Country People: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel
Daniel Mason
Jul 2026 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by MacLeod Andrews, Jason Culp, Maggi-Meg Reed, Kirby Heyborne, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbell, Michael Crouch, Mark Deakins, Kaleo Griffith, Sean Patrick Hopkins, Hillary Huber, George Newbern, and Kirsten Potter
star
3 reviews
headphones
Audiobook
9 hr 17 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
Want a free 10 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont)—a “witty and gorgeous” (The Guardian) novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of North Woods
“Charming . . . There’s so much fine, freewheeling observation and pillowy erudition here, it’s tempting just to sink in.”—The New York Times
A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life.
But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, a great capacity “to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas.
The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre—perhaps ridiculous—local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.
Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.
“Charming . . . There’s so much fine, freewheeling observation and pillowy erudition here, it’s tempting just to sink in.”—The New York Times
A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life.
But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, a great capacity “to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas.
The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre—perhaps ridiculous—local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.
Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont)—a “witty and gorgeous” (The Guardian) novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of North Woods
“Charming . . . There’s ...
Discover more
Ratings and reviews
3 reviews
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
