Dan Wickett announces the Winter LBC pick: Kirstin Allio’s fabulous debut novel Garner. Yay!

In other news, don’t expect more here until tomorrow. Ms. Link & Mr. Grant came for an impromptu visit and we are busy having fun and watching weird Russian movies.
 

It’d been many years, pre-LitBlog Co-Op, since I had required reading. I’d forgotten how much the spirit can chafe against such things. In fact, last round, I sort of despaired at one point — I didn’t love any of the books and I just wasn’t sure I could stick it out with the LBC over the long haul if such misery was required along with the reading. I don’t mean that all the books were terrible or anything; I actually grew pretty fond of the Stern and especially the Gann. But I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of five new prospects arriving at the PO Box either.

You see, there’s this stack of books a mile tall next to my bed that I also want to read. But these, these I had to rank and discuss. I had to read these. It instantly made every other book in the house more attractive.

Here’s the thing. This time around was completely different. This time around the nominators announced their nominees and I was really surprised. Most of them I had completely missed. And they looked FANTASTIC. They showed up and they were a good-looking set of books aesthetically. They had promise. They were the kind of books you look at and want to read. (And some of the author photos are downright hot.) And they delivered. I didn’t hate anything this time. I loved three of the books and liked the other two well enough. I didn’t regret the time spent reading anything and I felt really lucky to be reading these books the vast majority of the time.

So, I’m excited about this next round. It’s a strong crop of books, we’re doing some new stuff (Podcasts! Ed rocks!) and if you think something else is a good idea, drop a line. In the meantime, I’m now weighing the books I’ve read in the last year to come up with my own nomination for the next round, due shortly. (If you feel really strongly about a book, drop me an email or leave it in the comments.)

Mostly, I just hope you’ll all tune in on Monday and in the weeks ahead to read and discuss these five pretty wonderful books. Starting with the Most Wonderful of Them All on Monday morning.