Although about an actual experience two years in a log cabin in the woods - Thoreau's Walden is now usually read as a journal of personal freedom and awareness. It is a treasure on both levels.

Thoreau walked into the woods on 4th July 1845. They did not take long to get to, being only a couple of miles from the centre of Concord, Massachusetts, where he had lived most of his life. Yet solitude could still be had, and Thoreau wanted to strip life to its core, away from the lies and gossip of society. After building a ten-by-fifteen-foot cabin, his time was pretty much free. Yes, he did grow some beans to sell at market, but even this he enjoyed, and continued with it only as long as necessary to cover some very modest costs. An idyllic life ensued, of walks, reading, watching birds, writing, and simply being.

This is a concept so foreign to most people, then as now, that it seems either a waste of time, or subversive. Yet Thoreau felt that he was richer than anyone he knew, having everything he materially needed and the time to enjoy it. The average person, with all their things, had to constantly labour to afford them, meanwhile neglecting nature's beauty and the gentle work of the soul, which solitude brings. Thoreau famously declared to his blank page, 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.'

With his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau now stands as a pillar of what might be called the ethic of American individualism. The irony of this is that they both railed against so much of what the United States and other Western countries have arguably become: rich consumer playgrounds shadowed by a lack of personal meaning. Yet Walden , and the writings of Emerson that so influenced it, is as attractive as ever to those seeking something more. Many of the thoughts and ideas in it have entered public consciousness, and it has been one of the key inspirations for the modern generation of personal development writers. For example, among the descriptions of nature and people we find these now-famous lines:

If one advances confidently in the direction of his own dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours .

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour.

Walden is the collective musings of a free spirit, deeply knowledgeable of the classics, Eastern religion, native Indian lore and nature itself, sketched out against a background of great physical beauty and stillness. What better vacation for the reader's mind? The book invites you to become Thoreau's companion, enjoying the woods and Walden Pond as he does, and delighting in his commentary on people and society.

Near the end of Walden there is the story of a beetle that emerged from an old table, resurrected after a 60-year hibernation, thanks to the heat of an urn placed upon it. The story sums up Thoreau's philosophy, in that he felt all of us have the potential to emerge from the 'well-seasoned tomb' of society, like the beetle, to enjoy the summer of life.