How many Booker winning novels have you read?

I wouldn't say they're the best books of each year, but they're nearly always worth reading. Exceptions - Life of Pi and The Bone People were both weak, and Vernon God Little, which I thought was unreadable.

3.5, all post 1993, incidentally.

If the selection committee's tastes clash too vigorously with those of the reading public at large, then the prize will be ignored, become irrelevant and cease to serve its function. If the prize merely serves to ratify what the public has already voted for with their money, then it becomes equally irrelevant. The sweet spot is to choose a book that is just a bit 'above' the tastes of the majority, sold respectably but not spectacularly, and was well-reviewed.

BTW, I've read one of the prize-winners listed above, the Arundhati Roy book. It was (how to put this?) a perfect representative of everything prize-worthy in a novel and it didn't entirely suck. Not entirely.

So, 6 read. I've got True History of the Kelly Gang, Disgrace, The Sea, The Sea, and The Sea in the to-read pile. None acquired specifically for being Booker.

I guess 2.5, since The English Patient was merely a co-winner. In any event, I care very little for any of these three.

2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
2003 Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
1999 Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1988 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

of these "The Line Of Beauty" is probably the best. "Vernon God Little" is not only the worst on this list but far and away the worst book i've ever finished!

for the record, starting from '69, i've read 5 national book award/fiction (gaddis x2, pynchon, delillo & franzen [which seems a horribly predictable series]) and 2 pulitzer/fiction (toole, chabon) winners.

Just 6.

i haven't read "the ghost road," but "regeneration" (about siegfried sassoon and wilfred owen) is terrific.

Non Fiction (6)
William L. Shirer The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Gore Vidal United States: Essays 1952-1992
Tina Rosenberg The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism
Edward Ball Slaves in the Family
Andrew Solomon The Noonday Demon: An Anatomy of Depression
Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Poetry: (6)
William Carlos Williams Paterson: Book III and Selected Poems
Archibald MacLeish Collected Poems, 1917-1952
Robert Lowell Life Studies
Randall Jarrell The Woman at the Washington Zoo
Frank O'Hara The Collected Works of Frank O'Hara
Lucille Clifton Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000

Pulitzer (10)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Sitting on a shelf, somewhere in the chaos that is my apartment, waiting to be read:
2005 The Sea by John Banville
2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
1999 Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
1984 Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
1979 Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
1974 The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
(7)

Anyhoo, I've read the Coetzee books and just a few other things. Is _Paddy Clark..._ worth it? I read a few of Doyle's books a few years back. I borrowed this one from the library, but when I got home, I took two glances at it and wondered why the hell I'd picked up another Roddy Doyle book. Back in the back it went.

I am looking forward to reading _The Sea_ though.
Interesting that _Amsterdam_ is on there, as I had the impression that everyone considers it to be one of Mewanc's weakest novels.

I am never gonna watch the movie tho.

8 is my total.

2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
1998 Amsterdam: A Novel by Ian McEwan
1996 Last Orders by Graham Swift
1990 Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt

And I saw three of the movies based on books of this list:

1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (co-winner)
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1982 Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally

In retrospective I liked those movies better than the books. Which seems a bit strange.

so did anyone read the 2008 winner : Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger?

Zero. However I'd be interested in reading 'Midnight's Children' after catching a repeat of the Arena doc on the book. Maybe Ishiguro and Barker at some point.

AUSSSIEAUSSIE

What a shitty looking prize:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/10/15/adiga300x230.jpg

as long as the $$$ looks nice..

Six:
2004 The Line of Beauty - just read this, it's fantastic. Enormously recommended
2002 Life of Pi - throwaway, really, but nice enough. Points off for (I suspect) being a book that's really about storytelling
1999 Disgrace - aye, great. It must've been a cliffhanger, I remember finishing it while walking through Westminster tube station as I needed to get somewhere and I couldn't wait to find out what happened. That said, I can't remember much about it now
1998 Amsterdam - shockingly bad. Pointless, no-one in it you'd care about. The praise lavished on McEwan, while occasionally deserved and he's undeniably a great prosewriter, is going to look silly in future. Basically doesn't have much to say
1994 How Late It Was, How Late - fine, a bit bleak really, but a nice thing to win a prize like this
1992 The English Patient - excellent, a great read, full of interesting little details and memorable scenes, like Captain Corelli's Mandolin (though it doesn't seem to have won many prizes)

(I own eight of the others, to my shame)

i have read 14 but like five were because of a contemp brit fiction class i took and one other, the hollinghurst, i won as a prize in that class for a seminar i gave. the nadine gordimer novel is quite beautiful maybe my fav from that list.

i thought in the skin of the lion had won?? love that book >>> english patient.

1998 Amsterdam - shockingly bad. Pointless, no-one in it you'd care about. The praise lavished on McEwan, while occasionally deserved and he's undeniably a great prosewriter, is going to look silly in future. Basically doesn't have much to say

Sooooooooooooooo otm

Columbia College Class of 1997 (and Salutatorian)

were u friends?

