NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR A WASHINGTON POST TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD AND THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—“a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic” (The Washington Post) from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier. “With the expansiveness and immersive feeling of two-time Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell’s fiction (Cloud Atlas), the wicked creepiness of Edgar Allan Poe, and Mason’s bone-deep knowledge of and appreciation for the natural world that’s on par with that of Thoreau, North Woods fires on all cylinders.”—San Francisco Chronicle New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Boston Globe, NPR, Chicago Public Library, The Star Tribune, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Bookreporter When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive. This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?

North Woods is a novel that travels through time, and everyone was impressed by how skillfully Mason wrote those periods. The book continually changes style, from silly discussions of insect mating to hardboiled true crime thrillers to romantic epistolary stories of bisexual love. Mason does a masterful job of writing in all of these modes and painting some very beautiful pictures of different family relationships. The center of the book is the land itself and Mason crafts a novel that flows from the natural changes to the trees and the wildlife to the humans that come and alter the property for their own purposes. It's a good theme and it creates a long view of history that Mason can exploit in interesting ways as characters try to imagine the people who built the house they live in or who were buried in the garden. In all of these elements, Mason has written a great book. But the reason why we're not universally recommending North Woods is the ghosts. Alongside all of the other plots, Mason slowly reveals a supernatural dimension of the story as the ghosts of old residents of the land remain as spirits. This culminates in a final chapter that just doesn't make sense. The reality of the afterlife is nonsensical (where are they in time? do they have to eat? why are they even around?) and the idea of spirits makes no sense thematically with the everchanging landscape Mason so beautifully depicts in other parts of the book. For some of us, the conclusion was a misstep that ruined the novel and Mason would have had a much better story if he just centered it around this interaction between natural and human-made change. But most of us could overlook the conclusion and focus on the strengths of the diversity and power of the writing throughout. This is a true Loved by Some for NUBClub. Many of us recommend it, but be warned that the ending will disappoint, and your mileage will vary based on how much a bad world building step will detract from an otherwise well-written novel.