Welcome to Litsy!

What did I just read? Every page I asked myself why am I reading this? It certainly has literary and artistic merit. I‘m not sure why I put it on my Libby list, it‘s not a book I would normally choose. I think it‘s a “blame it on Litsy” book. I didn‘t love it, but I didn‘t hate it. Overall it‘s good.

“They are not for cider” and don‘t you forget it! 🍎

What a brilliant book! So unique and layered (not to mention beautifully written).

Discussed with my book club last night. Everyone loved it and we had lots to talk about.

I think I‘m in the minority but I didn‘t really love this. I get what the author was aiming for and it sounded like the sort of novel I‘d enjoy but I found it too disjointing - if I got settled into a part of the story I was soon taken out of it again. There were characters I liked reading about like Robert & the twin sisters but overall a very so-so read for me.

Reading North Woods while enjoying a western wood 😊 #pikenationalforest #happyplace

White supremacy, puritan hypocrisy: It‘s the rational for colonising & wreaking havoc on an indigenous people & nature. But, as we recklessly devastate the planet over generations, there flickers ephemeral lives. Here, humans can have poignancy & pathos. Lives are brutal/beautiful. They‘re also relentlessly privileged. Yes, survival of the fittest exits in nature, but we add vulnerability & imbalance. This book is a love letter to trees & nature.

So far very beautiful prose in this story about a little cabin and it‘s inhabitants over the centuries (slight spoiler is that some of the earlier inhabitants come back later as ghosts) 🏡 👻

I love the storytelling style, which shifts between each chapter, and the sense of vast time—centuries pass—and the vivid sense of place in this novel about the inhabitants of a small piece of land in western Massachusetts. The inhabitants are wild animals, insects, and trees as well as humans; I love this too. It‘s a wonderful, life-affirming novel.

With regard to the beetle, the romp began, as sex romps often do, with carpentry. A female beetle, slightly smaller than a rice grain, had found herself, one summer afternoon, wandering about the logs that lay beside the off-ramp. Do not ask me how she got there; she came from another log, as did her mother before her—it is logs and beetles all the way back.

Final observation. A heron in the treetops — really, do they perch so high? I‘d always imagined them swamp- walkers. But there, above, I have my answer.
(Photo: Great Blue Herons in Beacon Hill Park, Victoria)

Good books for Good Friday — audiobooks; nature writing; literary awards
https://youtu.be/M8O36AiymKY

“They had come to the spot in the freshness of June, chased from the village by its people, following deer path through the forest, the valleys, the fern groves, and the quaking bogs.”

#FirstLineFridays

This beautifully written novel entranced me from page one. Mason writes such a unique novel, focusing on a body of land and its inhabitants over centuries. Telling the story through various mediums - prose, diary, poem, letter, song - really made this so riveting and lyrical. The tie in with everyone too, the little nuggets thrown in over the years, just added perfectly to the story. I am so glad I read this! #52BookClub24 #AtLeastFourDifferentPOV

For this week‘s #hyggehour , I read North Woods. Purely a #blameitonlitsy book. I‘m loving it. So unique & original.

#Vladimir joined me this week in my reading nook & chair, with my Candied Apple Yankee Candle scenting the air. #CatsOfLitsy

It felt good to turn off life for a bit…my mental health has not been strong this past week. This was a good reset moment, & I plan to listen to a session on the Calm app later tonight.

This was an interesting book. The main character was the land and not people. The writing style is all over the place, however the story takes place over the centuries and the writing fit the century that the story takes place in.

North Woods is my favorite kind of story; it floats liminally between ghost story & not.

As a MA native who became a devotee of apples while pursuing her Lit degree in VT, I was predisposed to like this.

It‘s a fully immersive reading experience. Mason flaunts his ability to inhabit different voices - not just gender, age, or sexual identity but era & time, even species & kingdom. Come for the gorgeous prose. Stay for the sexy dragonfly erotica.

1. Catch up on my correspondence & visit the post office; celebrate “Won‘t You Be My Neighbor” Day with kids who visit the library on the 20th! 👔🐯🚂

2. It depends on the day & my work schedule. It can range from 20 (or zero) minutes up to a few hours or even the better part of a day.

3. I think I‘d excel at writing a collection of short essays based upon a common theme. I‘d love to write a picture book but the limited text is a challenge!

Me: ok, so I can only buy one book, because they are very expensive in the US
Also me: ⬆️

The writing in this book is just beautiful. The interconnected stories range from pre-Revolutionary USA history to (possibly) far in the future and all revolve around a house in Massachusetts. I found the stories of the apple farmer and his daughters to be a bit too long. I almost quit here, but I‘m glad I didn‘t. The real power was in the later stories.

@CSeydel #ReadingBracket2024

🌟I loved every minute I spent with this love letter to a piece of land, a forest. It ticked off all the boxes for me: historical fiction, nature writing, short stories, and a bit of the gothic.

I will not be surprised if it wins the Pulitzer.

Now I‘m off onto the interwebs to find A Registry of My Passage Upon Earth.

Starting because I want to read this and it is in the house.

#EstherBester #EstherFest #DogsofLitsy #whpg

I do not want to put this down. I‘m racing through it! 😭

I had decided against this one when it first came out but then I figured I‘d try all the NYT‘s top books of 2023, and I‘m glad I did! It‘s really good! (I know, a lot of you know this already.) There were a couple spots that I felt dragged just a bit, but generally speaking it was a really satisfying story.

Hard to describe this beautifully crafted, creative novel that tells the stories of the many people who have lived in the same house deep in the Massachusetts woods. The book spans centuries and yet the author finds clever ways to link the lives of the inhabitants together. The land surrounding the house also become a sort of character itself, with stunning descriptions of the woods through the seasons and through the passing decades. Loved it.

