How do you decide which book you're going to read? However it happens—via a friend's ecstatic raves, a blurb on the front cover from another author you admire, a big award win, a glowing review, or otherwise—that book's a lucky book. Here are some blog posts from the past year that might give you some new ideas to help you choose your next read. Together, they're a mix of well-respected readers' and writers' recommendations, excerpts, trailers, and crowd-sourced favourites.

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Great Books by Immigrant Writers: We popped this list up on Canada Day to recognize the incredible contribution Canadian writers born elsewhere are making to CanLit. These authors are stretching our literature further and farther—helping to freshen its image and keep it relevant, informed, and eclectic.

Couldn't Put It Down: For most of us, there is nothing more delicious than falling into a book from which we can't tear ourselves away. It's sweet surrender, and perhaps the purest testimony to the power of great books. Eight publishing insiders gave us the titles of the books they were addicted to this summer.

One Dozen Super Sophomore Efforts: All artists, and most audiences, are aware of the curse of the sophomore offering: the book or other work that follows a rapturously received first public release. But some writers manage to escape the curse (think of the raves Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries is receiving, her second novel following The Rehearsal). Salty Ink's Chad Pelley gives us a list of sophomore books that are well worth a read.

Books That'll Mess You Up Good: If we're not picking up a book to inform us (e.g., non-fiction), we are often picking it up to be moved. And "moved" may be too sedate a word for the emotional release we sometimes crave: to be destroyed by a book is exquisite torture. Here are books that have done just that to Suzanne Sutherland, YA author (most recently of When We Were Good).

Great First Lines in Canadian Books: First lines aren't just necessary openers—they're invitations. See if these first lines lure you into wanting to read the whole thing.