• The Very Thought of You, by Rosie Alison
• The Rehearsal, by Eleanor Catton
• Savage Lands, by Clare Clark
• Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig
• The Way Things Look to Me, by Roopa Farooki
• The Twisted Heart, by Rebecca Gowers
• This is How, by M.J. Hyland
• Small Wars, by Sadie Jones
• The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
• Secret Son, by Laila Lalami
• The Long Song, by Andrea Levy
• Black Water Rising, by Attica Locke
• The Wilding, by Maria McCann
• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
• Black Mamba Boy, by Nadifa Mohamed
• A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
• The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey
• The Still Point, by Amy Sackville
• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
• The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters

I am really disappointed not to see The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt on that list! I’ve already read The Help (read my review) which I loved; and Wolf Hall (read my review) which I barely got through. I have The Lacuna and The Little Stranger on my stacks to be read in the next few weeks. Everything else is pretty new to me…so I am looking forward to checking out these books!

What about you? Have you read anything on this list?

And just in case you were wondering, here is the upcoming schedule of announcements for the Orange Prize:

13 April 2010
Orange Award for New Writers shortlist announced

20 April 2010
Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist announced

9 June 2010
Awards Ceremony

Hilary Mantel’s sprawling, Booker Prize winning novel Wolf Hall is set in England during the sixteenth century. Narrated by Thomas Cromwell, it is an intimate look into the life of King Henry VIII and the cast of historical figures who surrounded him. More importantly, it is an examination of the clash between the Roman Catholic Church and the royalty – a battle of wills and politics that turned deadly for many as King Henry sought to divorce Catherine of Aragon (who could not give him a male heir) and marry Anne Boleyn.

Since Christ did not induce his followers into earthly power, how can it be maintained that the princes of today derive their power from the Pope? In fact, all priests are subjects, as Christ left them. It is for the prince to govern the bodies of his citizens, to say who is married and who can marry, who is bastard and who legitimate. – from Wolf Hall, page 435 -

This tumultuous time in history was defined by the struggle between Catholic power and Protestant will; a time when players could change sides in an instant and the charge of treason meant certain death. The Protestant Reformation, headed by Martin Luther, plays a large part in Wolf Hall and leaves one to wonder which side Cromwell was really on. It is a complex and complicated history into which Mantel drops her characters. Readers who lack adequate knowledge about English history in the 1500’s  may find themselves lost in a sea of details and characters (many who share the same first name); and find themselves struggling to get through this densely written tome.

Mantel writes her novel in the present tense – an interesting choice for historical fiction, but one which I think worked to her advantage. She also picks the perfect protagonist to drive her story. Cromwell is an interesting historical character. In Mantel’s book, he is richly imagined…a man who is is able to sidle up to the King of England and play one man against another in order to ensure his place in history, while at the same time is a loving family man who grieves so much for his wife and two young children (who die from illness), that he never re-married. The stark contrast between empathetic father and manipulative, driven lawyer helps define the internal conflict of the novel.

It’s beautiful, he says, not wanting to spoil his pleasure. But next time, he thinks, take me with you. His hand skims the surface, rich and soft. The flaw in the weave hardly matters. A turkey carpet is not an oath. There are some people in this world who like everything squared up and precise, and there are those who will allow some drift at the margins. He is both these kinds of person. He would not allow, for example, a careless ambiguity in a lease, but instinct tells him that sometimes a contract need not be drawn too tight. – from Wolf Hall, page 187 -

But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man’s power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires. – from Wolf Hall, page 294 -

Another strength of Wolf Hall was Mantel’s sardonic sense of humor which comes through in pithy dialogue between the characters. Cromwell’s observations of Anne are priceless…and Mantel reveals the ridiculousness of some of the royalty, as well as the Church.

Despite this and her excellent characterization, Mantel chooses to use an ambiguous pronoun. Her use of “he” (to identify the narrator) instead of “I” consistently confused me. I often found myself going back to re-read a passage in order to understand who was now speaking or acting. Often the “he” in the sentence did not match the subject which made it all the more confusing. Mantel’s disregard for this grammatical “rule” took away from the story for me. I found myself often setting the book aside in frustration. I could not completely immerse myself in Cromwell’s complex world. I felt as though I were reading a book, rather than falling into a story.

