Booker Prize Project
About this Project
The Man Booker Prize “promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year.” It is awarded in Autumn after an announcement of first the longlisted titles and then the six shortlisted titles. I’m attempting to read all the winners since the award’s inception — and where I can, some of the longlisted and shortlisted books — up to and including 2015.
Progress: I Made It!!
Winning novels read to date: 46 of 50 titles read plus four I could not finish.
Books read are all marked **. This includes books read before this challenge began in February 2012. Click the name of the book to read my review.
Which were my favourite books from these 50 titles? Read my post 10 Stellar Booker Prize Winners to find the answer.
Part way through the project I selected My top 3 winners to date. Did I change my mind once I’d read all 50? Read the post to find out.
Coming soon – my 10 least favourite Booker Prize winners….
Winners 21st century
2015 – A History of Seven Killings (Marlon James) ** Could not finish January 2019
2014 – The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Richard Flanagan) **Read April 2016
2013 – The Luminaries – (Catton) ** – Read June 2014
2012 – Bring Up the Bodies (Hilary Mantel) ** Read 2014
2011 – The Sense of an Ending (Barnes) ** Read 2012
2010 – The Finkler Question (Howard Jacobson) ** Could not finish
2010- Troubles (J G Farrell) – the Lost Booker** Read 2013
2009 – Wolf Hall (Mantel) ** Read 2009
2008 – The White Tiger (Adiga) ** Read 2012
2007 – The Gathering (Enright) ** Read May 2016
2006 – The Inheritance of Loss (Desai) ** Read March 2016
2005 – The Sea (Banville)** Read 2015
2004 – The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst) Read September 2018
2003 – Vernon God Little (Pierre) ** Read Oct 2017
2002 – Life of Pi (Martel) ** Read April 2015
2001 – True History of the Kelly Gang (Carey) Read September 2017
2000 – The Blind Assassin (Atwood) ** Read 2012
Winners 20th century
1999 – Disgrace (Coetzee) ** Read 2014
1998 – Amsterdam: A Novel (Ian McEwan) ** Read 2000
1997 – The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy) ** Read April 2017
1996 – Last Orders (Graham Swift) ** Read July 2016
1995 – The Ghost Road (Pat Barker) **Read 2015
1994 – How Late It Was, How Late (Kelman) Read 2020
1993 – Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Roddy Doyle) ** Read March 2018
1992 – The English Patient (Ondaatje) ** Read December 2015
1992 – Sacred Hunger (Unsworth) Read August 2017
1991 – The Famished Road (Ben Okri) Did Not Finish 2015
1990 – Possession: A Romance (A.S Byatt)** Re-Read Jan 2012
1989 – The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro) **Read 1990
1988 – Oscar and Lucinda (Peter Carey) ** Read February 2017
1987 – Moon Tiger (Penelope Lively)** Read Feb 2014
1986 – The Old Devils (Kingsley Amis) ** Read August 2016
1985 – The Bone People (Keri Hulme) ** Read 2014
1984 – Hotel Du Lac (Anita Brookner) ** Re-read July 2013
1983 – Life & Times of Michael K (Coetzee) ** Read July 2016
1982 – Schindler’s Ark (Keneally) ** Read 1982
1981 – Midnight’s Children (Salman Rushdie) ** Read 2013
1980 – Rites of Passage (Golding) ** Read 2016
1979 – Offshore (Penelope Fitzgerald)**. Read 2012
1978 – The Sea, the Sea (Iris Murdoch) ** Read November 2015
1977 – Staying On ** (Paul Scott) ** Read November 2015
1976 – Saville (David Storey)** Read 2012
1975 – Heat and Dust (Jhabvala)** Read 2013
1974 – The Conservationist (Nadine Gordimer) ** Read Dec 2017
1974 – Holiday (Stanley Middleton) ** Read 2012
1973 – The Siege of Krishnapur: J.G Farrell ** Read 2012
1972 – G. : J Berger Could not finish May 2018
1971 – In A Free State (V. S Naipul)** Read 2012
1970 – The Elected Member (Bernice Rubens) ** Read 2012
1969 – Something to Answer For (P.H Newby) ** Read 2012
Longlisted/Shortlisted titles I’ve read
I read many of these pre-blog so haven’t written any reviews
2018
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
2017
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
2016
The North Water by Ian McGuire
The Many by Wyl Menmuir
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
All That Man Is by David Szalay
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The Schooldays of Jesus by M Coetzee
2015
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obiama
2014
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
History of the Rain by Niall Williams
How to be Both by Ali Smith
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee
2013
Five Star Billionare by Tash Aw
Harvest by Jim Crace
