Nothing makes my Friday like a cheap Indian dinner and a good book sighting. Just this morning on the Q train from Brooklyn, I was lucky enough to spy a contender for LJ’s Best Book list in 2004: Orhan Pamuk’s Snow (it didn’t make the cut, though it was stiff year, what with David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas). It was enough to remind me that we’re verging on book award season: the Quill Awards are Oct. 11, and the National Book Awards are Nov. 15.

Coincidentally, today we Book Review editors held our annual hammering-out-the-details meeting for Best Books, LJ’s always rich and eclectic list of the year’s best fiction and nonfiction. Though I can’t drop the names of any strong hopefuls (OK, OK, Simon Callow’s Orson Welles), I can shed light on the selection process for the curious. Whereas in the golden 1990s (oh, youth!), we used a grueling and often rewarding committee voting system, today there’s no time for such intellectual pursuit. Today, an individual editor chooses nominees based on LJ reviews, personal preferences, and other evaluative sources (from the New York Times to more regional papers to even Joe Blow Book Reader on the Street). It’s not as fun or as brain-crushing as the Old Way, but I still think it works as long as an editor operates under the assumption that the list should reflect the shelves of American libraries, public and academic. Give the people their pop fiction, their military history, their consumer health—and don’t you dare skimp on the self-help! Our list reeks of democracy, and I mean that in the best way. Let the reading (skimming?) begin.