Katahdin, Wachusett Mountain, sleepy Cape Cod towns in Massachusetts, and Thoreau’s family’s former homestead in Rhode Island’s Sakonnet Point. In Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, out now from Tin House, Shattuck visits striking New England landmarks like Maine’s Allagash Wilderness Waterway and Mt. But what started out as a necessary compulsion to get out of the house after being injured turned into a happenstance series of brilliant meditations on the philosopher and what it means to be part of the natural world. The visual artist Ben Shattuck didn’t set out at first to write a book about retracing some of Henry David Thoreau’s most famous journeys across New England, as detailed in texts like Cape Cod, A Walk to Wachusett, and The Maine Woods.
