Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places

A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places

Brown, Christopher

Paperback

Biographies GeneralEnvironmental StudiesGeneral Architecture

Publisher Price: $19.99

ISBN10: 1643265229
ISBN13: 9781643265223
Publisher: Timber Press (OR)
Published: Oct 7 2025
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.75
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.90
Language: English

An instant classic, this genre-bending blend of naturalism, memoir, and social manifesto is a fascinating study for rewilding the city, the self, and society (Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author).

During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot in an industrial section of Austin, Texas. The property--abandoned and full of litter and debris--was an unlikely site for a home. Brown had become fascinated with these empty lots around Austin, so-called ruined spaces once used for agriculture and industry awaiting their redevelopment. He discovered them to be teeming with natural activity, and embarked on a twenty-year project to live in and document such spaces. There, in our most damaged landscapes, he witnessed the remarkable resilience of wild nature, and how we can heal ourselves by healing the Earth. Beautifully written and philosophically hard-hitting, A Natural History of Empty Lots offers a new lens on human disruption and nature, offering a sense of hope among the edgelands.

Brown lives far from any conventional battlefield, but he is surrounded by the wreckage of a different war, and he, too, finds hope in cultivating the ruins of nature...A Natural History of Empty Lots is less a departure from the nature writing tradition than a welcome addition to its edgelands. --New York Review of Books

The nature writing we need now. --Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts

Incredible --Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist

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