"North Woods" is a lovely book with an ingenious structure that elevates it. Interconnected stories reveal the bones, the core of a small homestead in Western Massachusetts from the 17th century to modern times. Author Daniel Mason revels in the flora and fauna of the area and what each makes of the land. The stories follow the seasons, and the characters may appear (or reappear) in different forms throughout time. Naturally, it's hard to make all the stories equally compelling--although I found myself wishing most of them would go on longer.

Thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I read an advanced review copy of this book courtesy of Netgalley.

North Woods is the panoramic story of a single place throughout time, a plot of land in Massachusetts. It is a set of related and interwoven short stories. Mason shifts between styles and genres throughout the stories.

I admire the vision in this book, though it was difficult to perceive a narrative and the emotional depth I wanted, perhaps due to shifting styles.

This is a highly anticipated book, and while I see what there is to recommend it, it fell slightly flat for me. I wanted to be more engaged with the characters.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5795565710

Daniel Mason’s North Woods is a wonderfully and precisely crafted collection of related short stories that greatly impresses with its varied styles, vividly detailed descriptions, sharp sentence constructions, connecting echoes, and a few unexpected twists and turns. I would have preferred a bit more emotional depth at times, though several of the stories, particularly toward the end, offer up some more than a few moving scenes. Between those moments and Mason’s consummate craftsmanship, North Woods is an easy book to enthusiastically recommend.

The center of the narrative is a plot of land in Massachusetts, introduced to the reader through the eyes of a young couple in love fleeing the constraints of Puritan society. From there, the stories move us successively forward in time but not space as various characters inhabit the same spot, including but not limited to: a young woman kidnapped by Native Americans, a former soldier bent on starting an apple orchard, his two spinster daughters who take over the business, a landscape artist, a true crime reporter, an amateur historian, an ecologist, a pair of lusty beetles (yes, you read that right), and a mountain lion. Mason shifts not only between decades/centuries and characters but also between genres/styles, employing for instance an epistolary structure in one story, a more pulp style for another, a classic ghost story for another. He even tosses in a few ballads. Tone also is varied, with some stories incredibly tense, some incredibly chilling, and others offering up laugh out loud moments. The skillful ease with which Mason slips in and out of various voices is one the great pleasures of the book.

Another is the richly vivid descriptions of the natural world, as the stories depict various seasons via changing hues, plants, animal life, temperatures, etc. but also larger changes over greater stretches of time as the land is constantly reformed either naturally or through the work of the people living on it. Here, for instance, is a description of the land in August:

Snakes settles into the warm coves between the stones. A wolf pack gathers briefly in the lee of the cabin; the pups chase white butterflies at the edges of the pond. In the garden, the squash grows plump on thundershower, the trailing beams swarm up the cornstalks, the corn ripens in its husk. Butterflies alight upon the swaying sprays of boneset, and milkweed pods split open and begin to spill their tuft.

And in another story, the land is buried in winter:

The banks are lined with fantastic ice — columns like organ pipes, bulbs straight from the glassblowers, thin sheets through which one can watch the rising bubbles. Indeed, I have become a connoisseur of ice these days: the sleet like hissing sand, the white that coats the roads like baker’s dustings, the crystalline mesh, thin as spun sugar, that shatters with the passing of my hand . . . ragged rime upon the leaves and every single bobbing stalk of winter weed.

This sharply grounding painting of reality plays nicely with the various supernatural elements that run throughout the collection, though I won’t detail them so as to avoid spoilers. Suffice to say such moments don’t feel at all out of place in this vividly realized world and in fact accrue over the series of stories so that the ending story feels all but inevitable. Meanwhile, though each story stands on its own, Mason threads a number of echoes throughout — images, themes, recurring objects, characters connected by blood or in some other fashion — that serve to make the collection feel if not entirely novelistic certainly more unified.

If I had one quibble, as noted it would be that while I enjoyed (and often admired) every story here, they didn’t always land with an emotional impact, though the ending does, so one somewhat forgets the absence in earlier stories. I should also note that the book as whole falls more into the “quiet” mode, with a lot of description and a focus more on character than “action.” I’m a fan of such works, so I had no issue with pace nor any desire for “more stuff to happen,” but your mileage may vary.

The novel in short story form is one of my favorite genres, and North Woods is an excellent example of that storytelling mode. I loved the structure, the polyglot voicing, the way the shifts in tone and voice and style are mirrored by the setting’s own ecological shifts, the beautifully detailed nature writing side by side with the more fantastical moments, and the carefully dropped references that stitch one story to another. Highly recommended.

Fascinating interconnected stories of the various residents of a house in New England, down through history..

There was a house. Many different people lived in that house over many years

-a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony
-an English soldier starts growing apples
-his spinster daughters continue the legacy
-a crime reporter unearths a mass grave
-others face the challenges of the North Woods

This book has been received well by many. Unfortunately, I am not one of those many. The plot is disjointed and the author's prose frequently left me befuddled. I read a book for enjoyment and do not enjoy having to read a sentence multiple times in order to get the message.

