Critical Mass, the National Book Critics Circle blog, pulls back the curtain on the voting processes that went into the NYTBR “best American fiction” spread, providing a list of books that only received one nominating vote. The Michael Chabon bloc was split between Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, for example, while Rick Moody chose to honor Grace Paley’s Collected Stories. And John Irving…well, he’s the only person so far confirmed as having actually voted for one’s own work. He submitted The Cider House Rules “suspecting that, otherwise, I might not receive a single vote.” And he was right! Although it’s somewhat surprising that even he doesn’t think he’s written anything better in the last twenty years; if I had to include one of his books in the canon, I would’ve at least put in a good word for A Prayer for Owen Meany.