Hot on the heels of The Pulitzer Project comes The Complete Booker. Of the books on this prize winning list I have read only three, although I have been meaning to read several others for ages!
2006 - The Inheritance of Loss (Desai)
2005 - The Sea (Banville)
2004 - The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst) - Didn't really like this one.
2003 - Vernon God Little (Pierre)
2002 - Life of Pi (Martel)
2001 - True History of the Kelly Gang (Carey)
2000 - The Blind Assassin (Atwood)
1999 - 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 List (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)
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)
Another reason for posting this today is that I am going to join in on Dewey's Man Booker Challenge where the challenge is to read six of the books listed above between January 1 and December 31 2008.
Of the books listed above, the books that I am going to read for this challenge are:
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Amsterdam: A Novel by Ian McEwan
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
The only concern I have about that list is that Ghost Road is the third book in the series, so just in case I decide not to go with that one my substitute may be Possession by AS Byatt.
And that, I think, will be it for challenges for a little while. I did seriously contemplate joining the Royalty Rules challenge to the extent that I had my book list almost ready and the post almost done, but in the end I was going to have to be adding books to my TBR list to complete it, and one of the things that I said about joining in on challenges is that they had to be bringing the number of books on my TBR list down...not up!
That's a great challenge! I could read six of those. In fact I know we have the Life Of Pi on the shelf (It's the Husband's) The Kelly Gang one sounds interesting. I may even have The Blind Assasin on the bookshelf...I need to go through the bookshelf I think.
ReplyDeleteWell... looking through the list, I've read 9. I think the most intriguing one was Possession, although The Life Of Pi was intriguing whilst being disturbing. The Sea had beautiful prose but again - disturbing - actually, come to think of it, most of the ones I read were disturbing, violent, sad, etc... Hmmm... Maybe I'll stick to Possession as my favourite - it wasn't as downbeat as the others and at least had a reasonably upbeat ending.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved Life of Pi. It was one of the first few books I reviewed on my blog (#3?). I also have The Inheritance of Loss and The Blind Assasin. I'll try to get those in this year. I've tried reading The Blind Assasin several times already and just couldn't get into it. I think that has always been more me than the book, though.
ReplyDeleteI read The Remains of the Day shortly after seeing the movie, but I can't remember what my impressions were. I guess I wasn't blown away or tempted to torch it. :)
Jennifer
Thanks for that list, Marg, I have come here via Perry's profile of your blog at Matilda.
ReplyDeleteWhat a busy reader you are! blimey. I am betting Lynne of dovegreyreader is in the sidebar down there? your capacity reminds me of her.
Really interesting to flip back through that list, I now realise I have only been reading Booker titles since 1993, and there's an author the very year before that who I've been told to read several times now. Going to take it as a done thing.
Cheers,
Genevieve