2 stars

3.5 stars, rounding down to 3. A book with a great premise and way of telling a story - US history as told through the history of a house and the Western Massachusetts land it sits on, from Puritan days on. Some great chapters along the way, sometimes quite heartbreaking, for example, but at the end of the day, the book didn't quite bring it home for me, pun intended. It feels like other authors have done better with the premise, such as Norah Lofts and her Suffolk trilogy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I've long been a fan of Daniel Mason, but with this latest novel he's truly outdone himself. <I>North Woods<I> is a literary masterpiece, and if the beginning was a little slow to draw me in, I was glued to the book within a couple of chapters and constantly thinking about it at the times I wasn't reading. This book takes its time to blossom, so do yourself a favor and don't be in a rush with this novel. Enjoy the lyrical prose and the incredible sense of place Mason creates as he details an area in the woods of New England over a span of centuries. There are connections between the generations of inhabitants, some more tenuous than others, but the sense of history and the cycles of the natural world, as well as life and death, continue on. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for a digital review copy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is literary fiction at its finest. Unfortunately for me, I found it a bit slow and the characters underdeveloped. The story focuses on a house and it's inhabitants over many years. I found it hard to become invested in the story at first. The writing does not disappoint as its rich and beautiful, but also complex. The structure also varies and it reads a bit like a short story collection. Overall, a solid book, with fantastic writing and imagery, but the pacing was too slow and there is not a lot of character or plot development.

For me, its a 3 star read.

Wow this was a lot of fun and so propulsively readable. It was creepier than I imagined it would be which I found to be a delightful surprise; this would make a fantastic autumn read. The descriptions of nature are gorgeous and enveloping. I can't help but wish I had a history book of all the lives and legends that have spanned the decades of my own home in this way, but I'm sure it would be far more boring. I expect that I'll be thinking about this book for quite some time.

Wow. I honestly didn’t expect to love this book but the premise really intrigued me. I came to a point in my reading where I couldn’t put it down, and when I had to step away, I was constantly thinking about it.

The prose felt like poetry and the nature writing was rich. Nature writing isn’t so much for me, but if that’s you’re thing, you will love it. However, it rarely “got in the way” for me - it was just so beautiful. My heart ached for the apple trees, for the chestnuts, for the house…I felt like I knew and was emotionally attached to them all. I also absolutely loved how intricately the stories were all woven together. These chapters are written like short stories, with the house being the common denominator. But they are all tied together by multiple threads and I’m having a hard time finding another word to describe it beyond beautiful! I loved the writing, loved the execution, and am so so sad that I have to say goodbye to this house.

The cover of this book says, “North Woods A Novel”, which I believe may set up the wrong expectation in the reader. North Woods is sheer poetry that tells the fictional story of a house and a property and the living entities that inhabit it across centuries.
I cannot remember when I have been so drawn in simply by the writing in a work of fiction, and that includes the imagination displayed in the scenes described as well as the use of language. What can I say about a chapter that describes a man’s anticipation about the sex he looks forward to having with his wife at a secluded cabin and follows that with the description of an equally lusty coupling between two beetles, both of them equally fascinating!? The descriptions of the people and the setting are all beautiful, and interspersed between the chapters are a variety of writings by the people who inhabit the house, including songs and even riddles.
The first part of the book left me a bit dissatisfied because the jump from one era to the next did not leave enough time for me to get to know the characters as much as I would have liked, but the writing left me mesmerized, and connection emerged as the book progressed.
Be aware that, as the book description implies, a definite element of magic develops during the course of the story that nicely ties together the different eras and characters and provides a surprise just before the ending that gave me a big smile.
I confess that what drew me to this book was the wonderful cover, but in this case it was appropriate to judge the book by its cover; it was equally impressive.

North Woods by Daniel Mason is a wonderful panoramic of a single place across time. The stories that are contained in this book meander through generations and are spun around a particular plot of Massachusetts land and the house that stands upon it. From the early puritans to the modern day, Mason imagines and introduces the people, animals, and spirits who are connected to the yellow house in the north woods.

Each chapter tells the story of an occupant, some of which are directly related to characters that a came before and some that are threaded together though details of the past. He includes a variety of ephemera, like pictures, letters, and case notes, to flesh out the details and give the novel the feel of historical documentation. Each tale has a unique feel and as a reader I felt more interested and invested in some characters than in others, but despite that there is a cohesion to the overarching story. The north woods itself feels like a persona and works to bind together the collection of narratives. It seems to function as a reminder of how time continues its endless march on, and the significance of the symbiosis between humans and nature.