I wanted to love this book. Passages where Mantel let her gifts as a writer shine, left me feeling that this book should have read better. I should have flown through it in record time, exclaiming at the scope of what I had read. Instead, I found myself relieved to have finally finished the book after nearly three weeks of slogging through its pages.

Many readers are raving about Wolf Hall…I suspect most of them had a good understanding of English medieval history and so could sort through the ambiguity of Mantel’s prose. Sadly, I am not one of them. Although I admire Mantel’s writing ability, I have to admit, I really did not enjoy this book. Mantel is apparently going to be publishing a sequel to Wolf Hall. I think I will skip it.

Some might like this book.

Don’t take my word for it…read other reviews:

• Books I Done Read
• Medieval Bookworm
• Asylum
• Boston Bibliophile
• Fantasy Book Critic
• The Literate Housewife
• Books For Breakfast
• Fleur Fisher Reads
• Punkadiddle
• Page 247
• Book Gazing
• Shelf Love
• Dovegrey Reader Scribbles
• Farm Lane Books
• Book Bath
• Savidge Reads
• Kevin From Canada
• Beautiful Screaming Lady
• Katrina’s Reads
• Book Lust
• Tanzanite’s Shelf and Stuff
• Chaotic Compendiums
• Musings

February 7, 2010

9:00 AM

Good morning and happy Sunday Salon! Today is a clear, crisp winter day with cerulean blue skies and a bit of frost on the ground. We’ve got the coffee on and a fire in the wood stove – a perfect morning for catching up on my reading. Later today we’ll be working on our bedroom. While I was gone to New Hampshire, my wonderful husband tore out the old, ratty carpets in our bedroom and put in hardwood flooring. Yesterday we started painting the walls a nice, soft sage green; then we’ll install some white 6″ baseboards and a little crown molding. And I’m also getting a new closet overhaul (we’re going into Home Depot later today to pick up some pre-forms for that). Yay!

Last week I told you about Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini (read my review). I really enjoyed this book which was full of good food and wonderful stories – all a part of showing us how our traditions around food can help us heal in times of crisis. If you have read the book, you might be interested in Lisa’s discussion of it on her blog for the Winter Reading Series…and don’t forget to catch the author there for a live chat on Monday, February 22nd at 5:00 PM PST.

I also finished The Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer last week (read my review). If you love suspense-thrillers, you probably should read a book by Palmer sometime. He knows how to write this genre well, keeping the story moving forward at warp speed and filling it with enough violence to keep most fans of the thriller happy.

My current read is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel who won the Booker Prize this year for this historical fiction set in 16th century England and focusing on Thomas Cromwell. I have mixed feelings so far about this doorstopper. Mantel uses the present tense, which is not my favorite tense…but it works surprisingly well for this novel by putting the reader firmly into the story and making things feel immediate and contemporary. But Mantel is also having a little fun playing with the rules of grammar in her book – and that style is not sitting as well with me. Mantel is using an ambiguous pronoun (specifically “he”)…and she does not seem to care if the pronoun matches the subject of her sentence or not. Let me give you an example:

Once the boy has gone to bed he sweeps his papers out of the tidy stack he has made. – from Wolf Hall, page 143 -

Notice that Mantel has two instances of the pronoun “he” in this sentence. The subject of the sentence is “the boy”…so as a reader we at first read this sentence as “the boy sweeps his papers out of the tidy stack the boy has made.” But that would be wrong. Actually the first “he” relates to Thomas Cromwell, whereas the second “he” relates to the boy. It is a convoluted sentence…and the book is full of these kinds of sentences. Sentences which make the reader stop, think, back up and figure out who is acting or speaking. I find it mostly annoying as it breaks the flow of the reading.

I’m discussing this book in a book group, and some people don’t mind this butchering of English grammar. They feel that it is creative and effective, and done purposefully to make the reader pay more attention to Cromwell. One poster said that this is a new trend in modern literature – that teachers are telling students now to disregard grammar in their writing and be more creative in sentence structure. Really? I have to say, if that is so, I am going to pull my hair out.

