North Woods by Daniel Mason tells the story of a house in western Massachusetts from the very beginning built by 2 fleeing lovers to the ending of the house. It reads like short stories. The writing is poetic. Complex and wordy at times but very descriptive. I have not read this author before and still digesting parts of the story. Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Covering a time span of over 400 years this is the tale of a New England home, the people who lived there, the centuries of history as well as the changes in nature: the land, the plants and the wildlife.

In the beginning young lovers set up house after running from their Puritan Colony, followed by a former British commander who, tired of fighting, yearns for his own apple orchard in the New World, next the spinster twins - neither of whom can allow the other to do or be anything that she is not, followed by a news reporter fixated on locating a grave from years ago, then a famous painter with his even more famous author friend, and on it goes. Each story is as fascinating as the one before it. We quickly see our connections to one another, the environment, the animals and even the insects.

A unique tale that fills the senses. In Mason’s capable hands the reader can not only taste the apples and smell the bog but fill the nip in the air as well. Beautiful writing brings the woods, the plants, the animals, the land, and the house, as well as this time frame in the history of the world come to life. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This quote (from a modern day section of the book) made me chuckle: they followed a "long driveway flanked by those twin heralds of American hospitality, PRIVATE PROPERTY and BEWARE OF DOG”. Looking forward to seeing my friends comments on #NorthWoods, I expect it'll be very well received. Publication Date: September 2023. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House and Daniel Mason for a free, advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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After reading North Woods by Daniel Mason, you will never look at the world around you in quite the same way. This book spans several generations of people and nature that share the same parcel of land in western Massachusetts. Daniel Mason weaves stories of both the lives and deaths of the land’s inhabitants. Nature and humans are interdependent of each other for survival. As each new generation lives in the house, we become aware of past mysteries as well as different historical periods. I highly recommend this book to people who enjoy historical fiction and the nature of both the land and its people. Daniel Mason describes the land, its plants, trees, and insects in vivid and beautiful detail. His characters come alive on the page as they struggle to survive on the land. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing this digital copy.

Daniel Mason has a splendid ability to express in great detail the beauty of the flora and founa found in the physical area of his selected local for this book. . Having been a resident, previously, of the area where this book takes place, I found the defining expressions of the beauty to be seen most enjoyable. The creation of the generational characters which lead us through this natural beauty takes us on an interesting journey. Let the characters, each, entertain you with their tales of the yellow house.


I have received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed are completely my own.



Spencer Birt

North Woods by Pulitzer Prize finalist author Daniel Mason is a beautiful, uncommon book about a house and surrounding woods of New England. Rather than a primary main character, the novel revolves around the residents of the eponymous home spanning centuries. Told in a unique structure, the novel is organized by different periods of time beginning with a Puritan couple who escape their colony to build a cabin in the woods. This first couple - apropos of Adam and Eve - are followed by succession of inhabitants including a family who establish a bountiful apple orchard.

Along with evocative description of the New England woods, the story abounds with themes of life, death, nature’s evolving seasons, decay and regeneration. All of this is written in both prose and poetry synchronistic to the period of time of the inhabitants along with swaths of magical realism. The story raises many questions for me but I believe one of his main themes is that the lives of North Wood residents are fleeting but what remains constant are the earth and woods.

Beautiful and thought-provoking, I anticipate the novel will receive critical acclaim but not necessarily accessible to the commercial reader. Thank you to NetGallery and publisher for an advanced copy of the book.

I went into Daniel Mason's North Woods without many expectations. Told over centuries, this is the saga of a home, rather than a people. The location is fixed (a cabin in the eponymous North Woods); it's the characters who change.

I would hesitate to say much more than that, as I really think the best way to read this with fresh eyes. What unfolds within the pages is nothing less than spectacular. It's a massive undertaking, handled deftly, told in a linear fashion but exploring often only vaguely connected storylines. It made me want to catch up on the author's back catalog immediately.

I only hesitate to give this one five stars as I did find some of the chapters a little uneven. On the whole, it's a 4.5 star read, but section by section I would give it 4 stars overall. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC.

I have read Daniel Mason’s three previous novels, and enjoyed and admired them. I was looking forward to this new novel, totally unaware of what he had up his sleeve. This is an unusual book a daring and risk-taking work. I hardly know where to begin. First there is the structure of the book. It takes place in western Massachusetts and focuses on a house, its land, and its inhabitants, stretching from Puritan times to the present. Covering such a broad canvas, necessitates the novel to be more a work of interconnected stories. And what an exciting storyteller Mason is!

