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Country People

'Full of joy' Mick Herron

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Country People

By: Daniel Mason
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, George Newbern, Hillary Huber, Jason Culp, Kaleo Griffith, Kirby Heyborne, Kirsten Potter, MacLeod Andrews, Maggi-Meg Reed, Mark Bramhall, Mark Deakins, Michael Crouch, Sean Patrick Hopkins
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🍃 'THE BOOK OF THE SUMMER' Mick Herron 🍃
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA PICK
FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF NORTH WOODS

'I LOVED it'
Naomi Alderman

'LYRICAL and JOYFUL'
Sarah Jessica Parker

'This is, simply put, a JOYFUL book - and the deeper you dig, the more joyful it becomes'
Guardian

'Very FUNNY . . . a PERFECT SUMMER ESCAPE . . . as tasty and oddly shaped as an organic apple'
Financial Times

'Mason deftly delivers larks aplenty, POIGNANCY, gentle satire and some top-tier farce. Be warned that the latter may cause you to spontaneously erupt with mirth in public places. This book DISPELS GLOOM: go for it'
Irish Times

'There's genuine ENCHANTMENT in this earthy tale of city folk transplanted to rural New England . . . It's a WARM and delightfully whimsy free take on fables and family'
Mail on Sunday

'A CHARMING book about ambition, marriage and country living'
Sunday Times Style

'VIRTUOSIC'
R4 Front Row

'One of the FUNNIEST books I've read in a very long time'
Xand van Tulleken

'Told with WARMTH and WIT, Mason's prose shimmers in this immersive ode to stories, to the land, and its people' Lucy Steeds, author of The Artist

'A book to make the world feel a little LIGHTER, a little warmer'
Ron Charles

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 far away 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, who possesses, in Kate's, words, 'a great capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere'. Soon 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, a Shakespearean temptress, and a photographer of snowflakes - until at last he stumbles upon a bizarre local legend, which, he begins to suspect, might not be a legend at all.

🍃 A FAMILY'S NEW BEGINNING. THE LOCAL'S OLDEST LEGEND. 🍃

Praise for Daniel Mason
'A virtuoso' Mail on Sunday
'Has the born storyteller's gift' Daily Mail
'Genius' Washington Post
'Brave and original' Guardian
'Never fails to surprise and delight' Sunday Times
'Teases out the joy and meaning in the sometimes small lives of his characters' The Times
'Shows us what is possible when a writer lets his hair down' Financial Times©2026 Daniel Mason (P)2026 Penguin Random House Audio Editors Select Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Marriage Haunted Funny
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Critic reviews

A fantastical journey through family, folktales and a world beneath our feet . . . the whole thing is delivered in prose so witty and gorgeous that it calls to mind Nabokov's comic masterpiece Pnin, surely another of the book's literary antecedents. This is, put simply, a joyful book - and the deeper you dig, the more joyful it becomes
Mason deftly delivers larks aplenty, poignancy, gentle satire and some top-tier farce. Be warned that the latter may cause you to spontaneously erupt with mirth in public places. This book dispels gloom: go for it
I loved it (Naomi Alderman, bestselling author of THE POWER)
Very funny . . . a perfect summer escape . . . as tasty and oddly shaped as an organic apple
There's genuine enchantment in this earthy tale of city folk transplanted to rural New England . . . It's a warm and delightfully whimsy free take on fables and family
Charming . . . a prescription for summer amusement that takes immediate effect . . . There's so much fine, freewheeling observation and pillowy erudition here, it's tempting just to sink in
Mason's prose is full of playful narrative sleights of hand . . . a treat
A charming book about ambition, marriage, and country living
Virtuosic (Michael Donkor)
I was charmed . . . One of the books of the summer for me, everyone should be taking the book off to their sun loungers (Dr Kate Maltby)
Lyrical and joyful (Sarah Jessica Parker)
One of the funniest books I've read in a very long time, it's also incredibly clever (Xand van Tulleken)
Wonderful - full of joy - and exactly the kind of reading experience we could all do with right now. The book of the summer (Mick Herron, author of SLOW HORSES)
Narrated in an arch, long-suffering voice that brings out the comic flavor like salt on caramel. Think of it as a companion to Andrew Sean Greer's Villa Coco. One comic novel this good feels lucky; two in the same summer feels like cheating . . . Tremendously endearing. Mason has written a comedy about a man who can't quite secure his place above ground but senses the wonder lurking just beneath our feet. That and a beloved Italian dog who digs through every pillow, sofa, and floor are all you really need for a book to make the world feel a little lighter, a little warmer (Ron Charles, Substack)
A rippling, rambunctious mystery that ricochets between the earthy and the sublime. Told with warmth and wit, Mason's prose shimmers in this immersive ode to stories, to the land, and its people (Lucy Steeds, Sunday Times bestselling author of THE ARTIST)
A charming, funny, exhilarating Vermont adventure (Clare Fuller, author of SWIMMING LESSONS)
All stars
Most relevant
Humour. Joyful in the best tradition. Never endingly inventive. So different to the usual family life novels.

One of the best audiobooks

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It was one of those books that you didn’t want to end. Clever, funny, and engaging!

An Utter Joy

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A bonkers story about a family who move from California to Vermont, ostensibly for a year, when Miles’ wife accepts a visiting professorship there. Miles has been trying to finish his PhD for 12 years, but basically is looking after his family and their truffle-hunting dog. He meets many people in his new town and has adventures with all of them. It’s hard to even cover all the stuff he does, but he does it all with panache and joy. I did like this book.

Country people is very enjoyable

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This recommendation came from Mick Herron in some article I read. He’s my favourite author so I went for it. I wasn’t disappointed. The multiple voices worked very well too. I suspect this is a title very well suited to audio. Based around academic ups and downs and rural USA. Altogether charming.

Gentle and amusing

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overly whimsical and boring. could not finish this. It did not live up to glowing praise from reviewers. Feel misled.



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