Three Roads Back: How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives
Written by Robert D. Richardson and Megan Marshall
Narrated by William Hope
()
About this audiobook
This audiobook narrated by William Hope examines how Emerson, Thoreau, and William James forged resilience from devastating loss and changed the course of American thought
In Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. For Emerson, it was the death of his young wife and, eleven years later, his five-year-old son; for Thoreau, it was the death of his brother; and for James, it was the death of his beloved cousin Minnie Temple. Filled with rich biographical detail and unforgettable passages from the journals and letters of Emerson, Thoreau, and James, these vivid and moving stories of loss and hard-fought resilience show how the writers’ responses to these deaths helped spur them on to their greatest work, influencing the birth and course of American literature and philosophy.
In reaction to his traumatic loss, Emerson lost his Unitarian faith and found solace in nature. Thoreau, too, leaned on nature and its regenerative power, discovering that “death is the law of new life,” an insight that would find expression in Walden. And James, following a period of panic and despair, experienced a redemptive conversion and new ideas that would drive his work as a psychologist and philosopher. As Richardson shows, all three emerged from their grief with a new way of seeing, one shaped by a belief in what Emerson called “the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.”
An inspiring book about resilience and the new growth and creativity that can stem from devastating loss, Three Roads Back is also an extraordinary account of the hidden wellsprings of American thought.
Related to Three Roads Back
Related audiobooks
Henry David Thoreau: A Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare in Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNever Say You've Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You've Had a Lucky Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Read and Why Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Talking Cure: An Essay on the Civilizing Power of Conversation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLessons from an American Stoic: How Emerson Can Change Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great Short Books: A Year of Reading—Briefly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In A Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Bang, the Buddha, and the Baby Boom: The Spiritual Experiments of My Generation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Good-Enough Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Into the Zone: Audio Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poem Forest: Poet W. S. Merwin and the Palm Tree Forest He Grew from Scratch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Point of Vanishing: A Memoir of Two Years in Solitude Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elizabeth Bishop: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTabula Rasa: Volume 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Literary Criticism For You
Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fahrenheit 451 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thalia Book Club: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Celebration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51984 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary: Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover: Key Takeaways, Summary & Analysis Included Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meet Me in the Margins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Feminist: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Of Mice and Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lord of the Flies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow": A Macat Analysis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Thief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thalia Book Club: Neil Gaiman: The Ocean at the End of the Lane Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythologies: The Complete Edition, in a New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5C. S. Lewis: Encountering God's Truth through Fiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Three Roads Back
0 ratings0 reviews