Winter slows me down, which is the only useful thing winter does. I've been working through a small stack — mostly fiction, half of them recommendations from the few people whose taste I trust completely.
What I look for in fiction has shifted a bit this year. I want books that reward attention, not books that ask for it. There's a difference, and you feel it three chapters in. The first kind earns the next page; the second kind keeps cashing in advance on the promise of one.
I'm also no longer finishing everything I start, and that's new. There's a permission I've slowly given myself: if a book doesn't earn the next chapter, I close it. The shelf is too long for any other rule.
If you read something quietly excellent this year, send it my way.