Why did I pick these books (4 of 10)?

Arthur and George is an unread leftover from my pile of shortlisted novels for the 2005 Booker prize. (It is true, of the 6 shortlisted novels I only read 3 and did not read another 2, The Accidental and A Long Long Way, and do not intend to do so.)
The reason I read these 3 novels - Banville's The Sea, Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Smith's On Beauty - was because I was familiar with all three authors, had either read earlier works by them or found that I could not avoid the author any longer (Smith).
I attended a reading of Julian Barnes in Munich in the early 80s just when he had become famous for his Flaubert's Parrot. I read most of the work of Flaubert at that time and went there to learn more about this preeminent French author. Of course I immediately bought his book then of which I cannot remember anything. I read his recent Lemon Table a few months ago, but again cannot remember anything except that it contains short stories and features a yellowish cross-section of a tree on the cover.
Why I picked such a disproportionate amount of books from the 2005 shortlist is somewhat beyond me. O.K., of the 2004 list one book is included in the 10 (The Master) and another one - David Mitchells Cloud Atlas - is on my radar, whereas the winner, Alan Hollinghurst's Line of Beauty does not interest me because I have no urge to read homosexual (unlike heterosexual - Updike!) literature. And the 2006 list does not interest me at all because I do not know any of these authors.