I dislike 95% of fiction. Help me rectify this. (Very detailed post!)

[Fishpond]

95% of my reading material is interesting non-fiction, particularly social criticisms / pop psychology type stuff and parenting books of course (gag). Apologies for the massive post, but felt I needed to give a definitive list of my "type" of books and either confirm or deny most of the hotly debated books I've seen in this topic.

For the last 2-3 years, I start a novel and 20 pages later just am disgusted with my inability to enjoy the book and chuck it away. I spend hours and hours combing the non-fiction section of the library and have picked over probably every subject. I really want to be able to get lost in a great story, with great writing, great characters, but they seem much more difficult to find. I continue re-reading the books I love but have literally not found a new novel to enjoy in at least 2 years.

Books I have read and enjoyed...
To Kill a Mockingbird
1984 & Down and Out in Paris And London (did NOT like Animal Farm)
Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice and other Austen was okayyyyy
Most Philippa Gregory stuff
The Da Vinci Code and the rest of Mr. Brown (I know, I know...)
Pillars of the Earth & World Without End
HP & LOTR series
George R.R. Martin books (Song of Ice and Fire series)
The Doomsday Book
About 50% of Nick Hornby
Seven Types of Ambiguity
Most Barbara Kingsolver stuff
Maybe 25% of Hemingway
East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men
Maybe 50% of Faulkner
Almost everything by Poe

Books I have tried to read or have read completely through and definitely did NOT enjoy...
Wolf Hall
The Help
Anything by James Patterson, Jodi Picoult, Stephen King, Salman Rushdie, John Grisham, Kate Mosse, Annie Proulx, Kurt Vonnegut, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood
One Day (wasn't a HATED book, but "meh")
Anything "chick lit" - Sophie Kinsella et. al
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
White Tiger
Catch-22
Catcher in the Rye
Life of Pi
Most "classics" - 98% of Dickens and anything pre-1900 really
Any type of mystery, I abhor the genre
Any type of romance, ditto
Room
Time Traveler's Wife
Captain Correlli's Mandolin
The Great Gatsby
Twilight

Any help? Or am I doomed to the annals of the first floor library only forevermore?

Oh and I liked the Kevin book.

I've liked pretty much all in your like list (apart from Hemmingway and that Seven Types book which I haven't read) but also liked a few in your other list too so can't help sorry. Maybe you like books you learn from, but not in an obvious or pretentious way?

Hmmm, Barbara Kingsolver. Also lots of Americans in your 'like' list.

could try The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.
also The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

What was it you liked about Kevin? I've enjoyed a couple of other Lionel Shrivers but they tend to be marmite books.

Are you getting stuff from the library? sounds like it's often not worth you investing in buying the book!

Did you read Longitude when it came out, and some of those big-invention history books - Tulip Fever, Scurvy? Great stuff.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
I've always wanted to read Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe but haven't done so - think you might enjoy it.

Like joan suggests - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it, and Donna Tartt's novels. So I'd recommend those too. The Bonfire of the Vanities wasn't one I enjoyed, but it was so long ago now I can't remember why :o. Also, if you find you like The Corrections, there's also another novel by Jonathan Franzen - Freedom, which is on my very long tbr list!

Just keep trying different stuff.

What about trying Ismail Kadare, Yiyun Li and Orhan Pamuk. You'll probably hate these too, but you'll be no worse off than now!

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson? It's short.

She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb?

More Steinbeck - Cannery Row, The Pearl

The Carpenter's Pencil - Manuel Rivas

Some Paul Auster?

In Cold Blood -Truman Capote.
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.
Wild Swans - Jung Chang.

What about Game of Thrones if you like George R. R. Martin?
Iain Banks?

If you like non-fiction have you tried the non-fiction which is written in the style of a story (like Wild Swans, above)? I am thinking things like Touching the Void, Into the Wild, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, etc. That way you get the plot and characters but also the non-fiction element.

Try this website: what should I read next?

How about John Updike?

Try the Helliconia Trilogy by Brian Aldiss. I know Sci-fi isn't evetyon'es cup of darjeeling but I like it. Anything by Ian Banks (and Ian M Banks too come to think of it.

Your lists are fairly similar to my likes and dislikes, although you seem to have a couple of books in the wrong list...

I have ditched soo many novels in recent years that I started a thread here, but it is specifically asking for light reading, so it may not be your thing.

Have you read The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson? It would fit with your non-fiction/pop-psychology criteria.

Anyhoo, for fiction, I put forward:

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

As you have lots of Americans on your good list, have you tried Alice Walker and Toni Morrison?

I'll try and think of more...

