Showing results by narrator "Lee Winfield" in All Categories

Walden is an account of the time Thoreau lived alone in a cabin in Concord, Massachusetts. He built the cabin, grew and sold vegetables, and contemplated consciousness and identity. The theme is simple - it focuses on living in natural surroundings, and in essence, the work may be seen as a declaration of independence, a social experiment, quest of spiritual discovery, and a self-reliance guide. The text contains scientific observations of nature along with metaphorical and poetic applications of natural phenomena.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. Thoreau's literary style combines the observation of nature with personal experience, symbolic meaning, and historical lore. His books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes.

Canoeing in the Wilderness by Henry David Thoreau is an account of a canoe trip through a vast tract of almost-virgin woodland in Maine. The author, a friend and a Native American guide spent two weeks in the wilds, navigating waterways in a canoe or walking and camping on land. The charming prose blends the meditative with detailed descriptions of the journey, the scenery, and the guide’s admirable knowledge and skills.

This landmark work by William James remains one of the most insightful books on psychology and spirituality. James considers the feelings, actions, and experiences of individuals, insofar as they understand themselves to be in a relationship with the divine. It examines the religion of everyday life and has nothing to do with doctrine or dogma.

Walking was first published in the June 1862 issue of Atlantic Monthly. In this treatise, Thoreau reminds us of how the primal act of walking connects us with nature. He argues that the genius of walking does not lie in mechanically putting one foot in front of the other toward to a destination, but in mastering the art of sauntering. The themes of Walking include freedom, self-reflection, and exploration. Thoreau states that the act of walking marks the human being as an inhabitant, or part and parcel of nature, rather than a member of society.

Henry David Thoreau was a naturalist, essayist, poet, philosopher, and a leading transcendentalist. In Cape Cod (1865), Thoreau recounts his walking trips along a stretch of Massachusetts coastline, including Cape Cod, in the 1850s. The narrative is filled with his reflections on the elemental forces of the sea and the shore. Sleeping in lighthouses and fishing huts, and on isolated farms, Thoreau spent his days wandering the beaches to observe the drama of life and death unfolding on the coastline. Nature comes alive through Thoreau’s unique insights and descriptive prose.

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was first published in 1849. The book is an account of the Thoreau brothers' river journey on the Concord River from Concord to Lowell, Massachusetts, where it connects with the Merrimack River. Arranged in seven chapters, one for each day of the boat trip, the book describes the rivers, islets and inlets, the woods, the plants, animals, and the people that they encountered on the journey.

Leadership is a curious topic. It is most noted in its absence and most measured by its need. Leadership requires opportunity. The situation drives leadership; what worked in one situation may be disastrous in another. It requires skills to be able to direct the challenge at hand. Leadership is both an art and a science. It is theoretical and applied, cultural and contextual. Most importantly, leadership is about accomplishment and results.

Hammond Isle was supposed to be a brief assignment, one contested restoration project on a remote corner of the Pacific, fought over by developers, land trusts, and a community of wary dreamers. Archaeologist Ethan Mallory and project manager Grace Chen arrive as adversaries, each pressured by their own side to claim the future of the island for profit or preservation. Neither expects to unearth the century-old secrets of Margot, a lost figure whose vanished love and coded legacy hold the key to the island’s fate.

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on January 1, 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.

In this essay, Thoreau contends that an individual should not permit a government to overrule their conscience. He argues that one’s conscience ought to take priority over the law, in order to avoid becoming an agent of injustice. He was partly motivated by the institution of slavery and by the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, surveyor, and historian. The essay "Wild Apples" first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862. It begins with a history of the apple tree, chronicling its journey from Ancient Greece to America. The author compares the history of the apple to that of mankind, contemplating it with a tragic eye. He considered the idea of wildness not as sinful, but the source of creativity.

Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. "The Service" (1840) is an essay that uses war and military discipline as metaphors for human life. Displaying a taste for paradox, "The Service" must have been inspired by the discourses on peace and nonresistance that were popular in New England at the time.

Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by the Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into the Belgian Congo in the Heart of Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. The story is based on a journey that Conrad took up the Congo River in 1890, during King Leopold II of Belgium’s abusive rule of the area. It exposes the cruelty that the author observed during his visit to the area.

Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent (1907) is a tragic tale based on the themes of espionage, double agents, anarchism, and terrorism. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals with Mr. Verloc, who works as a spy for an unnamed country. When he becomes involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory, things go haywire, revealing an unholy mess that involves politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats, and London's high society.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is an expose of the cruelty that the author observed when he worked briefly in the Belgian Congo. The story is based on a journey that Conrad took up the Congo River in 1890, during King Leopold II of Belgium’s abusive rule of the area. The main thread follows the journey of the ferry-boat captain, Marlow, who must return Kurtz, an ivory trader, to Europe. The severely ill Kurtz dies on the journey after handling Marlow a collection of papers. Back in Europe, Marlow gives these to a journalist instead of those for which they were intended.

Andrew Jukes (1815-1901), deacon of St. John's Church, Hull, wrote this classic work on the offerings of the Old Testament’s Book of Leviticus and their significance for the New Testament believer. The author considers the five tabernacle offerings of Leviticus as forms of Christ's work to enable the believer's fellowship with God.

Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) is a comedy of masquerades and a blend of allegory, cultural satire, and metaphysics. The book portrays a confidence man who sneaks on board a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day, and sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. He rapidly assumes various guises and the pleasure of trickery seems more important than the monetary gain. Each person is forced to confront that in which they believe.

"Liberalism: A Sample" is an essay by G. K. Chesterton which appears in Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays (1917). It concerns the astounding baseness to which journalism had sunk. Asking why party political journalism was so bad, Chesterton states that it is even worse than it intends to be. He claims that the newspapers simply cannot argue, and do not even pretend to argue. And that there’s a sort of carelessness in their degradation, so that they assume that the reader does not have a mind.

Eli and Marcus, two restless college friends from a small Indiana town, escape the monotony of their lives one summer by taking jobs as garbage men in Denver. Riding on the back of Ol’ Bessie—a rickety, old-school garbage truck, they plunge into the rhythms of city work, facing the grime, the chaos, and the surprising dignity of blue-collar labor.