@NB_Chris

Writer & lawyer. now available: A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS (narrative nonfiction) • Novels TROPIC OF KANSAS et al • urban nature newsletter FIELD NOTES

 Austin, Texas
christopherbrown.com
Joined April 2009
  • Tweets18.7K
  • Following1.9K
  • Followers3.7K
4.5KMedia
My new book A Natural History of Empty Lots is released today. I hope you like it—it distills 20 years of exploring the edgelands, working on rewilding projects, and trying to understand what such places teach us about our lives, history and future: hachettebookgroup.com/titles…
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Christopher Brown retweeted
Adrian McKinty@adrianmckinty21 May 2025
I've always been a huge fan of back alleys, empty lots, old cars in overgrown fields, dens, desire paths, condemned buildings (don't do I what I do & go in these (asbestos/sepsis/roof collapse)), old canals & railways etc. this & great writing are & why I love these books:
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The unstoppable @doctorow right now at First Light Books in Austin, presenting Picks & Shovels to the SRO @SXSW crowd:
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Abandoned lots and the future? 🏚️🌱 @NB_chris book A Natural History of Empty Lots reveals the unexpected biodiversity, resilience & hidden ecosystems in urban spaces. Bonus: new sound by Cat Byrne, Clapton edgelands (i): catbyrne.com Tune in: shorturl.at/j0JGL

Cat Byrne

catbyrne.com
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Christopher Brown retweeted
Adrian McKinty@adrianmckinty2 Mar 2025
this is nice too HANG ON ST CHRISTOPHER is a best book of the month on amazon 🙂
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Grackles, concrete, ancient oaks, true names of the Gulf, and Tropic of Kansas memories, in the latest Field Notes: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.…

Jackdaws, Freeways and Aztecs

No. 174

fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com
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Christopher Brown retweeted
Adrian McKinty@adrianmckinty25 Feb 2025
George McFly Day! ...after a year of work, this is the day every writer looks forward to - the day your box of books arrives from the publisher DI Duffy #8, HANG ON ST CHRISTOPHER is in the world
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NiCHE@NiCHE_Canada21 Feb 2025
In "From Vacant to Vital: Rethinking the Role of Empty Lots in North American Cities," Carmen Gilmore reflects on Christopher Brown's A Natural History of Empty Lots. niche-canada.org/2025/02/20/… #envhist #nathist #urbanstudies #urbanecology #yxe

From Vacant to Vital: Rethinking the Role of Empty Lots in North American Cities

Christopher Brown’s A Natural History of Empty Lots explores urban edgelands, revealing their ecological resilience, human impact, and overlooked significance in city landscapes.

niche-canada.org
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Exploring the edgelands-Texas and beyond w/ @NB_Chris Thrilled to post this fascinating conversation on the overlooked margins of urban landscapes, urban rewilding, the resilience of nature & much more w/ readings from: A natural history of empty lots! shorturl.at/WlgdX

Episode 200: Exploring the Austin edgelands: Christopher Brown discusses his latest book, A Natural...

In this thought-provoking episode, Christopher Brown—lawyer, novelist, and urban naturalist— takes us on a journey through the landscape around his home in Austin, Texas, the edgelands where the city...

thesustainabilityagenda.com
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I had a blast talking with Fergal Byrne @sustain_agenda about Empty Lots, rewilding, and green futures: thesustainabilityagenda.com/…

Episode 200: Exploring the Austin edgelands: Christopher Brown discusses his latest book, A Natural...