Working within these boundaries Mason makes use of several different, and often surprising, narrative techniques to move the book forward. For example, who would expect a ballad? Or adding some magic realism to the mix? This could have been a disaster in the hands of a less talented author. I found it daring and risky. No doubt Mason’s skillful prose is a huge factor in making it work. The tone is haunting, the writing lush, descriptive and beautiful. It is stunning in its effect.

As a novel whose framework is built on a house and piece of land, Mason is spot-on his depiction of setting. I live in Boston but I have made enough trips to the western part of the state to know he has brought a clear vision of the cold and barren winters and the lush and green summers. In fact, I think Mason has done an exemplary job at creating a vivid setting for all readers. As the years pass, and as the house and landscapes changes, Mason addresses the loss of forestland whether by man or the many serious blights that have taken so many trees. It is obviously an important issue to the author,

I hope that North Woods finds many readers. It is truly something different, something very special. I look forward to seeing how it is received when it is finally released. Regardless the verdict, I will continue to read whatever Mason has in store in the future.

Many thanks to Random House and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this novel. (less)

This reads like a classic novel and I don’t know that I’ve read many “classics “. I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that this book will eventually be a classic. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before.

With so many time periods and narrators, I was afraid it would be confusing, but that wasn’t exactly the case. There were a few times I had to stop and think back to previous chapters, but it didn’t take long to recall. Even though I wasn’t 100% happy with the ending, there’s no way I would give this less that 5 stars.

I don’t know that I couldn’t discuss this with anyone without giving spoilers, but I want to talk to everyone about it! So much of it is hard to explain if you haven’t read it. There’s are several times throughout where the “narrator” is an animal or inanimate object, but you wouldn’t realize it if you didn’t know that.

People will study this book. I don’t know when, but they will.

Thank you for the advance reading copy!
This book was incredible. Going into it I thought "I'm going to love this or hate it, no in-between" and I absolutely loved it. First of all, I was blown away by the writing. The story feels like interconnected stories as you move through time and each different time period utilizes a style of writing (and even what the writing is-a song, letters, diary, etc) that is appropriate to that time. The scope of this undertaking alone was impressive and effective. The story itself drew me right in--I read this quickly because I couldn't wait to find out what happened next and see how things were connected. I happen to like stories where something has happened in the past and at a later point in the timeline there is a reference to something that you know is meant to be what you had read about earlier. Well, this entire book was like that since you begin with the piece of land in Puritan times and move forward literally centuries.
I also really liked the role of Nature in this. Not just the catamount's occasional appearance, but the trees of those north woods themselves. (And since we're currently experiencing an absolute wipeout of all ash trees currently, the cycles of tree species die outs was very interesting to me!)
I found myself thinking about this book A LOT as I read it, and even more so when I finished it. Thinking about our role in the world, and the scale of time.

I am a big fan of historical fiction and I really enjoyed this novel. I found the plot very interesting and easy to follow. I enjoyed the characters and the drama.

There are very few books that I do not complete but this is one of them. I made it to 75% finished and could not make my mind go any further. It is about a house and the land around it. I thought that sounded interesting and unique. But somewhere along the way, I got lost. The author can write beautiful words describing the people and the house. I enjoyed the first part telling about the widower and his two daughters. Just not for me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy for my honest review.

'If these old walls,
If these old walls could speak
Of things that they remember well,
Stories and faces dearly held,
A couple in love
Livin' week to week,
Rooms full of laughter,
If these walls could speak.’
--If These Walls Could Speak by Amy Grant


This is a story of home and place, as well as of nature, both the nature that surrounds us, as well as human nature. A story that spans several centuries, but is focused on a place, and a home as time passes. Sharing the lives of the people who have taken refuge in this house that evolves over time.

It begins with a couple who are being hunted, and together they escape the colony after he had been declared ‘ungodly’. She had been, against her will, set to be married to a minister twice her age. As they left that night, the light from a comet guided their path.

They left the colony with little in terms of food, but they find sustenance in the gardens of others, a stolen chicken that will provide them with more. They continued on, trying to find a place in the world where they could be free of fear. In a bower they said their vows to one another, and so they were married. After a time, he declares they are safe now, the silence, the air and the wind have declared it so.

