With warmth and a keen eye for the nuances of history and place, David K. Leff offers this affectionate, insightful portrait of his adopted home of Collinsville, Connecticut, a village that looked perfectly ordinary until he fell prey to its rhythms and charm. The town taught him a new way of seeing his environment, and through this process he discovered what many Americans long for amid the suburban sprawl decried in James H. Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere and many other recent books: a sense of community. 
When Leff began to look for a suitable place to raise a family, his criteria were familiar: an affordable fixer-upper with some historical character, pleasant neighbors, good schools, walkable streets, and attractive natural surroundings. The suburbs around Hartford were uninviting, so he settled sixteen miles away in Collinsville, a small village that grew up around―indeed was largely built by―The Collins Company, once the world’s leading maker of edge tools.
Collins, which supplied the pikes for John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, went out of business in 1966, and Collinsville settled into the familiar decrepitude of many New England mill towns. In spite of its half-alive state, Leff found in its battered factory buildings and struggling main street an extraordinary place. Built before the restrictive zoning codes that today keep most Americans in their cars for hours on end, Collinsville’s mixed-use center has been preserved by industrious residents and a hilly topography marked by the presence of the Farmington River, which once drove the mill. The landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. lived here at a time when Samuel Collins, the socially minded founder of the company, was laying out his ideal village for workers and managers. 
Leff feels Olmsted’s presence as he walks the village’s uneven streets, often in the company of his children, musing on its history, politics, and architecture. Living at the center of Collins’s creation years later, Leff has come to believe, like Olmsted, that human beings are deeply affected by their experience of landscape, and that local interaction―between parents and teachers, store owners and customers, bar regulars and volunteer firefighters―matters. The Last Undiscovered Place argues quietly but forcefully for looking at our landscapes more carefully, as Leff strives for a metaphorical Collinsville that can serve as a way to rediscover other places, those that already exist and those that are still on the drawing boards of developers and planners.

The Last Undiscovered Place

History

Leff, David K.

Americas

Univ of Virginia Pr

With warmth and a keen eye for the nuances of history and place, David K. Leff offers this affectionate, insightful portrait of his adopted home of Collinsville, Connecticut, a village that looked perfectly ordinary until he fell prey to its rhythms and charm. The town taught him a new way of seeing his environment, and through this process he discovered what many Americans long for amid the suburban sprawl decried in James H. Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere and many other recent books: a sense of community. When Leff began to look for a suitable place to raise a family, his criteria were familiar: an affordable fixer-upper with some historical character, pleasant neighbors, good schools, walkable streets, and attractive natural surroundings. The suburbs around Hartford were uninviting, so he settled sixteen miles away in Collinsville, a small village that grew up around―indeed was largely built by―The Collins Company, once the world’s leading maker of edge tools.Collins, which supplied the pikes for John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, went out of business in 1966, and Collinsville settled into the familiar decrepitude of many New England mill towns. In spite of its half-alive state, Leff found in its battered factory buildings and struggling main street an extraordinary place. Built before the restrictive zoning codes that today keep most Americans in their cars for hours on end, Collinsville’s mixed-use center has been preserved by industrious residents and a hilly topography marked by the presence of the Farmington River, which once drove the mill. The landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. lived here at a time when Samuel Collins, the socially minded founder of the company, was laying out his ideal village for workers and managers. Leff feels Olmsted’s presence as he walks the village’s uneven streets, often in the company of his children, musing on its history, politics, and architecture. Living at the center of Collins’s creation years later, Leff has come to believe, like Olmsted, that human beings are deeply affected by their experience of landscape, and that local interaction―between parents and teachers, store owners and customers, bar regulars and volunteer firefighters―matters. The Last Undiscovered Place argues quietly but forcefully for looking at our landscapes more carefully, as Leff strives for a metaphorical Collinsville that can serve as a way to rediscover other places, those that already exist and those that are still on the drawing boards of developers and planners.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

University of Virginia Press

In the course of the mundane routines of life, we encounter a variety of landscapes and objects, either ignoring them or looking without interest at what appears to be just a tree, stone, anonymous building, or dirt road. But the "deep traveler," according to Hartford Courant essayist David K. Leff, doesn't make this mistake. Instead, the commonplace elements become the most important. By learning to see the magic in the mundane, we not only enrich daily life with a sense of place, we are more likely to protect and make those places better. Over his many years working at the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and writing about the state's landscape, Leff gained unparalleled intimacy while traveling its byways and back roads. In Hidden in Plain Sight, Leff's essays and photographs take us on a point-by-point journey, revealing the rich stories behind many of Connecticut's overlooked landmarks, from the Merritt Parkway and Cornwall's Cathedral Pines to roadside rock art and centuries-old milestones.

