My profile always lists my current and recent reading. I tend to alternate among several categories:
• strong, good fiction;
• nonfiction in my areas of interest;
• light throwaway fiction (which still must be well executed); and
• miscellaneous.
Examples of the first category:
The Likeness, by Tana French
The Refiner’s Fire, by Mark Helprin
Examples of the second category:
On Being Certain, by Robert Burton
The Meaning of Everything, by Simon Winchester
Examples of the third category: mysteries, science fiction.
The fourth category can include everything from books written by people I know (The Home for the Friendless, by Betty Auchard) to books that for some reason excited my curiosity (The Zimmerman Telegram, by Barbara Tuchman).
I’ve just finished the Tuchman, and I’m now reading Follett’s World Without End; up next will be either I am Hutterite (curiosity) or People of the Wolf (recommended by a friend), depending on the mood I’m in when I finish the Follett thousand-pager.
I do follow authors I like, and I do follow some series, but usually only when I have the entire series in hand so I don’t have to wait for a sequel (example: Larsson’s Millennium trilogy)..
And I always, always give myself leave to abandon a book I don’t like, no matter how popular it is, no matter who recommends it, and no matter how distinguished the author is. Most books I will give to the halfway mark before discarding them, but if an author annoys me enough, it can be all over by page 2.