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24) Walden
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In 1845 Thoreau, disdainful of America's commercialism and industrialism, left his home town in Massachusetts to begin a new life alone, in a hut on the north-west shore of Walden Pond. This is his account of this experiment in solitary living.
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In 1616, an English whaling ship heads for home, leaving behind the quiet, headstrong Thomas Cave, who has bet the rest of the crew that he can spend a winter on this Arctic island—alone. But nothing so threatens the sailor as his own mind, haunted by the remembrances of another life and a lost love.
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Combining memoir, social criticism, and research, the author explores what it means to be solitary and celebrates the notion, common in his Roman Catholic childhood, that solitude is a legitimate and dignified calling. Delves into the lives and works of nearly a dozen iconic "solitaries," including Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Bill Cunningham, Cézanne, and Zora Neale Hurston.
"A meditation on solitude as a font of creativity and spirituality. Known...
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"After she is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Katherine abandons her successful advertising firm and seeks refuge in the solitude of her wilderness cabin. Living off the land in complete isolation brings Katherine peace - until the day she realizes she is not alone, and never was. Katherine's sudden and unanticipated arrival at the cabin unsettles Danny, a Vietnam veteran tormented by the demons of his past, who has been squatting in the previously...
28) Robinson Crusoe
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"Shipwrecked off the coast of Trinidad, Robinson Crusoe - a young man with a thirst for adventure - finds himself washed up on a remote tropical island with nothing but a few tools and animals for company. Castaway for thirty years, he must battle cannibals, mutineers and the elements in a tale so convincing that many readers at the time believed it to be non-fiction. A true page-turner, Robinson Crusoe is one of the most enduring novels in the English...
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Appears on list
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"From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a shocking and tender novel about a young woman's efforts to sustain a state of deep hibernation over the course of a year on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her...
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One of the most famous non-fiction American books, Walden by Henry David Thoreau is the history of Thoreau's visit to Ralph Waldo Emerson's woodland retreat near Walden Pond. Thoreau, stirred by the philosophy of the transcendentalists, used the sojourn as an experiment in self reliance and minimalism… "so as 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,
...Author
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A New York Times Notable Book: To truly understand herself, Doris Grumbach embraces solitude. With a busy career as a novelist, essayist, reviewer, and bookstore owner, Doris Grumbach has little opportunity to be alone. However, after seventy-five years on the planet, she finally has her chance: Her partner has departed for an extended book-buying trip, and Grumbach has been given fifty days to relax, think, and write about her experience. In this...
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When Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor turned sixty, he took a sabbatical from his teaching and turned his attention to solitude, a practice integral to the meditative traditions he has long studied and taught. He aimed to venture more deeply into solitude, discovering its full extent and depth. This literary collage documents his multifacted explorations. spending time in remote places, appreciating and making art, practicing meditation and participating...
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"A wise, passionate account of the pleasures of travelling solo In our increasingly frantic daily lives, many people are genuinely fearful of the prospect of solitude, but time alone can be both rich and restorative, especially when travelling. Through on-the-ground reporting and recounting the experiences of artists, writers, and innovators who cherished solitude, Stephanie Rosenbloom considers how being alone as a traveller--and even in one's own...