Hidden in Plain Sight: A Deep Traveler Explores Connecticut (Garnet Books)

Wesleyan University Press

Maple Sugaring gives readers an intimate look at the art and science of America's favorite sweet. These stories, told by real-life sugarmakers, reveal how this ancient industry has continued into the twenty-first century. Thanks to the newest technology, and patience, New England sugarmakers are still keeping it real. A former maple sugarmaker and board member of the Maple Syrup Producers' Association of Connecticut, David Leff takes us on a journey into the very heart of New England's character. Along the way he talks with the sugar gurus, who share their expertise, insights, and anecdotes about their experiences in the business. What makes maple sugaring such a beloved tradition? Is it marketing savvy, family tradition, or something deeper―and harder to tap? This book is for anyone with a sweet tooth who is curious about the science, or who simply enjoys a good story. Maple Sugaring is full of wisdom, quirky characters, and recipes.

Maple Sugaring: Keeping It Real in New England (Garnet Books)

Business & Money

Industries

New England Nature: Centuries of Writing on the Wonder and Beauty of the Land

Science & Math

Lehman, Eric D.

Nature & Ecology

Globe Pequot

In the hot summer of 2004, David Leff floated away from the routine of daily life just as Henry David Thoreau and his brother had done in their own small boat in 1839. Fortified with Thoreau’s observations as revealed in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Leff brought his own concept of mindful deep travel to these same New England waterways. His first-person narrative uses his ecological way of looking, of going deep rather than far, to show that our outward journeys are inseparable from our inward ones. How we see depends on where we are in our lives and with whom we travel. Leff chose his companions wisely. In consecutive journeys his neighbor and friend Alan, a veteran city planner; his son Josh, an energetic eleven-year-old; and his sweetheart Pamela, a compassionate professional caregiver, added their perspectives to Leff’s own experiences as a government official in natural resources policy. Not so much sight seeing as sight seeking, together they explored a geography of the imagination as well as the rich natural and human histories of the rivers and their communities. The heightened awareness of deep travel demands that we immerse ourselves fully in places and realize that they exist in time as well as space. Its mindfulness enriches the experience and makes the voyager worthy of the journey. Leff’s intriguing, contemplative deep travel along these historic rivers presents a methodology for exploration that will enrich any trip.

Deep Travel: In Thoreau's Wake on the Concord and Merrimack (American Land & Life)

Sports & Outdoors

Water Sports

University Of Iowa Press

Deeply rooted in place and time, these poems explore nature, the built environment, and human relationships with an acute sense of reverence and wonder that renews the spirit.

Tinker's Damn

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Homebound Publications

Meet Henry David Thoreau, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and other intrepid explorers as you travel northern Maine's rugged woods and waters. In a wild country of ledge and trees that stubbornly resists encroaching civilization, find a young couple padding through the trials, triumphs, and sheer mental and physical exhaustion of wilderness travel severely testing their ability to get along and even complete the trip. Fill your ears with roaring rapids and yodeling loons. Smell pungent spruce and dank swamps. Encounter moose and majestic sunrises cloaked in morning mist. A few pages, and you will find yourself deep in the evergreen forest.

Canoeing Maine's Legendary Allagash: Thoreau, Romance, and Survival of the Wild

Parenting & Relationships

Imagine walls could actually talk as a New England factory community faces closure of its signature mill due to environmental contamination and foreign competition. This story of politics, family life, competing redevelopment schemes, gossiping locals, and a mother fiercely protecting her children is told in the voice of common objects―from the church steeple clock to a Bridgeport milling machine to an umbrella. They witness a bit of drinking, sex, a suicide, and the hopes and dreams of the human beings around them. How did these everyday things find their voice? Readers may never again look at the ordinary objects around them the same.

Breach

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Leff, David K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Leff, David K.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Leff, David K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Last Undiscovered Place

The Last Undiscovered Place

Hidden in Plain Sight: A Deep Traveler Explores Connecticut (Garnet Books)

Hidden in Plain Sight: A Deep Traveler Explores Connecticut (Garnet Books)

Maple Sugaring: Keeping It Real in New England (Garnet Books)

New England Nature: Centuries of Writing on the Wonder and Beauty of the Land

Deep Travel: In Thoreau's Wake on the Concord and Merrimack (American Land & Life)

Tinker's Damn

Canoeing Maine's Legendary Allagash: Thoreau, Romance, and Survival of the Wild

Breach