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?

Big YY to the Secret History - it's one of my favourite books. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is also great.

Trying to think of something similar to Wuthering Heights - that's a toughie. If you haven't tried the Moonstone by Wilkie Collins you might like that. Um...it IS a mystery, I must admit, but it's brilliant.

Not fiction, but if you like George Orwell, read Homage to Catalonia. One of the most life-changing books I've ever read.

Love Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford. Favourite short story writers are Katherine Mansfield and Dorothy Parker, but also read bits of Saki, can see someone above has already recommended him.

On my list to read is more Zola - have only read Germinal (very, very grim) and L'Assomoir. Nanna and Therese Raquin are on my list to read at some point.

Not sure I'm ever going to get round to Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina though (or Proust, come to that...)

Though how one can claim to like Poe and to 'abhor any type of mystery' seems rather contradictory anyway! :)

Yes to Waugh - A Handful Of Dust is my favourite, followed by Vile Bodies.

Just read the rest of the thread...hurrah for the Ian McEwan haters! I work in a second-hand bookshop and we have SO many McEwans piling up on our shelves you wouldn't believe it. I hated Enduring Love and Amsterdam but Saturday really was the worst of the lot. (I did read one of his early novels, The Innocent, and that was OK, though, that was before he became 'the celebrated Ian McEwan').

Big thumbs up for Margaret Atwood here, I loves her, especially Cats Eye and The Robber Bride.

Also another vote for This Thing of Darkness - great book, made me want to go to Patagonia. Perhaps one day I will.

The problem you will have (according to my author friends) is that many US publishers are unwilling to continue publishing books by British authors unless the first one does spectacularly well.

I second Douglas Coupland. Have you tried Sarah Dunant or Rose Tremain? Both do good, very well written historical novels (on the whole).

How can anyone like John Irving? The world according to garp I wanted to tear half way through - it is just about people shagging and so tedious.

Have you tried Portrait of Dorian Grey. Fantastic book and a complete classic.

Ruth Rendell, but not the police ones with Inspector Wexford - the stand-alone psychological novels. She also writes as Barbara Vine. (The latest few have perhaps not been quite as satisfying, so I would recommend going back a little way if possible.)

Early Robert Goddard - Painting the Darkness, In Pale Battalions, Past Caring, Into the Blue, Take No Farewell .... his later stuff is nowhere near as good, but hey, you say you like Dan Brown :o

Horses for courses onelittlefish

I'd definately second a lot of Nevil Shute stuff. I'm also very fussy but could read Orwells "Down and out in Paris and London" time and time again,and Shute's "On the Beach".I've just bought "The Doomsday Book" to re read.
Also recommend "The Road" .How about John Wyndham?

Yes to Dorian Grey and to Orwell and to Shute.

Agree that John Irvin is tedious and just full of boring sex for the most part.

Agree that Ian M is tosh.

John Irving full of sex? Must have missed that.

Me too, I mean there are sex scenes (in Irving), but they are not what they're all about.

It's like saying a picture of Dorian Gray is about painting. (Not Oscar's best work anyway).

Owen Meaney - shag fest
A Widow For However Bloomin' Long It Is - shag-fest
Garp - boring shag fest

I think you must be confused.

If you like Philippa Gregory's Tudor series, you might like Sharon Penman.

Confused, how? I read the books and that was my opinion of them. Why does that make me confused?

Then again, if we're really talking shag-fest-books then Pat Barker's, 'The Eye In The Door' must be up there in the top ten, I think.

I also second the Philip Pullman books - I was amazed at how quickly I became immersed.

As a story style non fiction I also thoroughly enjoyed "Touching the Void"

Have you tried Ballards "Empire of the Sun"?

Perhaps branch out into different non fiction.I love tales of peoples adventures such as Ffyona Campbells "On Foot Through Africa" or Lucy Irvines "Runaway" and"Castaway".

How about Giles Milton's history books for non-fiction too? Nathaniel's Nutmeg etc.

And there's a brilliant one about The Great Fire Of London called something like Day Of Judgement.

And, 'The Worst Journey In The World' by Aspley Cherry-Garrard' about Scott's journey to the pole. And there's a novel based on that too - not great literature by any stretch of the imagination but not bad caled 'Death On The Ice' by Robert Ryan.

called

Have you tried Georgette Heyer? Light, regency romances (don't stop reading here) - erudite and funny. Great reads.

Margaret George - Autobiography of Henry VIII which is excellent (she has also done Mary Queen of Scots which I wasn't so bothered about, and Cleopatra which I've not tried).

Gaudy Night - Dorothy L Sayers. Yes it's got a detective but it's a novel with an intellectual theme and love interest so bears reading for all that.

And talking of intellectual themes, how about Adrian Mole?

I didn't mean to offend remus, I'm just surprised that that's what you remember from the books. I am a bit of a rabid fan.

Not offended - but not confused either! :)

Just came back to say Rose Tremain - Restoration.

Me too chipmunk.

Loved 'Last Night in Twisted River', which was huge return to his earlier form imo. Eagerly awaiting his next.

'Restoration' not bad; a couple of her others not bad too.

Also how about The Virgin Suicides (ace) or Middlesex (not bad) by Jeffery Eugenedes (sp?)?

The Road To Wigan Pier

CJ Sansom - Winter In Madrid. His others are whodunnits but they are brilliant and make Philippa Gregory look like the raving amatuer she is.

amateur - I appear to have forgotten how to spell.