This makes it hard to find a new novel, sometimes

I make the effort to read fiction but it remains a trivial portion of my reading diet. Too much contemporary literary fiction appears to me to be self-absorbed comfortable middle class authors writing about the tribulations of self-absorbed comfortable middle class people. The inclination to insert emotional dysfunction in order to generate even a spark of tension and energy seems too great to resist. These just aren't the people you would want to share time with. Or at least, I wouldn't. And don't.

I am glad to find that I am in good company. I spent hours reading Le Guin books to my children when they were young. From an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin in The New York Times.

What genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?

I read mostly novels, any kind of novels, and poetry, and all kinds of nonfiction, especially some kinds of science, biographies, some history, and books about and by Native Americans, and Tierra del Fuego, and Darwinian adaptation — oh, give me a book and if it’s interesting, I’ll read it. Avoidance? At the moment, I tend to avoid fiction about dysfunctional urban middle-class people written in the present tense. This makes it hard to find a new novel, sometimes.