While selecting this year’s best fiction, Kirkus’ reviewers and I engaged in a lot of arm wrestling, chair hurling and booze swilling. Not really. Though I may have just nailed the key elements of an Ernest Hemingway novel. The process was more cheery than all that: we singled out the books we loved reading most, the ones we would recommend to friends. And that’s where you come in. Whether you like mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, good ole’ fashioned literary novels—we have something for you.
