All those "best book of the year" lists

"Every November, the books pages of British newspapers perform what ought to be a helpful service: they present lists of the best books of the year, to remind us of what we missed," writes Daniel Soar in the London Review of Books.

And who likes to complain about a month in which we devote a lot of journalistic attention to books? But, suggests Soar, perhaps it's all too much.

"You could drown in all this stuff," he grumbles. "Where to begin? How to read the lists of what to read? What we need is an annual list of lists, a ‘books of the year’ of the year, in order to distinguish the workmanlike digest from the magisterial summation."

It's quantitative rather than qualitative, but if you want a handy site that brings multiple lists together (many US lists and some from the UK), try largeheartedboy.com.

This site aggregates and then updates daily.

Beware, however. This may be a black hole into which your leisure time will utterly disappear. The more he reads, says Largehearted Boy, the more he finds that he wants to read.