A few weeks ago I was looking around Amazon.com at various books and went into a “classics” list and saw “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided I should buy it and read it – for two reasons. First, I’ve never read it, and second, I thought I probably should.
After reading the first chapter it occurred to me that this is one of the first “blogs” (forgetting the fact that the “b” is short for “web”) – it’s written just like today’s blogs – if not longer and descriptive. It’s basically HDT’s public journal of a couple years spent on a pond outside Concord.
And like a blog, it’s got some really interesting chapters (aka posts) as well as some really uninteresting chapters. I must confess that I’ve skipped some parts that were long winded and boring (IMHO), but found other sections extremely interesting and so read them a few times repeatedly to get all the nuances.
So, if you’re thinking it might be interesting to read a 150 year old blog, pick up Walden. I enjoyed (most of) it.