2005 The Sea by John Banville
2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (co-winner)
1990 Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt

2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
2000 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

2001 True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
1998 Amsterdam: A Novel by Ian McEwan
1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (co-winner)
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1981 Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
1978 The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch

were u friends?

never heard of him

2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
1999 Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1981 Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Ended up reading some of his other work, liked In The Skin of a Lion a lot too

I've never read a novel by Ondaatje I didn't like, and his poetry is quite good too. Definitely my favourite of the 'big' (anglophone) Canadian writers.

A Brief History of Seven Killings is tremendous, surprised there isn't more love for it here.

tbf that's the other one I want to read

I've read sixteen of these I think including several I didn't know had won it.

Oh I think I started Vernon God Little but it was atrocious. Howard Jacobson's Independent column was so terrible that I would rather read literally anything else on this list than even one paragraph of his.

3. God of Small Things, Amsterdam, Milkman. I own Girl, Woman, Other but not got round to it yet. Quite a few authors that I've read other books by, though mostly boring middlebrow writers that I wouldn't read much more of (to be honest I might even be confusing Amsterdam with some other McEwan book, I read a fair few of his as a teen trying stuff out and feel like I wasted my time).

Out of the three I've read, Milkman towers above the other two (I think I said on another thread that I highly rate it, would recommend it without hesitation).

I've read 17, but only 3 of the 21st Century ones.

Rites of Passage - studied at school. Is pretty good I guess
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - read it ages ago and have completely forgotten it
Vernon God Little - I enjoyed it as a teenager, probably because that is its only demographic
The Line Of Beauty - masterpiece, there's every chance that if I read every book here it'd still be my favourite
The White Tiger - a really good & shocking journalistic exposé first, a novel second

The Line Of Beauty - masterpiece, there's every chance that if I read every book here it'd still be my favourite

Mine too. It's absolutely perfect. I've only read 7 of this updated list. Hard to imagine there's a worse book than Vernon God Little in this list. It has an awful "made-up story" quality, like something you'd invent in secondary school. The author had never even been to Texas or The South, btw, so there's a good reason it sounds made up. John Carey was the head judge that year.

I have fond memories of Last Orders - Ash scattering pilgrimage for several old geezers stopping off at several pubs on the way - but it's 22 years since I read it so I've no idea if it stands up.

Also this is a boring pick at this stage but Hilary Mantel is one of the best modern writers I've read when it comes to writing about ambition and the nature of power. (Also Imago I'm surprised you haven't read at least one of them).

I agree The Line of Beauty is one of the best in this list, certainly of the ones I've read. Didn't care for Oscar and Lucinda.

I'm quite favourably disposed towards Hotel du Lac, which tends to be held up as one of those mistakes that should never happen again but there's a quiet sadness, a desperation to it that's very difficult to write effectively.

I've had both Possession and Midnight's Children on my shelf for years now but there always seems to be something more appealing to read. Maybe this will finally be the year.

Cosign all the Line of Beauty praise; The Ghost Road and The True History of the Kelly Gang are two others that I would stick up for. I couldn't really get with A Brief History of Seven Killings but I figured it was me not him.

I’m kind of now tempted to read some more of the list, The Line of Beauty is one I’ve heard about for a while and I already have access to so many others. And I’ve also never heard a good word about Vernon God Little, lol?

Also I know Murdoch isn't especially popular here but I love The Sea, The Sea, the narrator is quite spectacularly awful and it contains some of the most revolting food anywhere in fiction.

Banville's The Sea is good as well. Cosign the Milkman love as well. IDK, there are lots of very good books on this list that don't really deserve the shade thrown on them by having shared a prize with outright turkeys like Amsterdam.

i had a thing where i made a point of reading the winner

1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (co-winner)
1992 Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (co-winner)
1991 The Famished Road by Ben Okri
1990 Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1988 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

looks like i lasted 6 years. the Okri is sat over there unfinished...

have just this week bought The Sea The Sea (so good they named it twice)

read 7 I think and another 5 sitting in the to-read pile. Not at all the best or most important book on the list, but I enjoyed White Tiger the most of those I read

I have never heard of J.G. Farrell and he won twice in close succession!

The win for Troubles was actually the 'Lost Booker' that was awarded by public vote in 2010

anyway, you should read Farrell. He's great

The Ghost Road and The True History of the Kelly Gang are two others that I would stick up for.

wait! i was thinking of 'regeneration'. 'the ghost road' was the follow up and i wasn't into it as much, or the third one which i read anyway.

this RTÉ radio documentary on the last 149 days of JG Farrell is amazing.

I’d never heard of JG Farrell either, but the colonialist stuff is hugely rtmi, so I’m getting his two books and The Line of Beauty

Go on then, I'll admit it - zero. Although I have read 9 Hugo winners from over the same time period, so that's something.

eleven or twelve - i can't remember if i read both of the hilary mantel books or just the first one.
i've read "troubles" and "the siege of krishnapur" and thought they were both great.

i can't remember if i read both of the hilary mantel books or just the first one

Was Anne Boelyn alive or dead at the end? (Apologies for the spoiler for everyone else, but she gets beheaded).

