Woodsburner - John Pipkin

Henry David Thoreau is the Woodsburner (Anchor, $15.95) in John Pipkin’s debut novel. Inspired by an actual event from1844, the story follows the lives of four men forever affected by the fire. Over the course of a week, the incident provokes each man to make a life-changing decision. One of them, Thoreau, is inspired to live alone at Walden Pond, reaffirming his decision to maintain a self-sufficient life. Pipkin uses the fire to dramatize the sense of rugged individualism of the era, along with the intense debate over the spiritual and material sides of life then raging in the area around Concord, Massachusetts.