I love how the story takes a very simple premise, major changes in life, and ties them into nature and how that works or does not work with humanity. There is a much larger message here about the power of the cycle of death in life and how that manifests both on the human scale but also in nature every day. I love the use of mushrooms here and how it creates such a lovely story using both life and death as well as resilience that we find in humans and in nature.

The book looks at the author’s interest in mushroom hunting and her grief following her husbands unexpected death. I feel mildly guilty judging someone else expression of grief, but this was just not a good fit book for me. I felt that the jumping around in topics and time periods was confusing and prevented an in-depth look at any of the mushroom topics. Also, this books really needs footnotes. I have noticed the lack of footnotes to be a problem with popular science books. There is a bibliography but no indication of what information is where and thus, no ability to either learn more or judge the validity of it. I am not sure if I should treat if more as a memoir, in which case it was vague and not very detailed, or a science book, in which case it was also vague and not very detailed. All in all, interesting concept but poor execution. Mushroom pictures were fun on a happy note to end.

Grief is such a singular, devastating emotion that makes you feel completely alone in the world. Long has taken that emotion and broken it wide open to the light, taking us on an intimate, personal journey through her own experience of unimaginable loss. Although I wasn't currently grieving anyone when I started the book, her experiences, so beautifully expressed, captured my own experience of grieving for my late grandparents perfectly. I felt as if I was reliving each step of the grieving process with her as I read through the book. I feel connected to the author by our shared grief. Seeing how incredibly similar our shared emotions were made the grief itself feel lighter, and I'm so glad she decided to share such personal things from her life.
As for the mushrooms, they're actually why I picked up the book. I love mushrooms and I was intrigued about what they could possibly have to do with grieving. Following the author as she discovered the joy of botany (mycology is a subset of botany) was like rediscovering it myself. As a botanist, I loved learning about mushrooms through this book. The writing style is fresh, the pacing is perfect, the subject is interesting, and the emotional connection is powerful. I loved this book and I highly recommend it.

3.5/4 stars

I never thought I would get so wrapped up in a book about mushrooms, but here I am. I admit to having always been one of those people who has to kick mushrooms whenever I see them, but after reading The Way Through the Woods, I have a completely different perspective of them. Long's writing is compelling, and it's easy to get caught up in her intense fascination of mushrooms and the whole mycology world that surrounds mushrooms. Sometimes the theme of connecting mourning and mushrooms got a bit lost, and sometimes Long does a great job of showing how the two are interwoven. That being said, reading this book occasionally felt like I was reading two different books all at once. Am I reading about Litt Woon Long as she grieves her husband? Or am I reading about Litt Woon Long the mushroom enthusiast as she falls in love with mushrooms? I would've liked to see some more marriage between the two ideas since the initial concept was there and only shallowly explored.

Overall, I'd recommend this book! It's unusual, and I can honestly say that I've never come across anything like it before. I can also say that it's challenged me to reexamine how I view mushrooms, and I love being challenged, so I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in cooking, plants, and the environment!

Cover to cover, The Way Through the Woods is a terrific read not just for the writing, which is absolutely rich and textured. But also for the wonderful parallels the author paints between her search for meaning after her husband's sudden death to the search for a way to move forward. In the author's case, it was hunting for mushrooms, a perfect metaphor for life and death.
To read this book is both an intellectual endeavor as well as an emotional one. The author has undoubtedly poured herself into it, and as a result the book is a reflection of her heart and mind. Even if you haven't experienced profound loss, this book will make you get up and out, and find a hobby that will drain you and fulfill you in wonderful ways.

I find I have a bit of curiosity about people who find an interest or hobby of something I would probably not ever try, so this book was very interesting to me. The author, chose to take a class on mushrooming to help her get through the grief of having lost her husband. They had once talked about possibly taking a class and now was her opportunity, to feel connected to him and to lose herself from her thoughts.
In this books you will find out about the world of mushrooming, a fascinating group of people, very devoted and very secretive as well.
I am not even an adventurous mushroom eater, sticking mainly to White Button Mushroom and maybe an occasional Portabello, but found it so interesting to take this journey with people so excited to find the perfect or even rare species of mushrooms. I don't think it will change my mind about being more adventurous, but it was very interesting to see the process, the checking of the mushrooms for edible purposes and just the friendships that develop through this love. I must say, I have now seen mushrooms everywhere and tend to look them up.
The only thing I would have liked more of, was about the relationship with her husband, Eiolf. The author did give us a glimpse of it throughout the book, but I would have liked to have more, to have made it more personal.
This book was very well translated and flowed very nicely.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC of this book.

I’m strangely drawn to a weird niche category of books where the author takes up a particular—and often unusual—hobby to deal with grief after the loss of a loved one. Helen Macdonald’s H is For Hawk falls into this category, as does Katie Arnold’s more recent book about ultrarunning, Running Home. So Litt Woon Long’s new memoir, The Way Through the Woods, in which she describes being drawn into the world of mushroom hunting after the sudden death of her husband, was immediately appealing to me. There’s a LOT about the study of mushrooms (known as mycology) here—where to find them, how to identify them, what to cook with them and how to become an expert mycologist. And although I have no interest in ever taking up this hobby, I enjoyed the glimpse into this world that Litt Woon Long provides and learned a lot along the way. The grief narrative is a little more muted, the reason for which becomes clear in the author’s note at the end, when she says she layered the parts about her husband into her original concept for a book about mushroom hunting. Because of this, I found the book a bit less satisfying than H is for Hawk and Running Home, but it was still an interesting read, and a must if you’re into mycology.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.

The Way Through the Woods is a memoir chronicling Long Litt Woon's life after her husband, Eiolf, dies unexpectedly. Through overwhelming, numbing grief, she begins attending classes held by the local mycological society. The book walks us through Long's journey from beginner to well-seasoned mushroom hunter in Finland, which in many ways parallels her experience with devastating loss.

