The sheer volume of publication is a problem, as is Sturgeon's "law" that "90% of everything is shit."
So for fiction, which I really enjoy, I mostly read the work of deceased authors. Why? Well, if they are old and still in print (or still mentioned in things I otherwise enjoyed) then they are probably better than the run of the mill.
Doesn't mean I read anything old -- I can't stand James Joyce, though I have friends who love the work. I don't have the education to understand it.
With apart from the two examples below I won't mention particular authors, 1> because it will inherently sound snobbish ("oh he likes to read that old author -- I had to read that thing in school") and 2> because everybody's taste changes.
For some perspective on my attitude: in high school I was really saddened that only seven of Sophocles' plays survived when he had written over 100 and we have records of some of the missing work winning prizes. But I came to realise that must have been some clunkers in the mix and over a few thousand years perhaps these seven are seven of, say, the best ten. Pretty good!
Also I have never understood the fetishism of the original. People obsess over Shakespear's first folios, and the differences in printings and revision: which is "correct"? These old works are "good" because they are continually reinterpreted and remixed into our underlying culture.
"good" in scare quotes because it's all personal judgment -- I have a few Shakespeare plays I really love, and many I can't stand or am indifferent to, and personally I couldn't care less about his sonnets. Doesn't make me a good or bad person, nor is it a comment on your opinion if you feel differently.
