The idea of consensus might seem ridiculous at the close of 2011. There are thousands of books published for every personality, micromood, and attention span-and in multiple formats. Critics abound in the blogosphere and legacy review media, making for a 24-hour buzz chamber. It's precisely these conditions that make best-of lists valuable. As every librarian worth her readers' advisory spiel knows, when faced with an overabundance of choice and a deficiency of waking hours, patrons want to know about good stuff, fast. That's why we repeated last year's exercise and voted on a top ten. It means something that eight intelligent though vastly different editors agreed on standards of excellence across widely disparate fiction and nonfiction. Quality, regardless of label, exists, and this is a quick, high-impact way to present it.
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