'One's Company' by Barbara Holland (1992 and 1996)
Ballantine, 1992; Akadine Press, 1996
Holland's funny and practical musings about living alone, interspersed with recipes and useful stuff like how to change locks and fuses.
"The American high priest of solitude was Thoreau. We admire him, not for his self-reliance and his conceited musings, but because he was all by himself out there at Walden Pond, and he wanted to be. All alone in the woods.
"Actually, he lived a mile, or twenty minutes' walk, from his nearest neighbor; half a mile from the railroad; three hundred yards from a busy highway. He had streams of company in and out of the hut all day, asking him how he could possibly be so noble...."
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"The American high priest of solitude was Thoreau. We admire him, not for his self-reliance and his conceited musings, but because he was all by himself out there at Walden Pond, and he wanted to be. All alone in the woods.
"Actually, he lived a mile, or twenty minutes' walk, from his nearest neighbor; half a mile from the railroad; three hundred yards from a busy highway. He had streams of company in and out of the hut all day, asking him how he could possibly be so noble...."
Reviews and copies of 'One's Company' for sale:
LibraryThing
Amazon
Goodreads