Trespassing

What makes this something close to a perfect book? The first thing is its pace: it is like a walk in the woods with someone who knows a lot about local nature and history, and also knows what he doesn’t know, which doesn’t, fortunately, stop him from asking questions and speculating. He’s not a know......more

Not a scholarly book of legal theory: that's a good thing. The author is the one trespassing, onto fields, ponds and wooded lots around his home in Massachusetts. He lives near the site of an old Native American area which is now private and public holdings. The recorded history goes back into the m......more

I led a discussion about this book recently with a book group in Utah that I am a member of. If you have ever been curious about the origins of land ownership or, if you find yourself sometimes irritated with situations where private interests hold land which seems significant enough that it ought t......more

The highlight of this book for me was Mitchell's obvious love of the deep woods of Massachusetts, woods which are beloved to me as well. Disappointingly, his rich and detailed descriptions of nature and rural culture clashed sharply with speculative and loose conjectures about the life of key "chara......more