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?

Yes to Kite RUnner. How about Le Carre - the Perfect Spy is the perfect book IMHO.

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

yy - loved it!

Harry Thompson's This Thing of Darkness. Fantastic book, and loads of facts in there too.

You need Remus... she's very fussy discerning too

Yay suggestions! On phone so will wrote more detailed post later - but I'm American - to explain the American list

It's actually really difficult to find a lot of british work here, particularly books that weren't mega hits - both library and bookstore don't carry much.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - yea loved.

Psychopath test - ditto.

I listed a lot of contemporary stuff so you could get a feel for my tastes really, obviously I've read lots more books but to list them individually may be a lifelong process!

Going back some - I did start Anna Karenina and remember vaguely liking it, this was as a teenager so might like it now as an adult? Tale of Two Cities I do like, it is perhaps the only dickens I do.

I see you liked Wuthering Heights, so have you tried anything by the other Brontes? Jane Eyre or Agnes Grey?

If you like Poe then have you tried Lovecraft? He was influenced by Poe and you can really see it with some of his stories.

I agree with IamtheSnorkMaiden about Daphne Du Maurier. Out of all her books I've read, the only one I disliked was Hungry Hill. The others have been really good. I also agree with whoever suggested Call The Midwife (was it BertieBotts?), that book was excellent.

Anita Shreve and John Irving.

Earlier stuff of both.

I'm very similar to you and very very fussy!

I second the suggestion of Iain Banks. The Wasp Factory, The Steep Apporach to Garberdale, The Crow Road are my faves. I don't like his sci fi stuff as I don't like sci fi but the way he rights is good.

That said, I loved the Handmaid's Tale. That's great. Her other stuff, a bit boring tbh.

I am currently reading The Other Hand which is one of the best things I have read in ages and a surprisingly 'easy' read too.

Oh, and ignore other posters. Enduring Love is the most gratingly irritating book in the history of literature. I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.

20 pages is too soon.

You have to give a book longer than that in me 'umble opinion!

I really hate Ian McEwan's writing style. The plot for Enduring Love really interested me but he writes it in such an awful way, so irritating and quickly every single character annoyed me. Atonement has the same problem.

Yep! Yah boo sucks to Ian McEwan!

Avoid the Wasp Factory it is awful!

Agree Daphne DuMaurier.
Try also Nevil Shute eg beyond the black stump, a town like alice.

You like Phillipa Gregory but don't like most fiction? (I loathe PG's liberties with historical truth & the obvious romantic feel).

What about Edgar Allen Poe, and Vikram Swarup?

Another vote for John Irving. He's a little bit quirky but very American. I'd start with World According to Garp I think, then Cider House Rules, Hotel New Hampshire, Owen Meany, 158lb Marriage

Jane Smiley 'A Thousand Acres' - based on King Lear, set in the mid west US. She's a great writer.

Not American (set in India) but how about Rohinton Mistry 'A Fine Balance' - pretty much everyone I have given or suggested this to has absolutely adored it. In fact, I must reread...

for a few years after DC were born, i was bored to death by fiction, could not project myself or empathize at all.

try memoirs and biographies?

Also for a bit of light relief but still worth reading, you could try the Aurelio Zen detective series by Michael Dibdin, set in Italy. Recent tv adaptation had Rufus Sewell as Zen so you can read the stories and dream of him :)

If you like 50% of Nick Hornby you might like Tony Parsons.

On a more literary note, Paul Auster or Don DeLillo (both American)?

ragged I highly suspect its due to my obsession with the Tudors - the only thing I've disliked on the subject is Wolf Hall.

And if you saw in my OP I do like Poe

Re:McEwan - tried Atonement - very tedious for me and haven't tried his other stuff as a result

Another vote for John Irving.

Also 'Geek Love' Kathryn Dunn, it's American so hopefully you can get it. About circus freaks, don't let that put you off.

Anything by Jonathan Carrol, I would start with 'Sleeping in flame' 'tis the best one. An American in Vienna with some brothers Grimm thrown in.

You'll probably hate them though, as you don't like The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby.

No idea what you would think of this but it's an unusual take on the Flood story, quite well written.

If you like historical fiction you could try Dorothy Dunnett?

Also I cannot recommend highly enough Guy Gavriel Kay (he's Canadian so hopefully not too hard to find in the US) - I prefer his stand alone novels to his High Fantasy trilogy (Fionavar) but they are all very good - perhaps start with "Tigana" or "A Song for Arbonne" or "The Lions of Al-Rassan"?

Oh and have you tried Joe Abercrombie - his trilogy starts with "The Blade Itself" I believe GRRM is a fan :)

OMG had completely forgotten about the Fionavar tapestry! I was mad for those when I was a student.

God I thought I was fussy! And pmsl at Swanker for remembering how fussy I am! (Is that you btw, Swanker?).

Okay - here are a few that I have really enjoyed - some fiction and some non-fiction (but I love Stephen King too, so you might not trust me!).

This Thing Of Darkness - Harry somebody. It's fiction based on Darwin and Fitzroy's travels on The Beagle and is superb.

Isabel Allende - especially Paula

The Knife Man - Wendy Moore - about John Hunter who founded the Hunterian museum and was one of the first really 'famous' surgeons

The Woman In White / The Moonstone / others by Wilkie Collins

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Philip Pullman - the Sally Lockhart books are excellent and the His Dark Materials series is v good in not quite so rip-roaring a way

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

Microserfs / Girlfriend In A Coma / Life After God / Miss Wyoming - Douglas Coupland

A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers (this is amazing)

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Will come back with more once I've had a think.

Just noticed Swanker said, 'This Thing Of Darkness' too. Trust us - it's awesome.