Book Award Winners

After reviewing the list of the Top 10 Favorite Books, I thought that it might be interesting to look at what books won the Pulitzer Prize for 2008.

2008 Pulitzer Prize:
Fiction: "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books).


Finalists: "Tree of Smoke" by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and
"Shakespeare's Kitchen" by Lore Segal (The New Press).


General Nonfiction: "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945," by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins).
Finalists: "The Cigarette Century" by Allan Brandt (Basic Books);
"The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century" by Alex Ross (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

I am embarrassed to say that I have not even heard of any of these books. Does that mean that I don’t read great books? Not at all. But I guess that we all have different ideas of great books. But then, since I have not read any of these, perhaps if I do read them, I would consider them Pulitzer Prize deserving. Have any of you read them? Is anyone game to reading them?

Here is a link/address to see the review of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao that was in The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/books/04diaz.html

See if it interests you in the book. It didn’t me.

New York Times review of The Tree of Smoke: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/books/review/Lewis3-t.html

Again, I am not interested.

And a review from the Los Angeles Times for Shakespeare’s Kitchen:
http://www.latimes.com/technology/consumer/gamers/la-bk-marcus8apr08,1,6885107.story?coll=la-business-games.

Sounds like a book I might enjoy. I am a little put off because it is short stories and I don’t usually like to read short stories, but the reviews seem to indicate that the stories all intertwine, so I might be willing to try it.

Meanwhile, I was also checking out the winner of the 2008 Booker Prize, and found a list of all of the past Booker Award winners, so here is that list:
.
Booker Prize Winners:
2007 - The Gathering (Enright)

2006 - The Inheritance of Loss (Desai)

2005 - The Sea (Banville)

2004 - The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst)

2003 - Vernon God Little (Pierre)

2002 - Life of Pi (Martel)

2001 - True History of the Kelly Gang (Carey)

2000 - The Blind Assassin (Atwood)1

999 - Disgrace (Coetzee)

1998 - Amsterdam: A Novel (McEwan)

1997 - The God of Small Things (Roy)

1996 - Last Orders (Swift)

1995 - The Ghost Road (Barker)

1994 - How Late It Was, How Late (Kelman)

1993 - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Doyle)

1992 - The English Patient (Ondaatje)

1992 - Sacred Hunger (Unsworth)

1991 - The Famished Road (Okri)

1990 - Possession: A Romance (Byatt)

1989 - The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro)

1988 - Oscar and Lucinda (Carey)

1987 - Moon Tiger (Lively)

1986 - The Old Devils (Amis)

1985 - The Bone People (Hulme)

1984 - Hotel Du Lac (Brookner)

1983 - Life & Times of Michael K (Coetzee)

1982 - Schindler's Ark (Keneally)

1981 - Midnight's Children (Rushdie)

1980 - Rites of Passage (Golding)

1979 - Offshore (Fitzgerald)

1978 - The Sea, the Sea (Murdoch)

1977 - Staying on (Scott)

1976 - Saville (Storey)

1975 - Heat and Dust (Jhabvala)

1974 - The Conservationist (Gordimer)

1974 - Holiday (Middleton)

1973 - The Siege of Krishnapur (Farrell)

1972 - G. (Berger)

1971 - In a Free State (Naipaul)

1970 - The Elected Member (Rubens)

1969 - Something to Answer For (Newby)

I notice that several of the years have more than 1 book listed. I don't know if there was a tie that year, or what.



I have read a few of these and they were very good reads. I am more likely to try to read some of these, especially since I have heard of them, than I am to read the Pulitzer Prize winners.

Anyone have any suggestions from this list? I think that I will read The Gathering next. Watch for my posting on it.