The Paradise of All These Parts A Natural History of Boston Hardback - 2008

Media reviews

A surprising and gracefully written exploration of Boston's true nature. If you love this city, you will love this book.—Eric Jay Dolin, author of Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America

"Hands-on and eloquent - a lover's rhapsody."—Edward Hoagland

"Like Vladimir Nabokov, John Hanson Mitchell is a writer with an eye for nature's curious details, rather than a naturalist who practices writing. His new natural history of Boston is actually more a history of naturalists, explorers, conservationists and others at play on nature's grand stage with lots of juicy subplots and a large cast of engaging eccentrics. Irresistible."—Christopher W. Leahy, chair of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and author of The Birdwatcher's Companion to North American Birdlife

"John Hanson Mitchell tells the story of how geology, nature, natives and new arrivals have continually made and remade the place we call Boston. His amiable tale rambles easily from rocks to rivers to red light districts, interweaving natural and human history in a way that's quietly but deeply meaningful."—Ginger Strand, author of Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, and Lies

"Like Thoreau, Mitchell has a genius for sauntering, and I can't imagine a better rambling companion. "—David Gessner, author of Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond

"A wonderful piece of work: lively, thought-provoking and totally absorbing. The city of Boston has been chopped to pieces, riddled with tunnels, and surrounded by fill, but as Mitchell reveals in The Paradise of All These Parts, it is still a place of wonder."—Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War