Walden

Thoreau's account of the two years and two months he spent living in a cabin he built himself beside Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts, on land owned by Emerson. He moved there on 4 July 1845 and left in September 1847, then compressed the experience into a single year for the book, published in 1854. The long first chapter, 'Economy', lists what the house cost and argues that most people work too hard for things they do not need; the mass of men, he says, lead lives of quiet desperation. In 'Where I Lived, and What I Lived For' he explains that he went to the woods to live deliberately. Later chapters cover reading, solitude, visitors, his bean-field, his neighbours human and animal, the pond in winter and the coming of spring, and he mentions his night in jail for refusing to pay a tax. Throughout, close observation of nature is joined to a call for simplicity, self-reliance and spiritual awakening.

It is the classic argument for simple living and attention to nature, and it asks every reader how much of their work and spending actually serves the life they want.