Richard Higgins is a former staff writer at the Boston Globe and the author or editor of four books, including Thoreau and the Language of Trees. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Century, and American Scholar.
“Thoreau’s God is the most subtle and probing assessment yet of the many senses in which this emphatic but elusive thinker must be understood as a deeply religious person.” -- Lawrence Buell, author of 'Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently' “Thoreau was a practical man, but he was also in some sense a mystic—no one has ever been more open to the world around him. This fascinating book tries to understand Thoreau’s sense of the divine, which in some ways very much prefigures the unorthodox syncretism of our day.” -- Bill McKibben, author of 'The End of Nature' “If you have ever felt lost in this world of fractured faith, then pick up this book and let Higgins take you on a walk with one of America’s most profound and thoughtful religious writers: Henry David Thoreau. It won’t be an easy path, for Thoreau’s God lives in no church but out in a world of paradoxes. And Thoreau insisted that even the best of books can only point the way, through words poetic enough to say what cannot be said: that true religion lies not in what you profess, but in how you live. Higgins shows us a mind and heart at work during a troubled time, a fellow human being knocking at the door of God and hearing an answer that guided him for life.” -- Laura Dassow Walls, author of 'Henry David Thoreau: A Life'