Forrest’s Reviews > A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places > Status Update

The last section was decent. Lots of ups and downs with this book.

Is this book good, or just nice? I toggle back and forth between opinions on this one. I can't decide if it's "big" or "small," and I frankly only have an ill-conceived hint of a notion about what I even mean by that. It has its moments, but, then again, it has its moments, whatever that means in my intellectually lazy assessment. Maybe this book isn't for me, or I'm not for it?

I like Brown's approach: Not alarmist, but not letting us off the hook for our environmental sins so easily, either. There's a touch of sadness and a touch of hope in those interstitial spaces where wilderness and domesticated spaces meet. I find a particularly wry, grim humor at work when Brown points out that roadkill might be one of the best indicators that wildness persists even in our most urbanized areas.

So far, a nice, easy read punctuated by small moments of wisdom.