Here’s my opinion: Most grammar is there and universal so that communication is clear and effective. As a reader, if I cannot understand what the author is trying to say, how can I understand the story I am reading? I suppose a writer could write every sentence in a book backwards and eventually the reader would probably figure it out and begin to understand…but would the book be enjoyable? I don’t think so. I read because I love characters and story. I don’t read to be necessarily challenged in my ability to figure out what the author is writing on the most basic level. I hate to feel like I’m reading – I want to be IMMERSED in the story, not constantly having to perform an analysis on the structure of the sentences. I don’t like experimental fiction for just that reason.

So what do you think? Do you want more writers to do what Mantel is doing? Do you think grammar is something we should toss into the wind? Do you like books which make you constantly have to think? Or does this kind of writing make you feel manipulated as a reader? Have you read Wolf Hall yet? If so, did this style bother you or not?  Inquiring minds want to know!

I hope to finish this book sooner rather than later (although it is going incredibly slow for me at the present). And then I’m picking up another chunkster: The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt.

What are you doing today? Whatever it is, I hope it involves a great book!

Autobiography:

• Somewhere Towards the End, by Diana Athill (Norton)
• Live Through This: A Mother’s Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love, by Debra Gwartney (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Lit, by Mary Karr (Harper)
• Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America, by Kati Marton (Simon & Schuster)
• City Boy, by Edmund White (Bloomsbury)

Biography:

• Cheever: A Life, by Blake Bailey (Knopf)
• Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, by Brad Gooch (Little, Brown)
• Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, by Benjamin Moser (Oxford University Press)
• Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone, by Stanislao G. Pugliese (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line, by Martha A. Sandweiss (Penguin Press)

Criticism:

• Notes From No Man’s Land: American Essays, by Eula Biss (Graywolf Press)
• Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry, by Stephen Burt (Graywolf Press)
• Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression, by Morris Dickstein (Norton)
• Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture, by David Hajdu (Da Capo Press)
• Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, by Greg Milner (Faber)

Fiction:

• American Salvage, by Bonnie Jo Campbell (Wayne State University Press)
• The Book of Night Women, by Marlon James(Riverhead)
• Blame, by Michelle Huneven (Sarah Crichton Books/FSG)
• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (Holt)
• Lark and Termite, by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf)

Nonfiction:

• The Hindus: An Alternative History, by Wendy Doniger (Penguin Press)
• Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City, by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes (Pantheon)
• Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder (Random House)
• Imperial, by William T. Vollmann (Viking)

Poetry:

• Versed, by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan)
• A Village Life, by Louise Glück (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Chronic, by D.A. Powell (Graywolf Press)
• Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems, 1960–2008, by Eleanor Ross Taylor (Louisiana State University Press)
• Museum of Accidents, by Rachel Zucker (Wave Books)

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing:

• Joan Acocella

Finalists:

• Michael Antman
• William Deresiewicz
• Donna Seaman
• Wendy Smith

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award:

• Joyce Carol Oates

Have you read any of these? Learn more about the NBCC awards by visiting their blog.

August 1, 2008 – June 1, 2009

May 30, 2009 – CHALLENGE COMPLETED

I read 10 award winners from the following prize lists:

1. Pulitzer Special Awards
2. Anthony Award
3. Orange Prize for Fiction
4. Booker Prize
5. Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
6. IMPAC Dublin Award
7. Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature
8. Whitbread/Costa Award
9. Commonwealth Writers Prize

My favorite reads of the bunch included: Maus I & II, Rebecca, Out Stealing Horses, The Road Home, The Secret River, and Music and Silence – all of which I rated 5/5.

Thank you to Michelle for hosting this fun challenge!

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Michelle from 1MoreChapter is hosting part 2 of the BookAwards Challenge. I completed (and exceeded) the first one (reading 17 award winning books!) and can’t wait to continue reading award winning literature into 2009. I’m creating a list here, but don’t be surprised if it changes! The goal is 10 books representing a minimum of 5 different awards.

