Order this book from Amazon.com Walden and Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau New York: Penguin Books, 1854 Recommended by: Joyce Carol Oates The one book, probably, of my young adolescence would have been Henry David Thoreau's Walden. That struck a very deep chord with me. Thoreau is very independent-minded, very iconoclastic and had quite a corrosive sense of humor. He reminded me of my own father, in fact. I think that I probably have grown up to have a Thoreauvian perspective on many things. Though, in other ways, I live a life he would not have approved of. He believed one should simplify, simplify, simplify. Make your life very clear and plain and meditative and not confused. About the Book The classic account of Thoreau's solitary stay in a cabin the woods by Walden Pond. This volume also contains Thoreau's famous essay on nonviolent resistance, which inspired Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King. 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.