Humans--with our poor ability to see in the dark--have turned that to our cultural advantage by sharing stories during the year's dark season. Whether we gather around a fire or ensconce ourselves on the couch with a good book, we gulp stories now for their necessary nutrients, and digest them across the year.

Book recommendations may be my version of campfire camaraderie. While we still have weeks of winter to read in, i'm eager to share a couple favorites. i've coined the term 'critter lit' to cover my current obsession with meaningful adult stories that illuminate the agency of other animals we live among. For a worldview demonstrating that awareness--one disappearing in the 21st century as fast as diverse habitats--let me send you to Margaret Verble's 1920's historical fiction, When Two Feathers Fell From the Sky, on Booklist's best of 2021. The Cherokee protagonist works at a faltering circus in Tennessee, finding connections across species with a diving mare, bears, and a hippo, and across cultures too. Check https://www.margaretverble.com/blog for more.

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri's unique collection of wide-ranging stories earns my top spot this year. Brave writing, and freshly imagined. Narrowing the distance to our wholeness is a key shift many people have identified to turn around our culture's spiraling demise. Her stories do that, and can help readers shift in that direction as well. Listen to descriptions of her work and her why at https://www.taliakolluri.com/