A Natural History of Empty Lots

A genre-bending blend of naturalism, memoir, and social manifesto for rewilding the city, the self, and society.

A Natural History of Empty Lots is a genre-defying work of nature writing, literary nonfiction, and memoir that explores what happens when nature and the city intersect. 

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. 

• "A loving, deeply pleasurable, and sprawling investigation of place, community, personal history, and larger contexts. A Natural History of Empty Lots has the shape and liveliness of something organic, as if it has grown out of the neglected, teeming hidden places of the landscape Brown knows so well. An incredible book." 
   
  Kelly Link, Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellow, and award-winning author of The Book of Love
• "A Natural History of Empty Lots is the best and most interesting book I’ve ever read about the spaces we often overlook. Christopher Brown comes to these places with a deep curiosity and understanding of both human and nonhuman history. An instant classic."
   
  Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times bestselling author
• "Too often, what we call ‘nature writing’ is nostalgic for what never was. Thank goodness for Christopher Brown, who sees the wonder in what is and what might be. A Natural History of Empty Lots is the nature writing we need now."
   
  Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
• “Instantly hypnotic, A Natural History of Empty Lots invites you to see the ‘waste’ spaces of the Anthropocene for what they are: a resource that contains more than itself. Christopher Brown is a complete and literate denizen of these zones. His calm, clever writing shows a real care for the natural world, and a real feel for the deep worth of the brownfield liminal.”
   
  M. John Harrison, Goldsmiths Prize-winning author of Wish I Was Here and Climbers
• “A marvelous and wonderfully wide-ranging account of learning to see how wild nature infiltrates the interstices and abandoned places of the Anthropocene.” 
  Paul McAuley, author of Beyond the Burn Line, and winner of the Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Awards
• “A Natural History of Empty Lots is a book about the inbetweenlands, the sacrifice zones, the feral strips — landscapes shocked by humanity, quietly healing. The book pads unbotheredly across the barrier between “urban” and “rural”, “wild” and “industrial”, and the one doing the padding, Christopher Brown, is an ideal guide: wise and ironic, observant, and sensitive.”
  Robin Sloan, author of Moonbound and Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore