“I’ve read through most of the longlist for the Booker prize,” Jennifer says. “And I think that they’ve got it wrong, what they’ve chosen for the shortlist. Because this, if not winning, should have been on [it].”

The bookseller hands me Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, which follows a young man who lives with his single mother on the estuaries around Liverpool in the 1960s when an odd film-maker comes to town. “It’s about his being a man of his class, man of his place, and about what happens when fantasy enters your life,” Jennifer says.

I’m intrigued by what sound like elements of magical realism, less so by its very grey cover, but quickly distracted by Jennifer’s growing pile of recommendations – next is Clear by Carys Davies, then There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak.

We have been chatting in Sydney’s Gleebooks for about 10 minutes. I am here with a purpose. I need help. I’m stuck in a reading-binge-then-slump cycle, and I need out!

Most books I have read this year are fantasies I had learned about from Bookstagram and BookTube. I pick what I read based on what I’m craving, and almost exclusively search the recommendations of a few book bloggers I trust for tropes I’ve previously enjoyed.

This means I almost always know what I’m about to read – and it can put books on a pedestal of expectation. If the book hooks me, I’m disappearing into it for hours. And if it fulfils my hopes, I’m spurred on to read more of the same. But if not, I have to force myself through a handful of pages a day and my momentum is lost.

Enter: month-long reading drought.

Which is why I’m enlisting strangers who read in different ways (such as, I don’t know, reading the entire Booker longlist) to break my patterns. I’m asking booksellers for recommendations. They can be as tailored or as random as they please.

Jennifer’s eye catches a green cover and she tells me she thinks I’ll like it “because it’s charming”. It’s The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine.

Over the next few weeks my pile grows.

I learn Eamonn from Potts Point Bookstore loves Irish writers – Claire Keegan, William Trevor, Anne Enright, John McGahern. He asks me what I’m in the mood to read, the answer to which is always something to transport me to another realm (fantastical, historical, sci-fi-ical). He points me to The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, an epic familial story that begins in 1990s New York City.

At Sappho Books in Glebe, Cathal recommends a translated collection of short stories, Shoko’s Smile by Choi Eunyoung.

Stefani from Title bookstore in Barangaroo points out a few – The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, The Village Of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo.

Jam at The Press Book House in Newcastle recommends A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – the first classic on my new list.

I am swimming in recommendations, many of which are literary, recent releases, award-listed or winners. Almost none would normally be on my radar.

I pick three. Let’s go!

Booksellers make me cry

I start with The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother). I’m excited to read a book by a Lebanese author set in Beirut – a city vivid in my mind’s eye thanks to stories told by family. Oddly, I don’t think I’ve read any books set there.

I’m assuming this will be an endearing adventure about the mischief a reserved gay philosophy teacher gets up to with his larger-than-life elderly mother. Fun! But as I keep reading I go from amused to unsettled, then distressed, relieved, distressed again and, finally, happy-sad.

Through the winding and darkly comic anecdotes of the 63-year-old protagonist Raja we see a broad landscape of Lebanon’s fractured history rooted in the actions and reactions of his hilariously imposing mother. It is really a portrait in two parts: of a man reckoning with trauma attached to his identity and homeland, and of the blind passion of a mother protecting her son.

It has been a few weeks since Jennifer recommended it, and I am back at Gleebooks crying at a table by the window as I read the last few pages. It’s not a book I’d heard of before, but is absolutely the genre and setting I enjoy.

On to my second read. I have heard that Hosseini’s work is unbearable but readable – and I’m starting to understand why.

The voices of two women lead A Thousand Splendid Suns through Afghanistan from the 1960s to the 1990s, encompassing the Soviet occupation to the Taliban takeover.

The story is deeply grim and often claustrophobic. The women’s developing friendship is the faintest glimmer of hope piercing cruelty after cruelty.

Not moving from the couch, I finish this book in two days. Every few pages an ice-cold fist grips my stomach and squeezes. I see tearstains.

I am glad I was recommended this during my experiment – a lot of classics exist on the periphery of my awareness and I rarely pick them up.

My third read, Shoko’s Smile, is a collection of tableau-like stories about the complexity of relationships against a backdrop of various political contexts – from Japan’s occupation of Korea to the far-reaching consequences of the Vietnam war. I’ve never been drawn to short stories – I love being immersed in a vivid large world, growing attached to characters over time.

Some of the short stories reaffirm this, feeling a little cold and unfulfilling. But many prove me wrong. The final one, The Secret, pierces my heart. Through an elderly illiterate grandmother’s memories, we see her raise and adore her granddaughter from childhood to young adulthood, when her granddaughter leaves suddenly, without any communication, to teach in China.

When I finish it is midnight. I am tired and I break down in uncontrollable tears.

Before I started this experiment, a part of me was preparing for a slew of slow, reflective tomes I’d have to force myself to finish. I was proved very wrong.

All three books have transported me to places and times I have not recently (or ever) read about, and into experiences of characters I would otherwise know little about.

There is also a satisfaction in conversing with people about books – which this experiment gave me an excuse to do. It is the same reason I love being immersed in book communities on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

I’m back at Gleebooks this morning, catching up with Jennifer.

I tell her I loved The True True Story of Raja the Terrible (and His Mother) and she goes straight into recommending me more novels.

But the next book I’m reading is James Islington’s sequel, The Strength of the Few. A fantasy fix is desperately needed.