I once asked a friend how he chooses the books he reads.  His answer?  “Life is too short and too busy to read bad books, so I only read the really good ones”.  Not the most helpful answer perhaps, but he was trying to say something serious.  Reading a book takes a commitment of time and effort and there are millions of books to choose between.  But how do you know what’s good or even what you like?  The simplest thing would be to read only the genres we love or the authors we admire, but where does that leave us if we want to experiment with new styles, new forms, and new writers?  What about the new books our friends and loved ones recommend, sometimes so passionately?  What about the hottest new book, the one every critic raves about?  And what about reading backwards, filling the gaps in our knowledge of the great classics?

I don’t have the answers to the questions, so I’m going to do in 2016 what I’ve done every year since I started to read seriously more than forty years ago – I’m going to follow my nose, my prejudices, and my instincts.  What does that mean in practice?  More fiction than non-fiction.  More newly published titles than classics.  Probably no fantasy or science fiction and little poetry.  And, of course, only really great books.