Walden

This book by Henry David Thoreau was genuinely recommended once in the episodes we index, on Andrew Huberman. The people who vouched for it on air: Cal Newport. It comes up in conversations about addiction & recovery, focus & dopamine, productivity & performance. Every quote below is verbatim, attributed, and linked to the exact second it was said. Sourced expert opinion, not medical advice.

Walden first published in 1854 as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and, to some degree, a manual for self-reliance. Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.

• “I read thorough while a grad student I read it down by the Charles ... I was really in the the the Walden um real influential book for me”

  Why it counts as a recommendation: “real influential book for me”
  Cal Newport · Huberman Lab · Mar 202401:35:27

  Said during "How to Enhance Focus and Improve Productivity | Dr. Cal Newport". The episode features Cal Newport: A professor of computer science at Georgetown University who trained at MIT. He is the best-selling author of books on productivity and focus, including Deep Work and Slow Productivity. Cal Newport explains the neuroscience of focus and gives concrete systems to escape distraction and do deep, high-value work.