The world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), the author of Walden as well as a prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism. In the 27 tributes included here, Pico Iyer describes how Thoreau provided him with an unlikely guidebook to Japan; Gerald Early examines Walden and the Black quest for nature; Mona Simpson follows in Thoreau's footsteps at Maine's Mount Katahdin; Adam Gopnik traces Thoreau's influence on E.B. White's Charlotte's Web. Other contributors include Lauren Groff, Alan Lightman, Amor Towles, and Jennifer Finney Boylan, while Sandra Boynton includes a cartoon.