Premature Congratulations: What's With All The "Best Of" Lists?

Knock knock...

Hello?

Anyone in book world listening?

Here we are at the tail end of November and there's a sudden influx of Best Of 2013 lists. The Guardian just did their annual survey of authors. Goodreads has its poll running. Both Barnes and Noble and Amazon have already started flogging their picks in anticipation of the Christmas shopping rush. Even semi-respectable rags like Huffington Post and Publishers Weekly have blown their literary loads (and seriously, PW, Mohsin Hamid??? Did you even read that thing?).

HAVE YOU ALL GONE MAD?

There are still five weeks left. That's five weeks of reading all those books released this year that you have not yet had the chance to read. Best Of lists are for December. The last week of December, to be precise. Nobody wants to see your Best Of lists before that.

Grumble grumble.