Due to an unfortunate quirk of timing, in preparation for a recent move I spent several days packing up everything I own while reading Walden at night. I quickly came to hate the majority of my possessions.

I can only think of two books worse than Walden to read after lugging all that useless gear into the woods: Ray Jardine's Beyond Backpacking and John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra, in which Muir spends a lot of time walking around the mountains with little more than a loaf of bread.

I hope your shoes fit.

"When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all ... I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry." -- Walden, Henry Thoreau