It is, as everyone says, a beautiful book. I think it's not the best way to appreciate Thoreau, though. It's been awhile since I looked at it, but I was struck by the story of the farmer who knew Thoreau and criticized him angrily for the pretentiousness of adding a middle name. I also didn't know that he was quite wealthy and that his family owned a pencil factory! Somehow the words in the book diminished Thoreau rather than drawing the reader more deeply into his enigmatic life. ( )

I did enjoy the watercolors in this book, as they are all lovely! It's a good addition to my collection for the aesthetic value, but not the most stimulating read. It was a brief review, not really offering anything new or exciting about Thoreau. ( )

Like many who have read Thoreau's works, I found "Walden" to be more than a journal of one extraordinary thinker's journal of his personal experiment in voluntary, deliberate simplicity and solitude. I found that its purpose was to be lived, rather than read, as a sort of rite of passage by all who aspire to be philosophers.

The question at the heart of philosophy for over twenty centuries is this: how ought we to live? To try to answer this question, one must not only understand how one's predecessors have contributed to the question. He should live his life as an experiment, a test of his own answer.

When I found "Thoreau and the Art of Life" on the Early Reviewers list, I hoped that I had found new and substantial material on Thoreau's contribution to this focal philosophical question. Roderick MacIver's introduction offers a brief but valuable biographical sketch of Thoreau, but the proceeding chapters are merely thematic collections of aphorisms gleaned from Thoreau's published works and personal journal. The book is well-executed, and I would recommend it to the reader in search of such a collection. My own dissatisfaction stems strictly from a its disparity with my expectations, not from any flaw in the book itself. ( )

I must say I really love this book. Everything about it is just wonderful from the watercolors to the way the book is arranged. I made me want to go back and read Walden again. It would make a great gift and is perfect for after dinner chats. My hats off the author. ( )

I knew of Thoreau and his works but hadn't read any until coming across this book of quotes by him. I greatly enjoyed his words especially since many of them had implications for themes I have pondered recently: simplicity, minimalism, & frugality. The artwork is beautiful in its own right and fits the overall Thoreau theme but the individual images did not appear to match the text they were paired with which I would have appreciated. Over all I did enjoy it and will be adding works by Thoreau to my ever increasing reading queue. ( )