"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there.  Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.  It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.  I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pondside; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct."

Thoreau ends Walden by admonishing us to live our lives fully, not to fall into ruts or societal traps.  He tells us to explore our inner world, to live fully in the moment, and to "love your life, poor as it is."

How's that for an upbeat ending to a quotable but laborious book?

I'd love to hear from everyone who read part or all of Walden, now that the first book club read is at its end.  What were your overall thoughts?  Did you think Thoreau was a long-winded poser, or a mystic visionary?  Did the book inspire you; if so, to do what?

Personally, I'm ready to move on from Thoreau and crack open The Dirty Life, which we'll begin discussing on July 25.  For my college buddies: the husband in The Dirty Life's team is a graduate of our alma mater, if that's an inducement to join the next discussion.

As we wait for everyone's copies of the next book to arrive on interlibrary loan, feel free to read back over my posts (and reader comments) on Walden's chapter 1, chapter 2, chapters 3 and 4, chapters 5 and 6, chapters 7 and 8, chapters 9 and 10, chapters 11 and 12, chapters 13 and 14, and chapters 15 and 16.  Several of us are subscribed to the comments and will see contributions you post there, even if they're out of sync.