Long-listed for [the coveted] Nancy Awards

In this year when I could not find a creative project to propel me, and felt the lack all year. I tried to fill the hole with books. Fortunately, there were some great reads crossing my desk. These are ones that have stayed with me long after the last page. Thank heaven for these books, fiction and non. In this dark year I am so grateful for sagas and modulated voices and atmosphere, for science and reason and introspection, for fresh viewpoints and researched history, for ambiguity, poetry, and scenic vistas, for close observation, moral dilemmas, context and humor, and especially for breathing room. The world is so much bigger and more beautiful than the shouting and harassing, the propaganda, the rats and the overalls.