· “Can there be art without the human in it? Maybe that is what I wish to capture: beast as seen by beast, tree as seen by tree. I jest, but not really.”- from Northwoods
Here's how it works. Nevada County Library chooses the book, provides free Honor copies to the community, and creates opportunities for readers to get together and talk, share reactions, listen to each other, and connect through moving and thought-provoking literature.
· “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 had 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.”- from Northwoods
The book chosen to be the one all of Nevada County reads is North Woods by Daniel Mason (2023), a work of historical fiction. It tells the story of a New England house through its inhabitants, human and otherwise, across centuries. The author found inspiration in many sources, including Tom Wessels’ Reading the Forested Landscape and William Cronon’s Changes in the Land, as well as Thoreau's Walden and Annie Dillard.
I'll be leading a writing workshop at the Truckee Library on March 24th for readers and writers to glean inspiration and insights from this novel. The workshop will be from 4:30-6 pm on a Tuesday night. In this workshop we’ll look at some fascinating writers who influenced this time period of over 400 years that this novel covers and find inspiration for our own story reading and writing. If you havn't read the book, no problem. Join us to connect with your community and learn about the book. We will draw knowledge and insights from other writers of the time period as well.
As part of the program, the author will be reading and presenting on the book in Nevada City on April 11. Daniel Mason is a physician, author, and assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. His most recent book, North Woods (2023), is a work of historical fiction that tells the story of a New England house through its inhabitants, human and otherwise, across centuries.
To write the book, he says that he stayed in upstate New York during the pandemic and spent a lot of time wandering in the woods, astonished by the evidence of land use and human history in the Northeast, as well as the dynamic seasonal changes. "I thought it would be fun to explore a single plot of woods and the changes that happen over time."
He says two books that fueled his research are "Tom Wessels’ Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England taught me how to look for the forests of the past. It’s a masterpiece that changed the way I look at the natural world. William Cronon’s Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England helped me appreciate how human land use has shaped New England ecology."
The book ultimately follows the time frame of a tree, and over 400 years, the thread pulling through the story is the forest succession as it mutually influences human living and culture, and vice versa.
Join me on March 24 at The Truckee Library whether you are a writer or a reader for some scintillating conversation around literature and how we can find our own ways into our own stories by reading other stories.
