Pick a book with zero recommendations, just because the cover or first page grabbed you. Then see what that says about you.

Taste trained entirely on recommendations stops being yours and becomes an average of other people’s. Choosing something because the cover or the first page caught you puts the decision back in your hands, and it tells you something as well: which subject, which first line, which look your hand went for. Now and then you get a bad book, and more often you get information no algorithm would have handed you.

Go into a shop or a library this week and pick one thing nobody has mentioned. Read a page standing up and decide on the spot. Afterwards, ask what drew you, because that is the actual result.