Woodsburner by John Pipkin
Woodsburner springs from a little-known event in the life of one of America’s most iconic figures, Henry David Thoreau. On April 30, 1844, a year before he built his cabin on Walden Pond, Thoreau accidentally started a forest fire that destroyed three hundred acres of the Concord woods—an event that altered the landscape of American thought in a single day.
Against the background of Thoreau’s fire, Pipkin’s ambitious debut penetrates the mind of the young philosopher while also painting a panorama of the young nation at a formative moment. Pipkin’s Thoreau is a lost soul, plagued by indecision, resigned to a career designing pencils for his father’s factory while dreaming of better things. On the day of the fire, his path will intersect with three very different local citizens, each of whom also harbors a secret dream. Oddmund Hus, a lovable Norwegian farmhand, pines for the wife of his brutal employer. Elliott Calvert, a prosperous bookseller, is also a hilariously inept aspiring playwright. And Caleb Dowdy preaches fire and brimstone to his congregation through an opium haze. Each of their lives, like Thoreau’s, is changed forever by the fire.
Doesn’t it look good?
Book Chatter 
http://www.bookmovement.com is having a giveaway of this book, you should check it out.
Wow, what an interesting piece of trivia about Thoreau! Sounds like a good book!
This does sound interesting! Thanks for sharing this one with us.
That does sound good, I’ve never seen that one, too many books too little time!
Woods Burner does look really good. I have seen it in a couple of spots now.
that looks really interesting…and i spent time learning thoreau in college without any mention of that piece of triv!
I’ve never read anything about or by Thoreau. I guess I need to remedy that. 🙂
This one just snuck up on me when I started seeing reviews this week!
I’m curious what the local reaction will be to this book (we live in Concord), whether it will be seen as the story of his inspiration for the Walden experiment, or “sacrilege”!