I've enjoyed most of the Booker Prize winners I've read so far.
(Life of Pi being the only major exception, though I wouldn't call the weeks of tortuous agony I spent reading Midnight's Children pure enjoyment either. 'Character-building' might describe the experience better.)
Somewhere deep down I have a desire to seek out and read these books with the famed 'Booker Prize Winner' sticker on the front. Brings me back to my Newberry/Caldecott-award-winner reading days.
I say 'deep down' because the prize also strikes me as overwhelmingly masculine and British-imperial-ish. Each have their moments, of course, but one can get a bit tired of all the stiff upper lips.
Marching on regardless! Here's the list of winners. (Read in bold, with links to reviews.)
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 Nadine Gordimer The Conservationist / Stanley Middleton Holiday
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: A Romance
1991 Ben Okri The Famished Road
1992 Michael Ondaatje The English Patient / Barry Unsworth Sacred Hunger
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 DBC 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
I recommend The Bone People. It's a challenging read, but I loved it because it manages to be painful and jolly and hopeful at the same time. It also fits in with the whole British imperialism thing.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point about the masculine nature of the prize. Have you discovered The Orange Prize yet? Or the Orange Prize Project, which is like The Complete Booker for Orange?
ReplyDeleteI just picked up the 2008 winner, Rose Tremain's The Road Home, yesterday at the library! Looking forward to learning more about the Orange prize!
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