It's happened, I've run out of books 😱

[IceIceBabyBump]

Help!
I've reached the end of my "To Read" list. I've been desperately looking but I can't find anything that piques my interest.

I have nothing left to read*

I love miserable literary fiction (think Hanya Yanagihara or Donna Tartt).

I hate feel-good books and/or books with happy endings or neat resolutions.

I love good stories (think Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche or Isbael Allende).

I'm generally not keen on the classics (started "Jude the obscure" last night and not gripped at all.

I don't like non-fiction.

Please suggest me some novels to get my mojo back!

*Slight caveat that I do have Mantel's "A place of greater safety" but it's so huge, I'm saving it for annual leave I September!

I absolutely loved APOGS by the way and have been considering a re-read while I'm learning about the road to the revolution.

I'm similar, especially your sense that literature (in its widest sense) is a huge sweet-shop. I go from Ulysses to Mills and Boon, with classics, science fiction, fantasy, contemporary literary fiction, children/YA, crime and thrillers, historicals, romances, short stories (especially uncanny/ghost stories) etc in between. I've even found a couple of westerns I found hard to put down. and that's just fiction. I like non-fiction, especially history, politics and biography as well. One of the reasons I get on well with my PhD supervisor is how easily she can segue between the scholarship on a highbrow writer like Edith Wharton and the historical romances of Georgette Heyer or the latest romantasy doorstop. And yes, enjoyable tat is part of a rich reading diet. The only genres I don't like much are visceral body horror and those where the narrative is entirely from the pov of a very disturbed first person narrator. My current audiobook is really pushing me out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing, but it will be a long time before I want to read anything more by the same writer, if ever.

PS above an answer to @Littlebittiredoflife

Perhaps Stoner by John Williams, it's not a misery fest like A Little Life but it did elicit really strong emotions.

I also love Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow as a pp mentioned

Pre kindle and cheap books via internet I lived in Australia. Strangely enough every second hand book shop was full of Zola. If you like bleak and dark you’ll love him.
More modern- Girl with all the gifts
The wall- Marlen Haisehofer (there’s one by John Lancaster which is excellent but not the vibe you’ll looking for)
God of strange new things.

Hilary Mantels back catalogue is excellent and what you’re looking for. Not the big ones but the early ones.

Stoner is a good call.
The Daughters of Mars as well as Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally.
Ordinary Thunderstorms and Any Human Heart by William Boyd
Nemesis and The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Falling by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Two more Muriel Spark - more novella length:

The Girls of Slender Means
The Driver's Seat

Foreign books in translation:

Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
A Heart So White by Javier Marías

'Nesting' by Roisin O'Donnel
'The end of the world is a cul de sac' by Louise Kennedy - truly depressing.

Middlesex is about a character who is intersex not trans. Both other novels by Eugenides are also worth reading The Virgin Suicides and The Marriage Plot.

For me this year in fiction it’s been:

My Friends by Hisham Matar
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Our London Lives by Christina Dwyer Hickey
The God Of The Woods by Liz Moore
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

Also, consider the crime series by Jane Casey starting with The Burning

Excavations by Hanna Michell for a quick weekend read.

More Barbara Kingsolver if you enjoyed Demon Copperhead.
Books I’ve really enjoyed that might be to your taste.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
A gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The Narrow Road. To the Deep North

It isn't a pro-trans sob story. It's about a man who is intersex. Totally different thing.

If you like miserable literary fiction have you read Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro?

Oh I was going to add Women Talking by Miriam Toews if you want something mis-lit

Thank you - I loved "The Virgin Suicides" so I'll give "Middlesex" a try.

So many incredible suggestions on here, thank you. I'll be doing a WOB order tonight.

Burial Rights is dark but very good.

I also enjoyed The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, but I haven't read Affinity so can't say if it's along the same lines or not.

Another one that stayed with me as it was pretty dark/brutal in places was The Secret River by Kate Grenville.

I loved The Night Watch and another of Sarah Water's books, The Little Stranger. I seem to remember that The Secret River was one of my book group's better picks, because it was hard to put down.

Anything by Robertson Davies would get my vote. He's now dead, and I think unfashionable, but beautifully written, lengthy and generally complex stories about Canada.

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlauton
Eurotrash by Christian Kracht
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

Seconding My Dark Vanessa which was mentioned up thread.

Penance, Eliza Clark
The True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey
Cormac McCarthy
The Trees, Percival Everett (if you like satire)

Burial Rites is a great suggestion, beautifully written and had me in tears. The Bone People also but check trigger warnings.

The Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas

Thank you everyone! I've ordered:

"Burial Rites"
"The Bone People"
"Middlesex"
"Tipping the Velvet"

I'm very excited 😊

I meant to say I've read "My Dark Vanessa". What an incredible book - it's on my "To Re-read One Day" list which is a very hard list to get onto 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Enjoy! I look forward to hearing what you think of them, particularly The Bone People. It was one of favourite books but it's quite unusual in structure and subject and wouldn't be for everyone (but did controversially win the Booker).

I have also read the other three on your list and all are great. I will look up My Dark Vanessa as I haven't come across that.