
A Natural History of Empty Lots
Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Brown
About this listen
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.
©2024 Christopher Brown (P)2024 Timber PressListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"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
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By: Harald Jähner
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Connecting with Life: Finding Nature in an Urban World
- By: Martin Summer
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In his debut book, Martin Summer aims to help listeners find nature in an urban world. He discusses how our modern lives differ from the lifestyles of our ancestors. He then proceeds to cover six big problems of urbanization and their destructive impact on our lives. Practical solutions follow each discussed danger. In the next part of the book, the author reveals what connecting with nature means in today's world and why it's possible to do so even in a big city. He discusses the tricky subject of finding a compromise between technology and nature.
By: Martin Summer
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Can't Be Satisfied
- The Life and Times of Muddy Waters
- By: Robert Gordon
- Narrated by: Keb' Mo'
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The epic, rollicking, up-and-down life of Muddy Waters—who went from Mississippi farmhand to musical legend, invented electric blues, and created the template for the rock-and-roll band and its wild lifestyle—is chronicled with rare vividness in Robert Gordon’s widely praised biography.
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Muddy!
- By govtmule1 on 02-08-25
By: Robert Gordon
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The Library
- A Fragile History
- By: Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident.
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Stays on point
- By Alex on 04-29-23
By: Andrew Pettegree, and others
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N-4 Down
- The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia
- By: Mark Piesing
- Narrated by: Matt Jamie
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Triumphantly returning from the North Pole on May 24, 1928, the world-famous exploring airship Italia — code-named N-4 — was struck by a terrible storm and crashed somewhere over the Arctic ice, triggering the largest polar rescue mission in history. Helping lead the search was Roald Amundsen, the poles’ greatest explorer, who himself soon went missing in the frozen wastes. Amundsen’s body has never been found, the last victim of one of the Arctic’s most enduring mysteries....
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Interesting and entertaining
- By 2451 on 09-01-21
By: Mark Piesing
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Hell's Princess
- The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm". Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace.
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Can a book about a serial killer be entertaining?
- By Lori Hanson on 05-08-18
By: Harold Schechter
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Life with the Afterlife
- 13 Truths I Learned about Ghosts
- By: Amy Bruni, Julie Tremaine
- Narrated by: Amy Bruni, Christine Lakin
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Amy Bruni, co-star of Kindred Spirits and one of the world's leading paranormal investigators, has learned a lot about ghosts over her years of research and first-hand experience. Now, in Life with the Afterlife, she shares the insight she has gleaned and how it has shaped her unique approach to interacting with the spirits of the dead and those who encounter them.
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This is a great book!
- By R. Dess on 11-21-20
By: Amy Bruni, and others
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Life Hacks from the Buddha
- How to Be Calm and Content in a Chaotic World
- By: Dr. Tony Fernando
- Narrated by: Dr Tony Fernando
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Buddha worked out how best to deal with the challenges we face today over 2000 years ago. His teachings show us that human stress, anxiety and suffering are nothing new. Life Hacks from the Buddha will help you to quieten your mind, create more peaceful environments to live in, and find the calm and contentment you need to help you function at your very best, which will leave a lasting impression on everyone around you.
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Author shared his own life experiences which made it somewhat more relatable
- By Anonymous User on 12-22-24
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Schopenhauer's Porcupines
- Intimacy and Its Dilemmas: Five Stories of Psychotherapy
- By: Deborah Anna Luepnitz
- Narrated by: Deborah Anna Luepnitz
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Each generation of therapists can boast of only a few writers like Deborah Luepnitz, whose sympathy and wit shine in her fine, luminous prose. In Schopenhauer's Porcupines, she recounts five true stories from her practice, stories of patients who range from the super-rich to the destitute, who grapple with panic attacks, psychosomatic illness, marital despair, and sexual recklessness. Intimate, original, and triumphantly funny, Schopenhauer's Porcupines goes further than any other book in illuminating "how talking helps".
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Poignant listen
- By Robert B. Davis on 08-23-21
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The Power of the Downstate
- Recharge Your Life Using Your Body's Own Restorative Systems
- By: Sara C. Mednick PhD
- Narrated by: Sara C. Mednick PhD
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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If you’re like most people, the relentless daily grind of go-go-go, do-do-do, can run down your energy and deplete your resources. While most of us find our lives full of “Upstate” moments that rev up our stress engines, it doesn’t have to be this way. World-renowned sleep researcher Sara C. Mednick, PhD, shows us how we can access the most replenishing and repairing aspects of sleep through activities and moments that happen during our day by diving into our “Downstate”.
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Game Changer
- By MES on 01-22-23
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The Last Nomad
- Coming of Age in the Somali Desert
- By: Shugri Said Salh
- Narrated by: Waceke Wambaa
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Somalia, a spare daughter in a large family, Shugri Said Salh was sent at age six to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert. Salh grew to love the freedom of roaming with her animals and the powerful feeling of community found in nomadic rituals and the oral storytelling of her ancestors. As she came of age, though, both she and her beloved Somalia were forced to confront change, violence, and instability. Honest and tender, The Last Nomad is a riveting coming-of-age story of resilience, survival, and the shifting definitions of home.
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what great Story
- By Muna on 09-23-21
By: Shugri Said Salh
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Magic Medicine
- A Trip Through the Intoxicating History and Modern-Day Use of Psychedelic Plants and Substances
- By: Cody Johnson
- Narrated by: Steve Quinn
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Magic Medicine is an armchair traveler's guide to all substances psychedelic! Listeners will learn about their properties, use, lore, place in history, and their current research and applications as medicine.
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Excellent summary of history and modern uses of psychedelics
- By Jill Anne on 12-22-24
By: Cody Johnson
What listeners say about A Natural History of Empty Lots
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Aaron S. Hatfield
- 11-09-24
Beautiful and encouraging
A fascinating read of the wild places among our cities. It encourages me to see what I can do with my own slice of nature.
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