My preliminary list:

1. Maus I and Maus II, by Art Spiegelman (1992 Pulitzer in Special Awards and Citations – Letters) – COMPLETED August 31, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review.
2. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier (Winner of the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century) – COMPLETED November 7, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review.
3. Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson (Winner of the 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, 2003 Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, AND 2007 IMPAC Dublin Award) – COMPLETED January 6, 2009; rated 5/5; read my review.
4. The Road Home, by Rose Tremain (Winner of the 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction) – COMPLETED January 16, 2009; rated 5/5; read my review)
5. Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald (Winner of the 1979 Booker Prize) – COMPLETED March 27, 2009; rated 3.5/5; read my review.
6. The Secret River, by Kate Grenville (2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize) – COMPLETED October 13, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review.
7. Music and Silence, by Rose Tremain (1999 Whitbread/Costa Award) – COMPLETED October 9, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review.
8. The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker (1995 Booker Award) – COMPLETED December 25, 2008; rated 4.5/5; read my review.
9. The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga (2008 Booker Award) – COMPLETED January 3, 2009; rated 4/5; read my review.
10. Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie (1981 Booker Award) – COMPLETED May 30, 2009; rated 3/5; read my review.

The Ghost Road is the third and final book in Pat Barker’s WWI trilogy – and it is by far the best of the series. The novel takes place in the waning months of the war and continues the story of Billy Prior who has returned to the front lines in France along with Wilfrid Owen (who previously spent time with Prior at Craiglockhart recovering from a breakdown). Neither man believes in the war, but are there out of duty to fight side by side with their comrades in arms. Psychiatrist Dr. Rivers continues to play a prominent role in this novel, seemingly safe from the war at his post in a London hospital. Dr. River’s memories of a time spent studying headhunters in the South Pacific run parallel to Billy’s story.

Barker weaves these two story lines together, deftly showing a culture of death and war amongst the South Pacific tribe linked to the  mentality of modern society which supports the war in France.

Head-hunting had to be banned, and yet the effects of banning it were everywhere apparent in the listlessness and lethargy of the people’s lives. Head-hunting was what they had lived for. Though it might seem callous or frivolous to say so, head-hunting had been the most tremendous fun and without it life lost almost all its zest. This was a people perishing from the absence of war. – from The Ghost Road, page 207 -

Barker’s prose is harsh yet poetic – a ying and yang style which draws the reader into the lives of the characters.

The roar of the approaching train startled the birds. They rose as one, streaming out from under the glass roof in a great flapping and beating of wings, wheeling, banking, swooping, turning, a black wave against the smoke-filled sky. Prior and Sarah watched, open-mouthd, drunk on the sight of so much freedom, their linked hands slackening, able, finally, to think of nothing, as the train steamed in. -from The Ghost Road, page 85 -

Billy Prior is a largely unlikeable character with his gritty, sardonic view of life – and yet he becomes a sympathetic symbol of all that is wrong with war. And as the reader turns the final pages, it is with the conviction that war is not worth it.

The Ghost Road is a simply wrought, yet beautifully constructed anti-war novel which is graphic and disturbing. Barker spares her reader nothing and shows the violent nature of human beings in the depiction of loveless sex and ruthless battles. This novel – which won the 1995 Booker Prize – should be read as part of the larger trilogy to gain its full impact.

Highly recommended with a caution that some readers may be offended by violence,  graphic sexual scenes and realistic language.

• One More Year: Stories, by Sana Krasikov
• The Boat, by Nam Le
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, by ZZ Packer

• The Known World, by Edward P. Jones (winner 2004)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (winner 2008)
• Empire Falls, by Richard Russo (winner 2002)
• Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri (winner 2000)
• American Pastoral, by Philip Roth (winner 1998)
• The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields (winner 1995)
• A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley (winner 1992)
• Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler (winner 1989)
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison (winner 1988)
• The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty (winner 1973)
• All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren (winner 1947)
• The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington (winner 1919)

The Complete Booker

• The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga (winner 2008)
• Amsterdam, by Ian McEwan (winner 1998)
• Sacred Hunger, by Barry Unsworth (winner 1992)
• True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey (winner 2001)
• The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker (winner 1995)
• Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie (winner 1981)

