It is non-fiction month and I’ve decided to give away one of my most favourite books of all.
I’m giving away a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden; Or Life In The Woods”. It was my pick for book of the year in 2009 – you can read my blog article about that here: http://julielaurin.com/?p=470
It feels really appropriate for me to be giving this book away at this time. I’m leaving tomorrow to spend a week in the North – away from civilization.
Your life can’t be unchanged after reading Thoreau. His insight on life, his deep appreciation for simplicity and the beauty of his principles will end up influencing your thoughts in some way. And they should be influenced. We all need to reconnect with the things that really, really matter in life.
I’ve already written a great deal about Thoreau in my blog articles so I will only share a few quotes from the book to whet your appetite.
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
“Say what you have to say, not what you ought.
Any truth is better than make-believe.”
“Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.”
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
So, you want to win a copy of this book?
To enter, you just have to do one of the following:
1) Leave a comment on this article. Write anything you want. Your comment automatically enters you into the draw.
OR
2) Follow me on Twitter and send me a direct message saying “I want Walden!”.
Deadline: 1:00pm EST, August 31st, 2010. The winner will be notified by email.
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4 Comments
Would some power give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us.
Oh, was it Thoreau who said that? You’re entered in the draw.
OK, I’ll have my head stuck in critical and cultural theory books over the next year, living in the plastic city of London. I could do with a touch of nature and simple, spiritual reflection to keep me balanced! Am I entered? Is that fair? I have laready won Jeanette Winterson, which provided several tears of both melancholy and laughter!
Of course, you can still enter if you’ve won in the past! So consider yourself in the draw.
I’m thrilled that you enjoyed Winterson’s stories!
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