Fuck you DC! I'll never read them now!

Nah I should, and will

i really can't recall, it was too long ago. feel free to round my total down to 11 for purposes of booker cred points

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/november/letter-from-america

It isn’t so much that Scotland has achieved a grown-up reckoning with its social history (warts, booze, paedophiles and all), as that these wounds have become a source of cultural and political capital. Can't wait to visit, on the way to Vatican City! Classick clickbait, and of course no consid of the text atall; has he even read it.

Think it was more a report focusing on Scotland attitudes to it's literary culture.

Yeah, but I read it as tainting the book by association with/"enabling" those people over there, who seem reduced: is it not possible that some may be nationalist significantly in terms of being anti-Brexit, anti-Tory for considerations that can be concerning beyond those who want to wear haggis and eat kilts and etc.? I mean, since he brought it up. The premise (they're going from one extreme to another) is worth developing, but stopping where he does seems like a dick move.

This whole thing of reduction, conflation, sideways inflation is irritating: like on ilx, we'll soon see the annual kneejerk reaction against pollwinners because those people over there like them for the rong reasons/so much/at all, also on ilm I've seen Cardi B compared to Trump because she brags, a New Yorker writer compared Post Malone to Trump, said he pretty much is Trump, rather than another miserable little parasite (which he even looks like he knows he is, on some level)

Nothing vs. you for your choice of link, but that's my caffeinated think.

I must admit I have prejudged this book. it does sound like frank mccourt transposed. social realism in thatcherite Glasgow does sound on the nose and not necessarily what I want from a contemporary Scottish novel. having said that I really wish that it wasn't made to stand as an artifact of cultural devolution and in a normal country you would be able to write a grim social realist novel without having that kind of baggage attached.

I know I read Life of Pi and Bone People
THink I may have read The English Patient, know i saw the film or it might stick out better but i do think I read the book too.
THink I read Oscar and Lucinda if it's the one about the glass house on a boat, saw film too. Read a few of his around then

have a few of the others of the original cited list lying around the flkat unread.

& have read Wolf Hall, should have read Bring Out the Bodies by now since I found the prose of Wolf Hall really delicious.

only just realising that Bone People was a Booker winner looked like an interesting read when I found it i a Dublin charity or cheap book shop[ in the early 90s. Liked it at the time. Maori interactions and things, I think a maori woman trying to make it i more Western society, but that was like 28 years since i read it.

I've read 15 of that list.

Stand outs would be:
The Ghost Road
Moon Tiger
Disgrace
The Life & Times of Michael K
Hotel Du Lac

I loved The Bone People at the time but I'd be terrified of re-reading it. I went with my now wife to Keri Hulme's home, er, town, when I was in NZ. Okarito, population 8*, on a lonely fly-blown tear of the west coast. We got dropped off up the road and walking in, a fella stopped in his car and offered us a lift. He said he was 'having a bath' that night, in his garden under the stars and we'd be welcome to come along. We didn't go and I think about it all the time.

*she wasn't there, so population 7, I guess.

John Banville, winner of the 2005 Booker Prize, has suggested that he could not win it now because he is a straight, white male https://t.co/hNT70dug1Z

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) December 1, 2020

well i for one am shocked that Banville would come out with this

I suggest you are a prick and wouldn't win it because everyone has seen through your overwritten shite.

i like some of his overwritten shite but yeah, huge prick energy

Also he's pissed away the last 20 years writing dour, pointless and tedious crime novels, plush a cash-in fake Raymond Chandler, so he's not exactly churning out the masterpieces these days.

Hotel du Lac is lovely! A small, extremely earnest thing ('somewhat Sparklike but more modern and lost' was my immediate response, which also puts it in Rhys territory tbh) that nonetheless pulls a number of sly games en route to terminus. Probably fits in second behind TLOB for me now, a book to which this makes a decent counterpoint, perhaps.

I've read

2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
2000 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
1999 Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (co-winner)
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1986 The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis

And that's it. I didn't adore any of them, really... the Coetzee in particular seemed to have a thesis that I instinctively thought was weird and bad even when I read it in my early 20s.

Exception to this, of course, was "The Line Of Beauty", which I'm unashamed to state is one of my favourite novels of all time... not just as an effective work of AIDS-related art, and a commentary on Thatcherism, but such an effective skewering of the bourgeois shittiness of "gay" on the whole.

Yeah it really stands clear, my previous post notwithstanding

Since 2005 I've increased my tally from one to six and I thought most of them were fine, but the fact of their Booker Prize was totally irrelevant to my choosing to read them. My participation in I Love Books has been far more influential in leading me to good books.

Re what Banville said above, just in the last ten years Howard Jacobson, Julian Barnes, and George Saunders have all won. Is he mad that three women and a gay man won in a row after Saunders?

the Coetzee in particular seemed to have a thesis that I instinctively thought was weird and bad even when I read it in my early 20s.

― what's fgti up to these days? nothing. she's fake (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 7 September 2021 23:00 (ye

What's the thesis you didn't like?