Cross-posted from The Complete Booker.
Ok, I’ve finished posts of 17 Booker Prize winners: all 15 Bookers I’d read and journalled prior to joining this Challenge, and 2 that I read in 2008, In a Free State and Rites of Passage. Posts from me are going to slow down from now on!
Of the 24 titles remaining, I have 10 on my TBR: The Elected Member; G; The Conservationist; Saville; Offshore; The Remains of the Day; The Famished Road; The English Patient; True History of the Kelly Gang; and The Inheritance of Loss. I think I might start with The Elected Member and fill in gaps chronologically from there onward.
There are 5 to acquire from somewhere: Midnight’s Children; The Old Devils; How Late it Was, How Late; The Gathering; and The White Tiger. I’d like to buy these as First Editions, to add to my collection.
Welcome to the Booker challenge! You’ve read a similar number to me. Which has been your favourite so far?
I’m trying to read all the short listed ones too, so I’ve got quite a lot to get through!
My favourite winner was Life of Pi, but I think I’ve still got some of the best ones left.
Good luck with the challenge, and the collection!
Jackie
By: Jackie (Farm Lane Books) on January 30, 2009
at 7:37 am
I’ve just had a quick look at *your* blog and lo! another challenge! The Victorian Challenge looks like a great idea, but I think (since I’m probably a bit older than you) I’ve already read many of the books from that era and those I haven’t are obscure and hard to find.
My favourite Booker? Much too hard to choose…so I’ll just say The Remains of the Day because that’s the most recent.
I’ve read (but not yet blogged) some of the shortlist books and will probably chase up some more when I’ve finished all the winners.
Lisa
By: Lisa Hill on January 30, 2009
at 4:06 pm
What a great idea! I just did a quick check and discovered I have read 15 of the list, without even knowing about the challenge.
I have set myself another challenge on my blog…
As for the best Booker I’ve read…Kelman’s How Late it was, How Late was a literary wonder, while Midnight’s CHildren I thought was a deserved winnner of the Booker of Bookers.
I have a question though.
What is the least deserving Booker winner. My vote goes to Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda. I think Carey is an amazing writer but that novel was a pretender.
By: Erez Gordon on September 16, 2009
at 3:12 pm
Hello Erez, thanks for joining in the conversation:)
I haven’t got a copy of Kelman’s How Late it was, How Late yet, but am encouraged to keep looking by your recommendation.
I rather liked Oscar and Lucinda – I liked the quirkiness of it.
Lisa
By: Lisa Hill on September 16, 2009
at 6:57 pm
Since posting yesterday’s comment I have given the Least Bookerish of the Bookers Award some more thought and…although I felt Oscar & Lucinda was a weak book (Carey really hit his straps with My Life as a Fake. You could feel his genius swell as you turned the leaves), I realised, as if waking from a nightmare, there was a less deserving winner.
Amsterdam by that dolt McKewan. What pap! What drivel! What self indulgent claptrap!
I realise I am alone in this. And I have to wonder if this is not a contemporary case of the emperor’s new clothes.
By: Erez on September 17, 2009
at 7:25 am
I’m not entirely sure that I want to join in choosing the ‘worst Booker’… it seems a little churlish, Erez. I’m not afraid to criticique a book if I don’t think it’s any good, but I don’t want to go *looking for* books to criticise.
And as for Amsterdam, it has my favourite quotation about the dumbing-down of newspapers:
” The following day the editor presided over a subdued meeting with his senior staff. …
‘It’s time we ran more regular columns. They’re cheap, and everyone else is doing them. You know, we hire someone of low to medium intelligence, possibly female, to write about, well, nothing much. You’ve seen the sort of thing. Goes to a party and can’t remember someone’s name. Twelve hundred words.’
‘Sort of navel gazing,’ Jeremy Ball suggested.
‘Not quite. Gazing is too intellectual. More like navel chat.’
‘Can’t work her video recorder. Is my bum too big?’ Lettice supplied helpfully.
‘That’s good. Keep ‘em coming.’ The editor wiggled and paddled his fingers in the air to draw out their ideas.
‘Er, buying a guinea pig.’
‘His hangover.’
‘Her first grey pubic hair.’
‘Always gets the supermarket trolley with the wobbly wheel.’
‘Excellent. I like it. Harvey? Grant?’
‘Um, always losing biros. Where do they go?’
‘’Ehm, canna keep his tongue out of the wee hole in his tooth.’
‘Brilliant’, Frank said. ‘Thank you everyone. We’ll continue this tomorrow.’ ”
Amsterdam, by Ian McEwan, pp 129-130.
By: Lisa Hill on September 17, 2009
at 9:36 pm