Unexploded by Alison Moore
Snowdrops by A D Miller
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
2012
Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
The Lighthouse by Alison McLeod
Skios by Michael Frayn
Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
2011
Snowdrops by A. D Miller
2010
Room by Emma Donaghue
2009
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
2007
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Ahmed
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
2006
The Secret River by Kate Granville
2005
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
A Short History of Tractors in Ukraine by Marina Lewcyka
Saturday by Ian McEwan
2004
Purple Hibiscus by Chimimanda Adichie
2003
Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller
2002
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
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This is a fantastic challenge. I started one of my own a few months ago – in my version, I plan to choose a year and read the shortlist and see if I agree with the choice of winner. I started with 2013 and I still haven’t finished that year (sigh) but I am so excited to meet someone so advanced in the challenge.
Great job. I would love to chat with you about some of the ones we’ve both read so I’ll click on those reviews.
I’m so happy to have found this post!
Hello Karen ( we share the same first name!). Just had a look at your blog – very impressed to see you set weekly goals and largely stick to them. Wow you have set yourself a huge challenge if you plan to read all the shortlists for all the years of the prize! That will take a few years to do I expect. If you are on Goodreads, there is a group that picks a year and then rates each book on the shortlist. Theyre doing 1990 at the moment – https://bookertalk.com/2017/06/16/the-vegetarian/
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Hi, Karen – I finally answered your e-mail about the Complete Booker site – only 2 years later! Did you get it? Has that ship already sailed? (Looking forward to exploring this blog, either way.)
sorry I meant to reply and then stuff intervened so am glad you nudged me. Complete Booker unfortunately has come to a halt. all the regular contributors seemed to have other priorities so stopped writing reviews and I couldn’t get anyone to take on the ownership to try and give it a fresh start. you wouldn’t be interested would you??
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Hi Lucy, there are a number of people who have been reading Booker Prize winners for even longer than I have. One site which has many different reviews is called The Complete Booker http://completebooker.blogspot.co.uk
Hope you enjoy the experience
I try to read Booker novels, but they don’t always appeal. Adored Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and can’t wait for book three. Agree about The Sea The Sea – I’ve read it twice, when it first came out and again last year, and love it. Of the recent ones you haven’t yet read I enjoyed The Finkler Question and The Line of Beauty, but didn’t finish The Gathering.
I dont know why but the Finkler Question is one I am looking to leave till last Judy. Karen Heenan-Davies
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I always have a wry smile when I come upon people doing a Booker challenge. I’ve read quite a few books on the list, but there are some that I would NEVER read in a month of Sundays, so I would never do the challenge myself! Good luck to you (and read The Sea, The Sea, soon, it’s wonderful!)
I’ll admit that there are some that I am really not looking forward to either. So I’m not giving any commitments that I will finish every single one..
Ok I get the message about The Sea The Sea
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Did you enjoy Wolf Hall? I loved it. My mother hated it. I can’t wait to get started on the sequel.
I did enjoy it – the opening sequence where Cromwell is a young boy being beaten by his drunken father was very powerful. Part of the power came from the way Mantel uses the present tense so you feel that you, the reader, are living through the same experience. She also writes from the perspective of being inside Cromwell’s consciousness which gives the narrative impact.
I can see why some people didn’t like it though – there are times when its confusing who is actually doing what and of course there are lots of characters to remember. I want to re-read it because I’m sure I missed some things first time around Karen Heenan-Davies
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