Somewhere inside the Guardian's summer books feature, novelist Jenny Colgan lays down a rule that deserves to outlive the beach towel: reading, like eating, goes better balanced. Too many thrillers about somebody's wife's sister's husband's psychopath and you end up confused and grumpy. Too much sugary romance and your teeth fall out. The big challenging book you have been meaning to get round to for ages does not, in her telling, come off much better. It is a joke, and it is also the most useful reading advice published this week.
Recommendation season arrived all at once.
The striking thing is not any single pick. It is the range, carried without apparent strain by readers who are all supposed to have a type.