Husband went early for a gig in Decorah, IA yesterday and had time to spare. He discovered it has 2 bookstores, lucky for me! ❤️ That is the benefit of having a small lib arts college in a town.

When I saw the first couple were runaway puritans, & the language a bit flowery, I was afraid this book might be too twee. Glad I was wrong. The generations that put everything into their little slice of the world are humbled by the fact that nature doesn‘t care. Between owners & tenants nature reclaims the place ,even the house. The writing is beautiful, most of the characters are unique & unforgettable, best book I‘ve read this year.

I can't even nail down what genre this is, let alone how to talk about it. If you'd asked me two thirds of the way through, I'd have said historical gothic, but 'sad, sometimes spooky window into the past' doesn't describe it fully, and the 'Nature as edenic/paradise lost and found=environmental concerns' seems clear only after I finished the book. 1/2

😘

2024

To think of all the decades, all the centuries bereft of the clearly defined concept of 'mansplaining'. 🙄 No doubt a sensation felt long before there was a word that could be safely spoken out loud. 😑

If the gender neutral form doesn't exist yet on a t-shirt, I think the author should market it.

1. The tagged book. It will be a top favorite of the year. But Starter Villain comes in second as it was so fun.
2. Florida - Lauren Groff for #AuthorAMonth

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

After a slow start, I loved this the deeper into it that I read. Great ending! The novel reminded me of The Understory. Recommend. 3.5 🌟

After reading many reviews, I borrowed this book from the library twice and returned it unread. I bought the ebook and tried again. I am so glad I did! This story of a house and its owners through the years surprised me. It was much darker and stranger than I had expected. The reviews praised the excellent writing, so I didn‘t expect much plot. Not only is the writing brilliant, but the plot, characters and setting are fascinating and compelling.

One if the reasons I love reading is the unexpected stories you sometimes discover. This is an example of such a unique and original read. A house in the New England woods is the main character. We see it change in time. We see inhabitants come and go. There are puma‘s and beetles, apples and magic. A delight to read and surely unlike any other book!

#52BookClub24 - Hybrid genre

I really liked this. Mason tells the story of a piece of land starting somewhere in the 1600s up to the future end, and a lot of its inhabitants. He‘s great at making each character not only having a distinct voice, but also a style pertaining to the time period. I laughed, I cried, I breathed deeply at the beauty in here. Bonus points for a certain lascivious beetle scene. lol. It reminded me of 3 stories that are near and dear to my heart. 👇🏼

This is like a bunch of connected short stories that all use the same setting-a house. I think it was creative and some characters/ stories were great, others….meh. This one is mixed for me.

This is an unique, unusual, and haunting read. Very well-written and structured. I went into this completely blind and it took me 130 pages to get into it. I was compelled to finish because so many people rave about the ending and it does come together. Overall this is a soft pick for me though I see why people love it.

As expected after @Megabooks review i totally loved this! The premise and structure of following one location over multiple generations (each chapter moves ahead to a new protagonist) really appealed to me. Mason does some really interesting things with the natural & the supernatural too and i loved the way future chapters were touched by themes and objects/actions from the past. I would like more books to try this & go even deeper & more complex.

“Sometimes, overwhelmed she retreats into the forests of the past. She has come to think of them as her private Archive, herself as Archivist, and she has found that the only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.”

First finished book of 2024. Loved it!

This is probably my favorite book of 2023, finished just under the wire!! It has an unconventional structure which I loved but may be challenging at times. At first I thought it was about a house, but having finished I now realize it‘s really about the land, the creatures (including humans) who call it home, and the cold harshness that defines nature in the dark heart of the New England forests.

This will be my #lastfirst as I am waiting to finish North Woods in 2024…because I already made my top 10 list for ‘23. It will most likely make the list for 2024 as it‘s that good.

@BookNAround

North Woods is fantastic and I have purposefully slowed myself down to savor it just a bit more. My other love besides books is knitting. I‘m hoping to finished this ribbing and move on to the sleeves before the year‘s end. #knittersoflitsy #litsycrafters

I am devouring this book, it is so beautifully written! A theme so far is characters who are willing to let others live in loneliness and rejection for their own comfort, but it‘s written so soulfully that nobody is a villain, just humans, breaking each other‘s hearts as we all do so well. Merry Christmas.

Thank you so mich @Pigpen_Reads ….I am so thrilled to have gotten North Woods! I am dying to read it. I love Mary Kay Andrews books, perfect. Beautiful tote and the book and pen is going to be for all my book lists…of which I have many. Great swap, thank you and thank you to the organizers….
@wanderinglynn @BookwormAHN

⭐️⭐️⭐️ I‘m sure this was a good book, it just was not a good book for me. There were a lot of half-interesting, partially overlapping stories of the occupants of a house in the Massachusetts woods over several centuries, but without one consistent plot or set of characters to follow, I found myself just not really caring what happened in each new story.🤷‍♀️

An all-time favorite, this book just felt so “right” while I was embracing all the formats, characters, quirks, landscapes and styles of writing. The story of a house in rural Massachusetts and its inhabitants over centuries but also the story of America itself, and humankind and even spirits, as well as the natural world. Just truly all encompassing and brilliant, while also being hilarious and down to earth. I‘m rambling; it‘s amazing.

Take a plot of land in Massachusetts & tell stories of inhabitants who lived there, the forests & apple trees (tended so carefully by one of the owners), the ghosts & brokenhearted, and the insects who create change. Include poems, pictures, and numerous sentences that stop you in your tracks & you‘ll get an idea of this book. The funniest chapter on beetle sex I‘ve ever read. And the Catamount, much loved by Vermonters, is mentioned. Loved it.