The prose is beautiful and kept me on my toes as it shifted and changed to meet the period and the voice of the varying accounts found within. Mason’s exacting descriptions and eye for detail made the book feel rich and weighty without feeling cumbersome. I particularly enjoyed the surprises that the author incorporated into several of the stories. I felt pleased to be walking along the path of a character’s story and then suddenly find that we were taking an unexpected turn. North Woods isn’t the kind of book that you devour in an afternoon, it is the kind of book that you take in more slowly and savor. I give this book four out of five stars and recommend it to those who are looking to soak themselves in some circuitous literary fiction.

Successful linked or interconnected stories are a difficult feat to pull off. Elizabeth Strout is one of the few authors who does it well. But I loved Daniel Mason’s The Winter Soldier, so I wanted to see how he would do. And he also succeeds.
Mason bases his novel on a single property, located in the woods of western Massachusetts. The writing is beautiful and Mason matches the writing style to the time period being portrayed. The book is a mix of story, letters, a true crime magazine article, a speech and songs. He describes not just the inhabitants of the house, but the nature that surrounds it, the seasons of the year. There’s even humor. “And Mary, whose longing for precision and clarity extended even into language, thought there really should be a word for this particular kind of explaining boys did to girls…”.
The stories take the reader through the centuries, from a couple fleeing the Puritans in the 1600s through the future. It’s a reminder that while we are specks in time, the land remains. But even nature is subject to change. Mason takes us through the loss of one tree species after another. The book covers a myriad of topics, including ghosts, psychosis, sexuality, loneliness, jealousy.
I was actually shocked at how this book drew me in. Characters come and go, but their names (and sometimes bones) reappear over the years. While most characters only appeared for a single chapter, I was invested in them all.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Note - I just discovered that Mason’s prior book, A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth is also a series of interconnected stories and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. So, this isn’t his first time pursuing this style. Guess I need to find time to read it.

This is a rather odd book to read. You need to pay attention and do not try to read it fast. We follow along through many years of different stories of how multiple characters came to live in this little cabin.

I found the sister story to be the creepiest. This is not a fast read; you need to just let it wander.

I received an ARC from Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for my unbiased review – This one comes in with 4 stars.

The same land and home throughout the years. Amazing concept and I was hooked instantly. Was a bit long winded on the apples, but otherwise solid and well worth the read.

Oh my. "North Woods" by Daniel Mason is the book that will ruin all other books for me in 2023. I don't believe any other book I have read, or will read, this year will measure up to the perfection that is this book. It is literary fiction at its finest-a true masterpiece. The writing is exquisite; I was completely immersed in the world Mr. Mason created. I could smell the forest, hear the insects and the birds, and feel the cool shade of the trees. I was utterly enchanted from the first page to the last and was genuinely sad to leave this plot of land when the last word was read. If you read only one book this year, make sure it is this one.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the true privilege of reading an advanced copy of this magnificent work of art. This is a book that should grace the shelves of any serious reader.

Wonderful history and beautiful writing but a little too slow paced for my taste, with more description than works for me. I can easily see a different type of reader loving this book.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing me an ARC.

Bottom line: I'm obsessed with this book. I went into it not knowing anything about the author and was not surprised at all when I got to the end and discovered that he's won so many awards. This is a masterful work.

The thing that really stood out to me in this text was how slowly it built ups its magic. I think the description doesn't quite do it justice. I won't say much, because I think part of the pleasure of this book is in the discovery of how the past bleeds into the present. But, I will say that this book is not just a grounded, realist story of the variety of people who inhabit a place. It is much more.

From a more technical standpoint, this book really sings in its descriptions. Because it is so focused on the forest and nature, the descriptions are vitally important to the story and creating the write atmosphere. The success of how the forest is rendered greatly adds to the plot of the various characters that are introduced to us as they are all differently effected by the nature around them.

I can not recommend this book enough to those who enjoy literary work with fantastical elements. It's a great example of that type of genre.

This book is about a house and the land, the forests that surround it. It starts with two young lovers escaping their families in the very early colonial period of the US. They find a piece of land in Western Massachusetts and build a one room cabin. We follow the cabin's history as it becomes a home/a house for many people up to the modern era.
Some of the book was so interesting and compelling and some of it was not. But as a whole, it is a beautiful telling of our history, how we relate to the land around us, and the changes over the last 400 years. We get inside the hearts of people, of insects, of trees, of blight--it is so well researched and so fascinating. And it's very clear who wins in the end-man or nature. I highly recommend this book

Daniel Mason’s novel, North Woods, reads more like a collection of linked stories then a novel. All of the stories are tied to a house in a remote area of Western Massachusetts and the inhabitants of the house over a period from colonial settlers to the present. I enjoyed some of the stories and characters more than others and after a while the connections between the inhabitants became harder to follow and remember. The land that the house sits on is threatened and a significant message in the book is about the harm we are doing to trees, flora and nature in general. This book was a major undertaken for the author and besides the people stories is filled with ballads, information on trees, birds, orchards, etc. While I enjoyed the book initially, I felt it went on too long and lost my interest. I’m not sure this book will have broad appeal but it does deal with important issues about what humans are doing to their environment.