The next day, they reach a valley with a mountain above, a trail that leads to a pond, a clearing with seedlings peeking up from the soil. It is a sign to him that this place has accepted them, and will sustain them. On the day that follows, they reach the valley, and find a place with a brook that leads to a pond, a clearing, and seedlings already rising toward the sky. In that brief moment, he decides that this is where they will call home.

This story is less about these two people who make this place their home, it is more about the place we call home. A home, that over generations, will open its doors to those who are drawn to this place as time passes. The connection of these lives being the sharing of this home, a place and the love for it, as well as loss. Their individual stories may be unique, but their connection to this home bonds them through time.


Pub Date: 19 Sept 2023

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House, Random House

Daniel Mason's North Woods is a remarkable story about the legacy of the land we live on. It's an homage to the people and, maybe more so, the plants and animals that lived on it and died on it long before us.

The main character of this novel is not the people that live on the land but the land itself. The people and their tragic lives merely mark time, they are but chapters in a much larger story. The only characters large enough to witness the breadth of this story are the trees. The apples and chestnuts, oaks, beeches and birches. Some that outlive the humans and others that don't.

Mason's ability to shift perspective and zoom in and out on the timeline is ingenious. We traverse from the all encompassing to the minute in the span of a page. To take us from the human connections over the course of hundreds of years to the slow, gentle course of a spore caught on the wind -- and to do both poetically -- is without compare.

At once a ghost story, a time traveling tome and an ode to the ever changing forests of the North Eastern United States, North Woods completely captivated me in a way I did not expect. Every chapter had me searching for clues, creating links in my mind. Mason's descriptions of the land are second only to the descriptions of the horror humans inflicted upon the land and on one another.

This book reminded me of Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book in that it was a historical mystery, a mystery with answers embedded in the world Mason depicted. A mystery I felt in my bones.

I recommend reading this one just on the edge of the woods, giving the trees a moment to witness the brief chapter you inhabit, on the land where you live. I couldn't help but think of what may lay just beneath my feet. The history of the native people whose land was stolen from them. The relationships that flourished and faltered where I stand. The animals that stalked who are no longer. But mostly, it made me think of the mark I am leaving on the land. What will my chapter be in this space? And what will history say of me?

This is a story about a magical house. We are the readers, are fortunate in that we fulfill a fantasy of being able to live there for generations, and know about each family that inhabited the house. The language of this author is so exquisite. In some ways, it did read like a collection of short stories, that being said, a great book by a great author that I will continue to follow.

North Woods is a magnum opus if ever there was one. Daniel Mason is a masterful storyteller and a magnificent prose stylist. His glorious descriptions of nature are breathtaking. I don't remember the last time I read a book brimming with such extraordinary characters and emotion.
North Woods is the story of a house in the woods of Massachusetts and the plot of land surrounding it. The tale begins with two lovers escaping a strangling Puritan colony and carries the reader through centuries of various inhabitants of the house, both human and animal.
The numerous characters in the book are each highly distinctive and intriguing personalities. The form of narrative changes with each new individual, lending each a style perfect for its identity. Nature is a character in its own right, and Mason's descriptive genius forces the reader to look at it in a wholly new manner. As the people populating the house change, nature remains strong yet also transforms. There are surprising links between storylines of differing times. The book's tone is fiercely plangent, although Mason has a humorous style to his writing.
The book has pleasant diversions interspersed - illustrations, line drawings, and folk songs. One short chapter describes the existence and mating of a beetle.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this astonishing book.

From the start beautiful depictions of nature — (open fields, the forest, mossy stones, birds, fish in the river, hidden ponds, rustling meadows, the woods) — in all its literary form — was serving as a backdrop to the stories we would experience —creating the mood hinting at a deeper meaning — slowly the characters’ emotional development comes alive.

“Barefoot they ran through the forest, and in the sheltered sappy bowers, when they thought they were alone, he drew splinters from her feet. They were young, and they could run for hours, and June had blessed them with her berries, her untended farmer’s carts. They paused to eat, to sleep, to steal, to roll, and the rustling meadows of goldenrod. In hidden ponds, he lifted her, dripping from the water, set her on the mossy stone, and kissed the river streaming from her tresses and her legs”.

