Books of 2020- Installment #26

126. Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden and read by Darrell Dennis 

This book is a quasi-detective book but since the protagonist isn't a detective I am a little reluctant to say that.

127. Across the Void by SK Vaughn

This sprawling space odyssey has evil NASA administrators, a manic billionaire "genius", an incredible pilot, and great scientists. I felt that the story had so much unnecessary drama. If those characters sound interesting to you, maybe you'll disagree but I felt that this book had enough drama without some of those characters.

128. Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis

Connie Willis is by far my most favorite writer of Christmas stories! This book is no exception! I love it!! She blends a love of Christmas, nostalgia for Christmas, and science fiction so beautifully!! I don't have the same level of sentimentality for Christmas that she does and yet she tells, crafts, births, such amazing Christmas stories that I do have that while I'm reading her stories! And for this one in particular it seems important to mention that.

129. Ghost Bus by Anna Kirtlan

I love this collection of short stories! They are all set in Wellington, New Zealand- a place I've never been, and they are delightful! I want to read more by her!

I've read 129 books and 92 were by woman, 32 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 2 were by nonbinary authors, and 1 had no author listed. Additionally 12 1/2 were translations (although the book 3 American Indian Stories could be a translation as well). My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.