• The Road Home, by Rose Tremain (winner 2008)
• Fault Lines, by Nancy Huston (short list 2008)
• The Septembers of Shiraz, by Dalia Sofer (long list 2008)
• The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff (New Writers short list 2008)
• Digging to America, Anne Tyler (short list 2007)
• What Was Lost, by Catherine O’Flynn (long list 2007)
• The Lizard Cage, by Karen Connelly (New Writers winner 2007)
• On Beauty, by Zadie Smith (winner 2006)
• Minaret, by Leila Aboulela (long list 2006)
• We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver (winner 2005)
• The Mammoth Cheese, by Sheri Holman (short list 2005)
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka (short list 2005)
• Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson (long list 2005)
• Small Island, by Andrea Levy (winner 2004)
• Ice Road, by Gillian Slovo (short list 2004)
• The Amateur Marriage, by Anne Tyler (long list 2004)
• What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt (long list 2003)
• In The Forest, by Edna O’Brien (long list 2003)
• Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold (long list 2003)
• Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett (winner 2002)
• Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters (short list 2002)
• Five Quarters of an Orange, by Joanne Harris (long list 2002)
• The Idea of Perfection, by Kate Grenville (winner 2001)
• Amy and Isabelle, by Elizabeth Strout (short list 2000)
• Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels (winner 1997)
• A Spell of Winter, by Helen Dunmore (winner 1996)
• Ghost Road, by Pat Barker (long list 1996)

Costa Book Award Project

• What Was Lost, by Catherine O’Flynn (First Novel winner 2007)
• Small Island, by Andrea Levy (Novel Award winner 2004)
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (Novel Award winner 2003)
• Behind the Scenes at the Museum, by Kate Atkinson (First Novel winner 1995)
• The Queen of the Tambourine, by Jane Gardam (Novel Award winner 1991)

National Book Award Project

• Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski (short list 2007)
• Drop City, by T.C. Boyle (short list 2003)
• The Known World, by Edward P. Jones (short list 2003)
• Three Junes, by Julia Glass (winner 2002)
• The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen (winner 2001)
• House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III (short list 1999)
• Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier (winner 1997)
• Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat (short list 1995)
• Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler (short list 1988)
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison (short list 1987)
• The Spectator Bird, by Wallace Stegner (winner 1977)
• The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty (short list 1973)
• Them, by Joyce Carol Oates (winner 1970)

I have books by the following authors (who I have not yet read) on my shelf:

• Doris Lessing (2007)
• Orhan Pamuk (winner 2006)
• V. S. Naipaul (winner 2001)
• Jose Saramago (winner 1998)
• Naguib Mahfouz (winner 1988)
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez (winner 1982)
• William Faulkner (winner 1949)
• Hermann Hesse (winner 1946)
• Sigrid Undset (winner 1928)

June 17, 2008 – CHALLENGE COMPLETED!

I finished this challenge tonight with my completion of Atonement which was shortlisted in 2002. I enjoyed all these books – and none got a rating less than 4.0. I will most likely continue reading from the short lists for the Booker Prize in the future. Thanks Dewey for hosting this one!!

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Here is the perfect compliment to Laura’s Complete Booker Challenge … The Man Booker Challenge, hosted by Dewey, challenges participants to read 6 books from the short, long or winner lists for the Man Booker Prize. Readers can change their lists at any time and overlaps are fine.

So here’s my list (subject to change):

1. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Moshin Hamid – 2007 Shortlist (finished January 11, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)
2. The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters – 2006 Shortlist (finished February 12, 2008; rated 4.5/5; read my review)
3. The Gathering, by Anne Enright – Winner 2007 (finished March 9, 2008; rated 4.5/5; read my review)
4. Atonement, by Ian McEwan – 2001 Shortlist (finished June 17, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)
5. Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood – 1989 Shortlist (finished February 29, 2008; rated 4.5/5; read my review)
6. Life and Times of Michael K, by J.M. Coetzee – Winner 1983 (finished February 17, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)

Through June 30, 2008

May 24, 2008 – CHALLENGE WRAP UP

I’ve decided to wrap up this challenge today. Michelle is hosting part 2 of the Bookawards Challenge beginning August 1st, and so I’ve decided I don’t have to read everything on my list for this one. The challenge was to read 12 award winners. I did that, and I also read 7 alternates. The ones I didn’t get to I intend to shift to Bookawards II.

This was a great challenge – helping me to read fine literature and knock some award winning books off my perpetual challenge lists. My favorite read of the challenge is impossible to pick. Most of the books I read got a rating of 4 or more! Not bad!