Starting from the seventh century (spanning four hundred years) - to our present day - we get a glimpse on how history, nature, and language are deeply connected to our lives…. even exploring how mental health and our natural world affect one another.
Many different people have all lived in one house in the woods in western Massachusetts.

Characters and non-characters (apples from an apple tree, bears, goats, beetles, birds, spiders, squirrels, worms, eggs, porcupine, slugs, etc.), come and go — lovers - a con man - a painter - a soldier- twins - children -

As the various inhabitants come face-to-face with their surroundings they begin to awaken and become conscious of the mysterious past -

“North Woods” is gorgeously written-intelligent with a unique structure. Daniel Mason is an incredible literary writer. (novelist and physician).
This was the first book I read by him: an assistant professor at Stanford University in the department of psychiatry.

I was left with pondering thoughts—
I mean it’s centered around ‘one’ house ….. (some parts more interesting to me than others) —
But —
it got me thinking and remembering—
about our own house — it’s over a hundred years old (we’ve renovated a couple of times).
I tapped into memories of Paul’s Uncle Louie making his raviolis in the basement —
—then the ‘first night’ Paul and I moved in over forty years ago. We set up a waterbed, filling the water, then left to grab some dinner.
When we returned we found a flood of water everywhere…..
oh the ‘horrors-of-a-mess’ when we we’re already so exhausted from move-in day.

Our daughters will inherit our house….(the house where they had their own beginnings)…..
history continues…
I suppose it’s safe to say memories are what turn a house into a home….
with the cycle of life, death, and the future.

This is a wonderfully creative literary novel. Kudos to author Daniel Mason.

Most literary novels concentrate on characters and their growth. But not this one. Instead, it focuses on a large piece of property in the North Woods of Western Massachusetts (and its various owners/residents) during the Colonial and Revolutionary War eras and various times during the 19th and 20th centuries. While each chapter is loosely tied to the previous one, every chapter is told in a different style. Mr. Mason employs a variety of persona, voices, devices, and points of view -- and even some lively poetry -- to tell the property’s story. Characters include a couple forsaking colonial life to live on their own, a man obsessed with apples, a woman “taken” by Indians, two twins devoted to and at war with each other, a spiritualist specializing in seances, a poet, a painter, a schizophrenic and his mother, and an amateur historian and his metal detector.

The novel is, by turns, pastoral, romantic, erotic, historic, scientific, witty, sardonic, mysterious, and yes, in places, just a little bit Stephen-King-scary. Readers will learn about apples and beatles and catamounts and elm trees and chestnuts and pollination and the North Woods and true crime and prison societies and amateur historian “detectoring.” Employing incredible amounts of variety, Mr. Mason has given readers a literary tour de force. I enjoyed it so much that I may just read it again.

My thanks to NetGalley, author Daniel Mason, and publisher Random House for providing me with an electronic ARC. The foregoing is my honest, independent opinion.

I wish I’d paid a bit more attention to the blurb when I requested this title. I can see why it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist because it is rich in literary devices and was filled with beautiful language. The story, however, was lacking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about beautiful language. But there must be a satisfying story to go along with it. I knew it was about a house and those who inhabited it throughout the years but expected to learn more about those inhabitants. Yet their stories felt incomplete. In the beginning they didn’t even have names. And, just when the story of the current occupants got interesting, we moved to the next. We circled back once or twice, but again were left hanging. Unfortunately I was bored during much of the novel. For me this work only deserved two stars. Those who devour “literary stories” will disagree. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a fabulous and unusual book! I have never read a book structured in this way...the characters are well developed but temporary, as the location is the main character. Many different humans pass through and inhabit one section of the MA woods, impacting and being influenced by their immediate environment. All are tied together by the setting in a marvelous way. Mason describes the flora and fauna so well that you truly feel transported to that locale. I was sad when it was over!

Received free from Net Galley in exchange for an hones review. Thank you.
I have been back and forth with my ratings regarding this book from a 3 to 4 stars.
The reason? It just does not flow. While the story goes from Puritans to present day, some of the stories are uneven and bogged down to the point I had to skim. I did like the earlier stories of the farm and the growing of apples, but the poems and songs and the longer chapters just did not hold my interest.
The chapters were well written, at least the ones that help my attention. Maybe editing would help.
The fact it was done well is the reason for 4 stars