What Shall We Read Next?

Two full sessions of Readercon addressed a familiar problem: how should we decide to what to read next?

There’s too much to read, of course; some books in my “current reading” stack have been there since 2004. As I tried to explain in one of the sessions, simply knowing what to read about your reading is a formidable task. If you want to hear about the really great new books that have recently appeared, after all, you might reasonably keep track of Book World, Publishers Weekly, The NY Times Book Review, NYRB, TLS, and maybe The Believer, The Atlantic, and Harpers. That’s just too much.

And, as Michael Dirda pointed out in response, that won’t help you with anything except contemporary reading. Don D’Ammassa explained that he reads for three hours when he wakes up, and another three before bed; Dirda simply reads all the time.

I need a better reading chair.