a parody of Walden. Thoreau planted beans, if I remember correctly, and the bums in Steinbeck's novel also had various adventures with beans.

I am reading "buenos aires noir" Edited by Ernesto Mallo. This is a collection of stories. Each story, of course, takes place in some part of Argentina. Twice I have chosen a way to read the stories. Finally, I've decided to read each story in order. This is because after reading two, one from each section, I decided it wasn't possible for me to feel happy without reading all of them. Don't get me wrong. These definitely aren't happy bed time stories.

So far, I take away the fact that there is a thin line between love and hate. Jealousy can turn love to hate in a matter of moments. Hatred so deep that it leads to absurd and unthinkable actions. One woman paints her nails orange while watching her husband die of a heart attack on their floor. Unbelievable for a story, but I believed it. This led me quickly to read about the author, Veronica Abdala.

Someone recommended that on first read, I might want to skip the first chapter, "Economy", and start from second chapter, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For". I found out to be good a good approach to this book.

I read this in August and enjoyed it for the most part, though the very long Economy chapter was quite dull in places.

Walden is a fantastic book about American nature, about living in a forest. Sienkiewicz, eminent Polish writer, visited California in the late 19th century, and his descriptions of hunting, valleys are also fantastic (these letters have been translated). This work: http://www.librarything.com/work/12705683

On my weekly visit to my thrift shop I spied a copy of Walden I now have it on my TBR steeple.

It's like Robinson Crusoe.

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness is an autobiographical work by American writer Edward Abbey (Wikipedia). Lonely life as a park ranger in Utah.