North Woods

1. General Impressions

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• Did this read more like a novel, or like a series of interlinked short stories? What’s the difference between the two? What are the advantages of each? Have you read any other works using this same form, like Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad? 
• Which of the stories or time periods was your favorite and why? 
• The novel offers some of the pleasures of a puzzle, with elements that readers know but characters do not (for example, painter Teale wears a hat he finds in the house—but only the reader knows that the hat belonged to bounty hunter Phelan). Did you enjoy piecing together the way the past connected to later events?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• Did you identify with any of the characters, their dilemmas, or their solutions to their problems? Which were the easiest to understand? Which were the hardest to connect to?
• One of the unspoken assumptions of the novel is that it is worthwhile to document the way centuries affect a place, particularly one that is primarily untrammeled nature.