Since I've been reading the Booker Prize shortlists for the past few years (and largely reviewing the books on those shortlists), I thought I'd post here a list of the previous winners (similar to what I do for the Nobel Prize in Literature) and highlight the books that I've read and/or own. Due to my age and nationality and literary interests, this should be a fairly bottom-heavy highlighting:
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1969 P.H. Newby, Something to
Answer For
1970 Bernice Rubens, The Elected
Member
1971 V.S. Naipaul, In a Free State
1972 John Berger, G.
1973 J.G. Farrell, The Siege of
Krishnapur
1974 Stanley Middleton, Holiday
Nadine Gordimer, The
Conservationist
1975 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
1976 David Storey, Saville
1977 Paul Scott, Staying On
1978 Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
1979 Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
1980 William Golding, Rites of Passage
1981 Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s
Children
1982 Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s Ark
1983 J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times
of Michael K
1984 Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
1985 Keri Hulme, The Bone People
1986 Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
1987 Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
1988 Peter Carey, Oscar and
Lucinda
1989 Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of
the Day
1990 A.S. Byatt, Possession
1991 Ben Okri, The Famished
Road
1992 Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
Michael Ondaatje, The English
Patient
1993 Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha
Ha Ha
1994 James Kelman, How Late It Was,
How Late
1995 Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
1996 Graham Swift, Last Orders
1997 Arundhati Roy, The God of Small
Things
1998 Ian McEwan, Amsterdam
1999 J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
2000 Margaret Atwood, The Blind
Assassin
2001 Peter Carey, True History of
the Kelly Gang
2002 Yann Martel, Life of Pi
2003 D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God
Little
2004 Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of
Beauty
2005 John Banville, The Sea
2006 Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of
Loss
2007 Anne Enright, The Gathering
2008 Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
2009 Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
2010 Howard Jacobson, The Finkler
Question
2011 Julian Barnes, The Sense of an
Ending
2012 Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the
Bodies
So far, only read 9 winners out of 44 years (and 46 winners/co-winners) of the Booker Prize. Might read more of these in the near future, but part of me is hesitant, considering my negative reactions to other works written by some of the Booker Prize winners that I already have read.
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7 comments:
Italics means you own the book but haven't read it, right? If so, why the hell haven't you read The God of Small Things yet?
Mostly because I haven't been reading much of anything lately, but also because I'm thinking of saving it for a Saturday read in September. I always seem to read more during college football season, maybe because I put books beside me while I listen (and occasionally) watch the games. It will be read soon (I didn't buy it until earlier this year and I often go months between purchase and reading).
Maybe my memory is faulty, but I remember you recommending it to me a couple years ago. It came as a bit of a surprise to find you that you haven't read the book yet--and more of a surprise to find out that I have read a book on this list before you (it is also the only book on this list that I have read).
You must be mistaken, because I didn't buy the book until late April/early May 2013, although I had intended to buy it for a while before then.
Well, there's something about a blind squirrel finding an acorn somewhere in all this, I suppose... ;)
I read some too -
1972 (excellent and controversial - author refused the prize while the book touches on some taboo themes from incest to a sort of bdsm),
1977 (ok not great),
1978 (great romance, used to love Iris Murdoch's books as a teenager),
1988 (mostly browsed through but enough to make an opinion and did not really care about - in the same vein try the longlisted Luminaries which so far is superb)
1989 (quite good but the movie remained more with me)
1990 (good but a bit underwhelmed by expectations; loved Children's Book much much more and it just lost to Wolf Hall in 2009)
1992 - both (Unsworth not impressed read much more interesting books by him but i guess the subject carried the day; Ondaatje - read after the movie and loved both)
1998 (again ok romance but not as impressed)
2000 (superb - the best book on this list imho and one of my all time favorites)
2009 (superb - second best on the list)
2010 (mediocre - zoo time is much funnier and better)
2011 (pretty good imho)
2012 (excellent too but not on par with Wolf hall, too "choreographed")
Overall from what i read Blind Assassin, Wolf hall and G are my clear top 3
I also thought Murdoch -- and particularly The Sea, The Sea along with The Black Prince -- to be quite brilliant when I was in HS and college.
oops - talking about McEwan confused Atonement with Amsterdam (this last is darker and not quite a romance but still not that memorable for me at least)
As for I. Murdoch, I remember reading Philosopher's Pupil when i was about 17-18 and being blown out by it as i was by The Sea, The Sea
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