John Hanson Mitchell
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Books

Legends of the Common Stream

Bright Leaf,
2021

Travels in a Vanishing Empire

Komatic Press,
2017

An Eden of Sorts

Perseus Books,
2012

The Last of the Bird People

Wilderness House Press,
2012

The Paradise of All These Parts: A Natural History of Boston

Beacon Press
2008

The Rose Cafe: Love and War in Corsica
Shoemaker & Hoard,
2007
Looking for Mr Gilbert: The Reimagined Life of an African American
Shoemaker & Hoard,
2005

Following the Sun: Fron Spain to the Hebrides
Counterpoint,
2002

The Wildest Place on Earth: Italian Gardens and the Invention of Wilderness
Counterpoint,
2001
Trespassing: An Inquiry into the Private Ownership of Land
Perseus Books,
1998
Walking Towards Walden: A Pilgimage in Search of Place
Perseus Books,
1995
Living at the End of Time
Houghton Mifflin,
1990

A Field Guide to your Own Backyard,
Countryman Press,
1985

Ceremonial Time: Fifteen Tousand Years on One Square Mile
Perseus Books,
1984

Buy

 “…Mitchell knows his plants and animals as certainly as any expert ecologist.  But he stalks different game. He’s after the shadows of older ways of seeing, something latent in the antique term `natural history’  but deeper.”
---- New York Times Book Review

Living at the End of Time
Houghton Mifflin, 1980

This is the story of a return to the land --- not to the wilds of Alaska, but to the suburbs outside of Boston. On the still undeveloped square mile of forest and farmland known as Scratch Flat, Mitchell constructed a one roomThoreauvian cottage and lived there for two years without running water or electricity. His intention was to explore the curious relationship between place, nature, and the fast expanded technologies. His neighbors  consisted mostly of foxes, owls, and deer, but he also encountered on his square mile,  a number of  extraordinary people who regarded the modern world with the same suspicion he did. Partly through his reading of Thoreau and his encounters with nature and these local eccentrics, he grew increasingly obsessed with time and place, and came to understand that every landscape, even those in suburbia, holds mystery and wonder.

© 2021 John Hanson Mitchell
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