I’m looking forward to continue reading from the award lists. Thanks Michelle for hosting this one!

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I know, I know – I said I wasn’t going to join anymore challenges. BUT, I couldn’t pass this one up. I’m picking mostly books I either already have on my shelf, am reading for other challenges, or plan on reading for book groups.

Here’s my FINAL list (pink highlights indicate author won Nobel only):

1. The Bone People, by Keri Hulme, – Booker 1985 - COMPLETED July 12, 2007; read my review here.
   
2. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood – Governor Generals Award (Canada) 1985 – COMPLETED November 5, 2007; read my review here.
   
3. The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood – Booker 2000 - COMPLETED August 1, 2007; read my review here.
   
4. The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy – Booker 1997 – COMPLETED September 29, 2007; read my review here.
   
5. The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers – National Book Award 2006 - COMPLETED September 6, 2007; read my review here.
6. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides – Pulitzer 2003 – COMPLETED November 1, 2007; read my review here.
   
7. Disgrace, by J. M. Coetzee – Booker 1999 AND Commonwealth Writers Prize 2000 AND Nobel Prize awarded to author in 2003 – COMPLETED December 14, 2007; read my review here.
8. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck – author won Nobel Prize in 1962 – COMPLETED October 12, 2007; read my review here.
9. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner – Pulitzer 1972 - COMPLETED April 17, 2008; read my review here.
10. The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard - NBA 2003, Miles Franklin 2004 – COMPLETED August 8, 2007; read my review here.
11. The Borrowers, by Mary Norton – Carnegie Medal 1952 - COMPLETED December 31, 2007; read my review here.
12. The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson - Edgar (Best Fact Crime) 2004 – COMPLETED September 12, 2007; read my review here.

Alternates (or extras):

1. The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck – Pulitzer 1932; Nobel Prize 1938 – COMPLETED November 28, 2007; read my review here.
2. The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder – Pulitzer Prize 1928 – COMPLETED December 23, 2007; read my review here.
3. The Giver, by Lois Lowry – Newbery Medal 1994 – COMPLETED January 1, 2008; read my review here.
4. So Big, by Edna Ferber – Pulitzer Prize 1925 – COMPLETED January 17, 2008; read my review here.
5. Life and Times of Michael K, by J.M. Coetzee – Booker Prize 1983; Nobel Laureate 2003 – COMPLETED February 17, 2008; read my review here.
6. The Gathering, by Anne Enright – Booker Prize 2007 – COMPLETED March 9, 2008; read my review here.
   
7. The Tenderness of Wolves, by Stef Penney – Costa/Whitbread 2006 – COMPLETED April 5, 2008; read my review here.

My bookie soul-mate, Laura at Musings, is hosting an ongoing challenge with no time limit. The goal: to read every Booker Prize Winner. She’s started a group blog called The Complete Booker for participants to track their progress and post their reviews.

I’ll be posting there, but also keeping track here on my blog.

Read in 2007:

The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai – won in 2006 (completed March 16, 2007; rated 4.25/5; reviewed here)
The Bone People, by Keri Hulme – won in 1985 (completed July 12, 2007; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood – won in 2000 (completed August 1, 2007; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy – won in 1997 (completed September 29, 2007; rated 5/5; reviewed here)
Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee – won in 1999 (completed December 14, 2007; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)

Read in 2008:

Life and Times of Michael K, by J.M. Coetzee – won in 1983 (completed February 17, 2008; rated 4/5; reviewed here)
The Gathering, by Anne Enright – won in 2007 (completed March 9, 2008; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel – won in 2002 (completed June 23, 2008; rated 3.5/5; reviewed here)
Hotel Du Lac, by Anita Brookner – won in 1984 (completed July 22, 2008; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)
The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker – won in 1995 (completed December 25, 2008; rated 4.5/5; reviewed here)

Read in 2009:

The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga – won in 2008 (completed January 3, 2009; rated 4/5; reviewed here)
Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald – won in 1979 (completed March 27, 2009; rated 3.5/5; reviewed here)
Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie – won in 1981 (completed May 30, 2009; rated 3/5; reviewed here)

Read in 2010:

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel – won in 2009 (completed February 20, 2010; rated 3/5; reviewed here)