Will I love North Woods?

This is a masterpiece of storytelling, with each character standing out beautifully even in the midst of a large ensemble cast!

I knew little about North Woods when I started reading it, except that it chronicled the lives of different inhabitants of a farmhouse in western New England—a region I love—and featured an intriguing image of what I assumed was a bobcat on the cover.

North Woods brings its setting vividly to life; while there are fascinating characters—including a colonial-era English soldier who abandons the war to cultivate an apple orchard on the farmhouse property—the flora and fauna of the farm and its surrounding woodlands play equally important roles.

I’m grateful to my daughter, the same sensitive… show more.

The main character of this novel is a yellow house in the Massachusetts woods, which has been built and lived in by centuries of people. The first inhabitants are two lovers escaping a Puritan village, later an orchardist moves in, a pair of spinster sisters, artists, and a family dealing with schizophrenia.

Meanwhile, the world moves on around it–roads are cut into the wilderness, chestnut trees are decimated by blight, and wars begin and end. The writing in this story was beautiful, and it read like a series of short stories about vengeance, love, and insanity. My favorite was the… show more.

The historical and mystical elements combined to keep me enthralled. Clearly the author did his research as the history seemed authentic and accurate, and it spanned a wide swath of time, which I appreciated. "The Sixth Sense" aspect made an otherwise fine work of historical fiction particularly enticing.

I found North Woods to be such a unique experience where the lives of its characters living in different historic eras of American history were woven together around this house in the woods. I could feel, taste, and smell the interior and surrounding of this house that connected all these stories over centuries.

A wonderful work of historical fiction with a menagerie of characters you can’t stop thinking about. And beetle sex!

North Woods tells the story of a specific place: a cabin in Massachusetts that was first built by a young couple fleeing their Puritan village. The novel starts with their story, and then moves us through all the people, and some of the other inhabitants, of the cabin and the woods around it over time. Mason speaks to our connection to nature, our environments, and other people through the stories and experiences that occur in this one little corner of the world. Absolutely loved this book.

Such an interesting approach to tell about the same plot of land from first settlers to the future. Loved the way he wove earlier characters into the plot after their demise.

This was one of the more unique and intelligent books I'd read in a long time. The writing is undeniably well crafted, and the plot unusual enough to keep you endlessly wondering what was coming next. I will say, toward the end, it dragged for me. I was ready for it to wrap up about fifty pages before it did. Regardless, it was one of my top favorites as I haven't read anything like it before.

This monumental novel spanning centuries is a heart-rending hymn to Nature, Time, and humankind's place in it as one small piece within a far greater "architecture." It is brilliantly imaginative, a time-capsule of a novel whose many voices shift and change even as the land itself continually does.