Henry Thoreau, an American writer — “an inspector of rainstorms and snow squalls” — at twenty-eight withdrew from society. After building a house in the woods by Walden Pond, he lived there for two years. That’s how one of the most astonishing books in the history of literature came to be — “Walden, or Life in the Woods.” Thoreau’s account of two years spent alone with nature became a classic of American literature. By his life by the lake, Thoreau aimed to show his contemporaries — with their cult of material success — that it’s possible to live well and happily outside society, satisfying all natural needs through one’s own labor. To the consumer society he opposed freedom from material worries, solitude, self-sufficiency, contemplativeness, and closeness to nature.