A few years ago, Linda Jones reread WALDEN, Henry David Thoreau’s masterpiece on simple living. The experience changed her life.
“I was traveling between Brooklyn, New York, and my hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, to care for my mother,” says the actor, who attended Thoreau High School and learned to swim in Walden Pond. “It was a contemplative and difficult time. When I reread WALDEN, I was more enthralled than I’d been as a teenager. It spoke to all my emotions—from grief to self-doubt to gratitude. I wanted to share it, and for an audiobook narrator, that means recording it.” She soon began a long-term project to produce all of Thoreau’s work in audio.
Jones, whose acting career has combined stage and voice-over work with dialect coaching, was cast in her first audiobook about 15 years ago. “I loved it immediately,” she smiles. “Audiobook narration is challenging work, certainly, but it’s the purest form of acting. It is so fulfilling to use only my voice to channel the author and give you the story as transparently as I can.”
In Thoreau, Jones has found a captivating person to channel. “He is brilliant, thoughtful, and observant. He’s also opinionated, irascible, and stubborn. I don’t always agree with him, but I love the conversation and I loved recording the audiobook.”
Spoken Realms, the production and packaging company Jones has partnered with for the project, nominated the finished work for an Audie Award.
In addition to WALDEN, Jones has recorded a collection of essays, WALKING, AUTUMNAL TINTS & WILD APPLES, which were published by The Atlantic Monthly in 1862. And her upcoming recording of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, which Thoreau drafted while at Walden Pond, will publish in September to coincide with the 185th anniversary of the start of his boat trip. In addition to these most famous works, Thoreau wrote many essays and diaries in his 44 years of life. “It’s fascinating writing,” Jones enthuses, “and audiobook listeners should have the opportunity to hear it.”
Thoreau the nineteenth-century writer speaks to our twenty-first-century life—in particular, our anxiety about climate and the natural world, our concern as the world changes, and the corresponding efforts of many people to live deliberately.
“My parents died between 2017 and 2021, and my link through them to my formative home was broken,” says Jones. “Losing them and losing that connection hurt. It also made me understand how much grief is threaded through Thoreau’s work. He was often ill. He struggled to find meaningful work that paid enough. His beloved brother, with whom he took the canoe trip on the Concord and Merrimack, died in his arms three years later.”
It's Thoreau’s written response to such a life that is helpful, explains Jones. “He’s clear that each of us has only so much time—so spend it meaningfully. Observe nature. Consider culture and history. Think deeply about things. And approach it all, joy and grief, with passion.”
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Linda Jones's photo by Jordan Matter Photography.