Pros:
- This book teaches a lot about mushrooms, especially in Finland. I was inspired to look up many of the mushrooms to get a visual of what Long meant by the diversity of wild mushrooms, which run far beyond your typical store-bought varieties. And there are some excellent descriptions of what being out in nature can do for one's mental state--it made me want to run to the nearest forested area ASAP.
- Long, herself an immigrant to Finland from Malaysia, discusses multiple cultures' approaches to mushrooms, perceptions of taste and smell and delicacy vs. not, and so forth--not at all in a judgmental way, just in a perceptive one.

Cons:
- Perhaps because of the translation, I found the discussions of grief, although familiar, to be quite cliché for a published memoir. There are some insightful, striking images when talking about death in the book, which makes comparisons to being adrift at sea or sentences like "Grief calls for muscles for which no fitness center has the right exercise machines" to be particularly galling.
- I can't tell whether I like it or not, since the focus of the book is primarily dealing with grief through discovering mycology, but there was very, very little information about her husband, her life before or besides this new hobby, and so on. I wish there were more information woven in with the information on mycology. Like, there's a whole chapter of just recipes, but I want more chapters on her relationship with Eiolf, her relationship as an immigrant to Finland or a young widow, etc.

I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

"We live in a society that regards death as a defeat for medical science rather than a part of life. In a culture that allows little place for death in the public area, grief becomes a private affair, viewed as a luxury we cannot afford."

When I spotted this book off Netgalley I was interested in reading it due to its themes on grief, yet I found myself very intrigued with the information provided on mushrooms and enjoying these aspects much more than I thought I would. Woon's journey through mushrooms is intertwined with the grief of her husband; her passion for mushrooms and the intimate details of her mourning make a unique relationship that intertwines and reads well.

"We are all amateurs at grief, although sooner or later every one of us will lose someone close to us."

Woon discusses her grieving journey intimately and just how uncomfortable we are with death as a society despite it being a part of literally everyone's life at one point or another. It's so uncomfortable that many of those grieving feel utterly alone and abandoned in their mourning as no one knows what to do to provide support or relief.  In social interactions the death and memory of the person are often just avoided altogether, leaving the bereaved to heal on their own. It's a tragedy in its own right, however, the grieved are still the ones that ultimately have to decide how to move on.

"Grief grinds slowly; it devours all the time it needs."

This is when mushrooms became paramount in Woon's grieving process. Woon and her husband had once discussed taking a mushroom course together before he died, something that they never got to do together. Woon found herself drawn to sign up for the class alone and quickly learned to lose herself in the world of mushrooms and the journey that comes in learning about them, picking them, and cooking with them. Woon provides some great facts on the different types of mushrooms in Norway and the mushroom culture. Did you know that not every country can agree on which mushrooms are considered toxic? They deadly ones are consistent but the what one country labels as toxic another considers harmless. The book is complete with drawn images of distinct mushrooms in Norway and even a few really yummy-sounding ways to prepare and cook mushrooms, a great addition to the book that I was not expecting.

Mushrooms are something that I have very little experience in eating and tasting having only really come to enjoy them in my adult years. I have, however, always found them interesting and have been in awe of people who are knowledgable on them. Woon discusses how people usually perceive mushrooming as a dangerous ordeal as the little knowledge that people have when it comes to wild mushrooms is only on how poisonous some can be. Woon details the education process it takes to become an expert in mushrooming and explains that errors rarely happen. The wild mushrooms gathered in Norway are inspected by certified experts before they're allowed to be taken home. With the right knowledge and by double checking each other's haul, wild mushrooming is a perfectly safe hobby to have but it's still hard to convince the general public of it.

Through mushrooms, Woon managed to crawl out of the pit that grief had put her in and slowly put together a new life without her beloved husband. Loss, as Woon explains, means so much more than just the loss of that loved one's life, it's the loss of the life that will never be had again. Those that are left behind after someone dies will never be the same. Their lives as they know it, or knew it, will never be the same. The unwanted task then falls the mourning to find their way again and start anew with the perceived insurmountable task of doing it without the person they lost.

This book is a comforting and validating read for anyone grieving and while the glimpse into the mushroom culture and its accompanying facts are extremely interesting, most of the information is only valid only in Norway. Even with that, Woon's writing is highly engaging, enjoyable and interesting, even if you're only mildly interested in mushrooms.

For starters, I knew nothing about this book going in. In fact, I actually thought, based on the title and the cover, that it was going to be a thriller. Imagine my surprise, when it’s a book about mushrooms.

What a great surprise it was. The author takes us on an account of her recently passed husband, while educating us on the treasures we can find, just outside in the woods.

I was delightfully surprised by this book and actually learned a lot about a topic I’d never previously had any interest in.

Kudos for keeping me entertained and teaching me as well.

I would highly recommend this book.

Perfect for the outdoor lover. Nice book. Read easily.

Thanks to author,publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free,it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

This is a heart wrenching book of grief of loss of mourning .It starts with an ordinary day Litt Woo Longs husband the man she had been with since they were very young goes to work ordinary till she gets a phone call from a doctor her husband is at the hospital and he has passed away ,the shock the sadness he collapsed at work at the age of 55 suddenly with out any warning.
Litt lives through the shock the funeral life will never be the same slowly she develops an interest in mushroom hunting.In this hobby she finds an interest to keep her mind busy in this new interest she finds community people she shares foraging for mushrooms with she shares with us all types of mushrooms including the most desired there are sketches of mushrooms there are recipes to cook with mushrooms,Through thevsearch for these mushrooms Litt realizes she is finding ba path back to life,An incredible healing story anode to love and life.#netgalley #randomhouse