Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I recently finished reading Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.

The book describes Thoreau's time as he lived in a small cabin he built in the woods of Massachusetts, on the shores of Walden Pond. He describes building the cabin, living a simple life mostly separate from others, and the beauty of the environment throughout the seasons.

Thoreau could be described as a minimalist. He lives in a simple cabin, works a small garden in the mornings, and spends the afternoons taking walks through the woods or swimming in the pond. He lives on the bare necessities, and does the minimal amount of work to feed himself through the year, which leaves time for enjoyment of the little things.

The book was written in a different time, the are brief passages of narrative widely spaced between philosophical wanderings and vivid descriptions of the natural world. Some might call the book "boring", but I would rather call it "peaceful". He has a very down-to-earth, methodically rational worldview that is very different from the rushing, conclusion-jumping world of today's popular culture.

This is an example of classic American Literature, and I recommend that everyone should read it once.

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Book Review: The Hunger Games

I recently read The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. The story is set in a distopian future, where one city conquered the world and reminds all their subjects of their place once a year by forcing each city to send a couple children as tribute to play in a deathmatch contest.

The underlying idea has potential to be turned into a good book, unfortunately this is not it. This is a world with the political depth of a twelve-year old girl. The remaining population of the world seems to be less than you would find in Delaware. And to make the whole thing even less believable, the whole world consists of the current United States. Yet these down-trodden people never even consider the idea that they could just leave the stupid place they are in.

The whole story shoehorns the characters into a vicious gladiatorial contest where a bunch of children are thrown into a wilderness and have to kill each other to win. But the problem is that we know that is where we are going and the journey there is too railroaded, and once we get there, the kids don't seem to want to do it, and so we get a boring series of scenes with the main character hiding in the wilderness. And then they go and change the rules to ex machina allow the budding romance to proceed, letting there be two winners instead of just one. At that point the reader knows what is going to happen: main character is going to survive and take her boyfriend with her. The whole book seems to be trying to give you a sense of danger, but it never quite gets there.

I guess you might like this book if you are a ten-year-old boy, but there are so many book out there that are so much better, so don't waste your time.

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