The winner for the 2009 Man Booker prize for fiction is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The book sounds so interesting since I love historical fiction.I love the Man Booker prize since so many books and authors I like or want to read are on the list. I'm not going to make this a "challenge" par say but more of a reading list for future TBR books.
I loved The Last Orders, really liked Blind Assassin, appreciated The English Patient, and did NOT like Life of Pi.
Have you read any Man Booker prize winners and did you like it?
*** Update: S. Krishna's Book blog also has a great post on the Man Booker Award as part of her Booker Challenge. Her list includes the winners as well as the ones that were shortlisted from 2009-1990 as well as the Best of the Booker. Go check it out!
Here's the Winner's list:
2009 Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
2008 The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
2007 The Gathering - Anne Enright
2006 The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
2005 The Sea - John Banville
2004 The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
2003 Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
2002 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
2001 The History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
2000 The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
1999 Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
1998 Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
1997 The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
1996 Last Orders - Graham Swift
1995 The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
1994 How Late It Was, How Late - James Kelman
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle
1992 The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
1992 Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth
1991 The Famished Road - Ben Okri
1990 Possession - A.S. Byatt
1989 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
1988 Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
1987 Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively
1986 The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis
1985 The Bone People - Keri Hulme
1984 Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner
1983 The Life & Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee
1982 Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally
1981 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
1980 Rites of Passage - William Golding
1979 Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald
1978 The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch
1977 Staying On - Paul Scott
1976 Saville - David Storey
1975 Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1974 The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer
1974 Holiday - Stanley Middleton
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell
1972 G - John Berger
1971 In a Free State - V.S. Naipaul
1970 The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens
1969 Something to Answer for - P.H. Newby
I am adding the shortlist:
2009
The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt
Summertime - J.M. Coetzee
The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds
The Glass Room - Simon Mawer
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
How to Paint a Dead Man - Sarah Hall
The Wilderness - Samantha Harvey
Me Cheeta - James Lever
Not Untrue & Not Unkind - Ed O'Loughlin
Heliopolis - James Scudamore
Brooklyn - Colm Tobin
Love and Summer - William Trevor
2008
The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh
The Clothes on Their Backs - Linda Grant
The Northern Clemency - Philip Hensher
A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz
Girl in a Blue Dress - Gaynor Arnold
From A to X - John Berger
A Case of Exploding Mangoes - Mohammed Hanif
Netherland - Joseph O'Neill
The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie
Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
The Lost Dog - Michelle de Kretser
2007
Darkmans - Nicola Barker
The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
Animal's People - Indra Sinha
The Welsh Girl - Peter Ho Davies
Self Help - Edward Docx
Gifted - Nikita Lalwani
What We Lost - Catherine O'Flynn
Consolation - Michael Redhill
The Gift of Rain - Tan Twan Eng
Winnie & Wolf - A.N. Wilson
2006
The Secret River - Kate Grenville
Carry Me Down - M.J. Hyland
In the Country of Men - Hisham Matar
Mother's Milk - Edward St Aubyn
The Night Watch - Sarah Waters
Theft: A Love Story - Peter Carey
Gathering the Water - Robert Edric
Get a Life - Nadine Gordimer
Kalooki NIghts - Howard Jacobson
Seven Lies - James Lasdun
The Other Side of the Bridge - Mary Lawson
So Many Ways to Begin - Jon McGregor
The Emporer's Children - Claire Messud
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
The Perfect Man - Naeem Murr
Be Near Me - Andrew O'Hagan
The Testament of Gideon Mack - James Robertson
The Ruby in Her Navel - Barry Unsworth
Can't wait to read this one. I had a feeling it would win by several articles I read.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great collection of literature. I'm sad to say that I've only read one (Life of Pi), but I have quite a few more sitting on my bookshelf waiting patiently...maybe I should do a challenge :)
ReplyDeleteI feel quite bad, I seem to own quite a few on that list, but I haven't actually read them.I shall definitely work harder at reading them next year. I did read Last Orders many years ago and enjoyed it,but that is it.
ReplyDeleteI really did not like Life of Pi, I am so glad to have found someone who also didn't like it! The Ghost Road was good, but not amazing. I was let down by The English Patient--- I just expected so much more from it. :/
ReplyDeleteI'm generally pretty gawd awful at remembering to read award books, but Booker is typically one of them that makes me sit up and take notice. From this list, I've read: Life of Pi (loved), The English Patient (loved), The God of Small Things (zzZZzzzZZZ). And that's it. How sad! I have several of them on my shelves, though. One day, one day!
ReplyDeleteSigh, I have a read a few.
ReplyDeleteWhy aren't there more hours in a day?
Just "The Blind Assassin", because, of course, it's a Margaret Atwood book. But I can tell you the next book I write will have "The Sea" in the title because that seems to be a sure-fire way to get on this list. ;-)
ReplyDelete