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"To read it is to travel to the limits of what the novel can do." Alice Jolly, The Guardian
"Haunting, haunted ... I’m praying you’ll consider getting lost in North Woods this fall. Elegantly designed with photos and illustrations, this is a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic ... Mason isn’t just passively watching the evolution of this site in the forest. Each chapter germinates its own form while sending out tendrils that entwine beneath the surface of the novel ... Revelatory." Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"How to describe Mason’s sui generis fiction? Think of E.L. Doctorow crossed with Wendell Berry, then graced with a Nabokovian predilection for pattern, puzzle and echo." Rand Richards Cooper, The New York Times
"Gorgeous... a tale of ephemerality and succession, of the way time accrues in layers, like sedimentary soil." Heller McAlpin, NPR
"A dazzling, high-wire act... ... There are a lot of great books coming out this fall but, if I were you, I'd start with this one. Chris Hewitt. The Star Tribune
"A treatise on forest management (and mismanagement), a hallucinatory dream sequence, and an anthropologist’s life’s work all rolled into one — with an ample helping of unruly ghosts... “North Woods” fires on all cylinders by engaging all the senses as it transports readers through history." Alexis Burling, The San Francisco Chronicle
"Kaleidoscopic, multi-voiced... it has that Nan Shepherd sense that looking deeply and observantly pierces the natural." Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
"It seems almost a magic trick, the way in which Mason knits his lives into a single tale." Erica Wagner, The Sunday Times
“A monumental achievement of polyphony and humanity. Relating the narrative of an entire country via a single plot of land, it sweeps the reader through hundreds of years and an array of protagonists with a deft, heartbreaking, idiosyncratic zeal. I loved it.”—Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait
“The most original and spellbinding novel I’ve read in ages. Mason makes bramble, brush, and orchard come alive with the spirits of their unforgettable former inhabitants. Their lives and passionate loves and their chilling acts of vengeance had me glued to my seat.”—Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water
“Ambitious, alive, and lush with generosity, North Woods is an immersive sprint through time... I emerged from this book as though from an enchanted forest, covered in leaves and changed by what I had seen there. . . . Electrifying.”—Tess Gunty, author of The Rabbit Hutch
“A sui generis work of pure brilliance, an epic written with a miniaturist’s precision. Daniel Mason has unearthed, in the centuries-spanning history of a single New England home, a universal story of loss and reclamation... the best book I’ve read in ages.”—Anthony Marra, author of Mercury Pictures Presents
“Mason depicts all of [the] stories with sympathy, sensitivity, and affectionate humor. Epic in scope and ambitious in style, this book succeeds on all counts. Highly recommended.”--Library Journal (starred review)
“Readers, too, will find themselves in an entrancing fictional realm where the human, natural, and supernatural mingle, all captured in the author’s effortlessly virtuosic prose . . . Like the house at its center, a book that is multitudinous and magical.”--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Each arc is beautifully, heartbreakingly conveyed, stitching together subtle connections across time. This astonishes.”--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[A] magisterial mosaic … Truly triumphant.” –Booklist (starred review)
"Haunting, haunted ... I’m praying you’ll consider getting lost in North Woods this fall. Elegantly designed with photos and illustrations, this is a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic ... Mason isn’t just passively watching the evolution of this site in the forest. Each chapter germinates its own form while sending out tendrils that entwine beneath the surface of the novel ... Revelatory." Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"How to describe Mason’s sui generis fiction? Think of E.L. Doctorow crossed with Wendell Berry, then graced with a Nabokovian predilection for pattern, puzzle and echo." Rand Richards Cooper, The New York Times
"Gorgeous... a tale of ephemerality and succession, of the way time accrues in layers, like sedimentary soil." Heller McAlpin, NPR
"A dazzling, high-wire act... ... There are a lot of great books coming out this fall but, if I were you, I'd start with this one. Chris Hewitt. The Star Tribune
"A treatise on forest management (and mismanagement), a hallucinatory dream sequence, and an anthropologist’s life’s work all rolled into one — with an ample helping of unruly ghosts... “North Woods” fires on all cylinders by engaging all the senses as it transports readers through history." Alexis Burling, The San Francisco Chronicle
"Kaleidoscopic, multi-voiced... it has that Nan Shepherd sense that looking deeply and observantly pierces the natural." Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
"It seems almost a magic trick, the way in which Mason knits his lives into a single tale." Erica Wagner, The Sunday Times
“A monumental achievement of polyphony and humanity. Relating the narrative of an entire country via a single plot of land, it sweeps the reader through hundreds of years and an array of protagonists with a deft, heartbreaking, idiosyncratic zeal. I loved it.”—Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait
“The most original and spellbinding novel I’ve read in ages. Mason makes bramble, brush, and orchard come alive with the spirits of their unforgettable former inhabitants. Their lives and passionate loves and their chilling acts of vengeance had me glued to my seat.”—Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water
“Ambitious, alive, and lush with generosity, North Woods is an immersive sprint through time... I emerged from this book as though from an enchanted forest, covered in leaves and changed by what I had seen there. . . . Electrifying.”—Tess Gunty, author of The Rabbit Hutch
“A sui generis work of pure brilliance, an epic written with a miniaturist’s precision. Daniel Mason has unearthed, in the centuries-spanning history of a single New England home, a universal story of loss and reclamation... the best book I’ve read in ages.”—Anthony Marra, author of Mercury Pictures Presents
“Mason depicts all of [the] stories with sympathy, sensitivity, and affectionate humor. Epic in scope and ambitious in style, this book succeeds on all counts. Highly recommended.”--Library Journal (starred review)
“Readers, too, will find themselves in an entrancing fictional realm where the human, natural, and supernatural mingle, all captured in the author’s effortlessly virtuosic prose . . . Like the house at its center, a book that is multitudinous and magical.”--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Each arc is beautifully, heartbreakingly conveyed, stitching together subtle connections across time. This astonishes.”--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[A] magisterial mosaic … Truly triumphant.” –Booklist (starred review)
Sturtevant J. Hamblin, Little Girl Holding Apple, c. 1840; National Gallery of Art; © Alamy stock photo