In this thought-provoking episode, Christopher Brown—lawyer, novelist, and urban naturalist— takes us on a journey through the landscape around his home in Austin, Texas, the edgelands where the city...

thesustainabilityagenda.com
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Some Field Notes from a cold Lupercalia, with airport bird nests, post-industrial heronries, ruins of the twentieth century, dreams of rewilded futures, and an island getaway through the Bermuda Triangle with Henry Kissinger: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.…

Nest-building at the End of the World

No. 173

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Christopher Brown retweeted
joanna pocock@joannaofottawa28 Jan 2025
The final paragraph of Christopher Brown’s ‘A Natural History of Empty Lots’: “Things that can be explained by science, but also understood by poets”. More of this kind of thinking, please! A beautiful book. #christopherbrown #nonfiction #environmentalwriting #poetry #science
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Field Notes from the cold snap that precedes the inauguration, with celestial objects, underground queens, and Octavia Butler daydreams: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.…

Flight trackers and fungus garden futures

No. 172

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Available today in the UK!
Christopher Brown@NB_Chris17 Sep 2024
My new book A Natural History of Empty Lots is released today. I hope you like it—it distills 20 years of exploring the edgelands, working on rewilding projects, and trying to understand what such places teach us about our lives, history and future: hachettebookgroup.com/titles…
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Christopher Brown retweeted
joanna pocock@joannaofottawa7 Jan 2025
Look what has just arrived! I’ve had my beady eye on this one for a while. It’s only just come out in the UK. Very excited to dive in. #ChristopherBrown #NaturalHistoryofEmptyLots #hachette #nonfiction #environmentalwriting #memoir #nature #anthropocene
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More Marty Hench from the unstoppable @doctorow—I’m in!
Cory Doctorow NO LONGER ON TWIT TER
@doctorow7 Jan 2025
*Picks and Shovels* is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton: martinhench.com 1/
A mockup of a cellphone playing the audiobook of Picks and Shovels. Next to it is a Stephen Fry quote: 'I hugely enjoyed it. The reconstruction of the age is note perfect: the detail, the atmosphere, ethos, flavor and smell of the age is perfectly conveyed.'

ALT A mockup of a cellphone playing the audiobook of Picks and Shovels. Next to it is a Stephen Fry quote: 'I hugely enjoyed it. The reconstruction of the age is note perfect: the detail, the atmosphere, ethos, flavor and smell of the age is perfectly conveyed.'

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Delighted to be included in this amazing group of Austin folks 🙏
Austin American-Statesman
@statesman6 Jan 2025
We asked our entertainment staff to name 25 Austinites to watch this year, and the list they produced sets the stage for a thrilling year. statesman.com/story/entertai…

25 Austinites to watch in 2025: Chefs, artists and community leaders on our radar

We asked our entertainment staff to name 25 Austinites to watch this year, and the list they produced sets the stage for a thrilling year.

statesman.com
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Field Notes from the holiday fortnight, with Chupacabra screams, horny foxes behind the factories, hungry hawks in empty lots, pagan fortune-telling as family fun, and bright-eyed Kindergarten bike rides through the ruins of the world we made: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.…

Molybdomancers of the New Moon

No. 171

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re-read Tropic of Kansas to start the year & despite it all its closing still gets me
The sky was so clear that night, you could almost see the flares coming off the shooting stars. You could actually imagine a world you would really want to live in, even as you knew you were still in America.

ALT The sky was so clear that night, you could almost see the flares coming off the shooting stars. You could actually imagine a world you would really want to live in, even as you knew you were still in America.

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A Natural History of Empty Lots, Christopher Brown: “We tend to ignore the wild nature that lives in the city, right under our noses, integrated into the fabric of our everyday life.” christopherbrown.com/a-natur…
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Christopher Brown retweeted
Joanne Manaster@sciencegoddess31 Dec 2024
Plants & Gardens The Light Eaters, @zoeschlanger Gardening Can Be Murder, Marta McDowell Unrooted, @DoctorZedd Most Delicious Poison, Noah Whitman The Garden Against Time, Olivia Laing A Natural History of Empty Lots @NB_Chris full titles in ALT
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers by Marta McDowell Unrooted: Botany, Motherhood, and the Fight to Save an Old Science by Erin Zimmerman Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature's Toxins―From Spices to Vices by Noah Whitman The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places by Christopher Brown

ALT The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers by Marta McDowell Unrooted: Botany, Motherhood, and the Fight to Save an Old Science by Erin Zimmerman Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature's Toxins―From Spices to Vices by Noah Whitman The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places by Christopher Brown

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