Oh yy to In Cold Blood, Toughing the Void and Wild Swans!

You sound like me! I get bored of fiction so easily because it seems so contrite often, but it becomes hard going to keep reading non fiction at times too. Sometimes I just want to read something without it trying to teach me anything.

Some books I've enjoyed the most recently (and I mean over the last few years) have been autobiography type things, less predictable and clichéd but still reads as a story you can get involved in.

Eg call the midwife, bill bryson, Danny Wallace. I also enjoyed "two caravans " although it has written out accents which irritate me sometimes.

Have you read any Philip pullman too? I graduated straight from hp to his dark materials in my teens and adore them as a series. Mallory blackman also writes excellent young adult fiction if that is your thing.

Another avenue is the sociology, social history, ethnography type things where the author immerses themselves in a culture in order to get a real feel for it, they are often published in very readable formats. I've just read gang leader for a day for my sociology course and that was really interesting.

Have you gone back into the canon a bit more? Most of this is fairly contemporary. Some suggestions

Ford Madox Food - The Good Soldier - beautiful and with a shocking sad twist
Daniel Defoe - Journal of a Plague Year - amazing historical novel about the Plague (obvs!)
Have you read A Tale of Two Cities? EVen people who hate Dickens love that
What about all the Evelyn Waugh books?
Crime and Punishment is so gripping but if you don't like mysteries it might wind you up
Therese Raquin by Zola
Madam Bovary by Flaubert

Coming back ot modern times how are you with Iris Murdoch? I would recommend kicking off with A SEvered Head

And if you like Americana how about some mid-20th century American writers?

NAthanael West - Miss Lonelyhearts (don't read it if you're depressed)

Ira Levin - wrote the books on which an amazing number of good films were based - A Kiss Before Dying, Stepford Wives, Rosemary's Baby

Then there's Richard Yates of course - Easter Parade, REvolutionary Road

Have you read Cormac McCarthy? The Road is punishing but worthwhile

Also try the books by Persephone Books They publish absolutely exquisite editions of unfairly neglected women writers and there are some absolute beauties in there.

Norwegian wood by haruki murakami?

Hmmm its tricky.

Will have a think and come back

I also really recommend the whole series of books by Edward St Aubyn.

In my not-at-all-humble opinion, in the future he'll be far more highly praised than McEwan et. al.

St Aubyn was the son of a bitter old Cornish aristrocrat and a very wealthy American woman, and his father abused him as a child, very sadly. The novels fictionalise his childhood, drug-addled youth and attempts to find redemtpion with wife and children.

They are bitterly funny, deeply ironic, and very beautifully written. There are 5 in the series and the most recent one (Mother's Milk I think) was Booker shortlisted.

I think my tastes will be too twee to help, have you tried Saki? Short stories are often what I go for being fussy and he surprised me. The loved one by Evelyn Waugh is nice too, but do people who usually dislike mystery usually dislike the 20s/30s too? Have you read many plays?

Capote might be good, or sticking close to non fiction Tom Holland writes very good classical histories. Spartans and things.

Oh, and also, GLen Duncan wrote a book called THe Last Werewolf, which...no, stop! COME BACK!!

GD wrote a series of highly literary and totally ignored novels, and thought sod this, I'm writing a crappy genre book. Only of course if you're a literary type writer you can't just turn off the good prose style, so what he ended up with was probably the first truly sophisticated, beautifully written (but also violent and sexually explicit!) monster-horror book since Dracula. I can't recommend it enough and am desperate for the sequel to come out. If you don't believe me, read this

Try Jane Smiley, particularly A Thousand Acres. Also Sue Gee, Niall Williams, Sara Banerji and Barbara Comyns. All write what I feel are 'proper' books like Barbara Kingsolver

If you liked The Doomsday Book, then the other Connie Willis books you could try are To Say Nothing Of The Dog (also time travel, but light(ish), funny and romantic) and Blackout/All Clear (two linked time travel books set in the Blitz).

Yes, Cormac McCarthy. Bleak but brilliant.

Labyrinths by Borges (collection of stories)

Frederick Forsyth - Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File etc
Robert Harris - Fatherland, Enigma etc

Daphne Du Maurier - I don't know anyone that hasn't loved Rebecca.

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini.

Totally random list, but maybe something there for you.

Have you tried Pratchett? Or Ursula Le Guin?

Agree that Iain M Banks might be worth a try if you like Martin, big meaty "masculine" stuff.

Have you tried Trollope or Vanity Fair?

My personal favourite of recent years is Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Ooh yes, Forsyth is a great suggestion. And perhaps Len Deighton and Geoffrey Household for Rogue Male - really immersive thrillers.