Authors' etc. best of the year compilations

       Slightly better than the usual newspaper best-of-the-year lists are the ones where authors, literary critics and the like offer their picks. The Millions does a nice, big 'A Year in Reading'-round-up (see last year's) -- except that they annoyingly dole it out piece by piece rather than just offering it all in one go -- and the Times Literary Supplement's annual 'Books of the Year' collection (disappointingly only made partially accessible online; see last year's glimpse) remains the gold standard (well, maybe bronze ... the standard really isn't very high with these things).
       The first of these are now out, and at least feature some big name authors and critics naming their favorites. So, for example:

• The Guardian offers: Writers and critics on the best books of 2013
  
  
• The Observer offers: The Observer's books of the year -- where: "Observer critics and others pick their favourite reads of 2013. And they tell us what they hope to find under the tree"
  
  
• The Spectator spread their spread out over two weeks, with Spectator writers pick their books of the year and then Spectator writers' Christmas book choices

       (Meanwhile, I can only think: it's only November, and there are 37 more reading days left in the year (which at a minimum translates into at least two dozen books, and possibly quite a few more). Way too early to be thinking about best-of-the-year selections.)