<human>: I'm about to embark on a quest to read the hundreds of books that I own and countless more, after pretty much being a non-reader. One thing that seems to be a challenge is to stay well-rounded as a reader. My list includes classics, sci-fi/fantasy, science, biography/memoir, comics — different kinds of things, basically.

The problem is two-fold: First, there are definitely genres/periods that I'm missing from my list. The one that concerns me most given the recent GoodReads vote is contemporary books, as in the past ten years or so. Apparently Cormac McCarthy's *The Road* is on the verge of becoming a modern classic, and I have that, but that's pretty much it I think. I haven't even heard of any of the GR poll books.

The second problem exacerbates the first: I'm a slow-reader. How do I keep up with new books while catching up with classics, modern or otherwise, while getting into my sci-fi pile, my Dark Tower books, my political books, biographies, etc., when I can read maybe two books a month?

Should I just read whatever I feel like, and not worry about being well-rounded? Being well-rounded is important to me, because the alternative is being one-dimensional. Should I read books at random? That would be interesting, like if there was a site with an RNG that picked books for you from a custom list. I don't know if they have that or even if it's a good idea. Should I take on more books at a time? I've never really done that, but maybe. Should I worry about this later, get the habit down for now, and let it fall into place after that? That seems reasonable, but perhaps I should be proactive.

Give me the gist of the text in a nutshell
<bot>: If there was a distinct point where you branched out and eventually became a well-rounded reader, what did you do?