Book review curiousity

I know what I look for in book reviews.  I am trying to find books worth reading.  I generally presume that that is what most people are looking for.  In my case, reviews of obscure novels are particularly useful, because there are less of them.  I also am aware that different people like novels for different reasons, so unless the author does something to really annoy me, I try to stay somewhat neutral, or balanced within my comments, even while I am noting my own preference.  Since I often hear from people within the comments section that they are interested in books I wasn't all that fond of, I presumably succeed at this effort at least some of the time.

 

Within my own reviews I also have a secondary option (on my part) of going into some detail, or theme within the book.  If I was into wolves, I might discuss talk about the different types of wolves when reviewing Wolf and Iron for instance.  It adds to the length of the review, but it is the price you pay for me having an opinion (LOL).

The reason I ask is because I do have a number of rather obscure, both newer and older novels.  I want to cover some of the classic, or at least well known, novels, to give some sort of basis for comparison, but when I don't have some book I am really hot-and-heavy to read, what is your preference:  older obscure?; newer obscure?; new not obscure?; short easy reads?; long difficult reads?;  realistic apocalypse?;  the best literary apocalyptic/dystopian novels out there?; or just what ever the random pull from my book shelf, or off my Kindle happens to bring?

 

I tend to shy away from the really long books, even ones that I know that I will like (Malevil) because I read them many years ago, because they can be a huge time sink.   I am also avoiding too much in the way of themes at the moment, because it tended to lead into too many similar reviews, often with similarly flawed novels, all lumped together.  The EMP series just about killed me, and it was very hard finding realistic-style apocalyptic novels that had been translated into English (rather than Canadian, or Australian, or New Zealander in origin).  Those novels do get written, they just aren't the ones that get translated.

 

So if you have a relevant, or tangentially relevant opinion, I would like to hear it.  I am not promising I will change anything, but some other viewpoints would be helpful.   I already own enough unread books, so while I am always interested in specific suggestions, there is a good chance I already own it, and just haven't gotten around to reading/reviewing it, or I ran out of $/bookshelf space.