boomerang
 
Reply Tue 14 Jul, 2009 08:11 pm
Except for one point in my life where I made an effort to read each Pulitzer prize fiction winner, I've never paid much attention to book awards. (I forget which one it was that I bought and found so boring that I gave up my habit.)

But today I noticed something -- the last book I bought was nominated for a Booker Prize, and an old, unread, book I pulled off my self had also been nominated for a Booker prize. ("A Fraction of the Whole"/"The Butcher Boy".)

I looked up a list of Booker Prize winners and was surprised at how many nominees I had read.

A few books back I read one that won the Edgar prize. ("In the Woods".)

Off the top of my head, the only National Book Award winner I recall reading was "A Bright and Shining Lie" but there are probably a few more.

I don't typically go looking for prize winning books but now I'm wondering if perhaps I should.

Do you make an effort to read the winners of a certain prize?

Which prize and why?

Do you also read the nominees?

Thanks!

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ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Jul, 2009 08:24 pm
@boomerang,
I still follow this competition

http://able2know.org/topic/73087-1 (2006)

http://www.cbc.ca/canadareads/ (links to the 2009 results right now)


from the 2009 teaser


Quote:
Which Canada Reads characters will steal your heart this year?

A remarkable woman who triumphs against slavery…a tubby teenager trying to get a life in Sarnia…a young widow on the lam heading for Canada’s western wilderness…a family trying to stay afloat in rural New Brunswick…or an entire Montreal neighbourhood full of joie de vivre…?


I still love the range of Canadian books/authors the contest introduces me to. It's a rare year when I've read more than one of the books in the competition.
0 Replies
 
ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Jul, 2009 08:33 pm
@boomerang,
Gotta love the Man Booker group when this happens

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1243

Alice Munro is certainly my favourite short story writer, one of my favourite writers in any style/genre.

I do find that there are quite a few Booker prize authors (not necessarily their books, sometimes their books) in my reading. I'm not sure how it happens - I don't go out looking for them.

40 years of Man Booker Prize covers

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/archive
ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Jul, 2009 08:35 pm
@ehBeth,
and because I simply can't resist trying to spread the word - there are podcast segments of the 2009 Canada Reads winner (The Book of Negroes) here

http://www.cbc.ca/betweenthecovers/podcast.html
0 Replies
 
boomerang
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Jul, 2009 09:16 pm
Very cool! Thanks ehBeth. I'll really check out the canadareads books.

I noticed that Robertson Davies had been nominated for a Booker Prize for one of my favorites: "Whats Bred In The Bone". Davies is the only author I've ever ventured out to a reading by. He did not disappoint.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 14 Jul, 2009 11:37 pm
@boomerang,
No.

I've bought only used books for at least three decades, maybe more, except for academic needs. I don't give a **** re prizes though some of my reading leads me to some of those touted authors, whether or not I've noted serious reviews from time to time. But mostly I don't care, I listen to myself.

This of course is somewhat dependent on having either a good bookstore at hand or a good hand re scouring the net.
0 Replies
 
sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Wed 15 Jul, 2009 06:30 am
@boomerang,
When I saw the title I thought "Booker." Then read this and the Booker is well represented. But yeah, that's one I pay attention to as an indication of whether I'd actually like the book or not. E.G. tends to get me Booker prize winners for bday/ Christmas, etc.

Also was beat to saying that Alice Munro's recent win reinforces my respect for the prize. Munro's a wonder.
0 Replies
 
jespah
 
  1  
Reply Wed 15 Jul, 2009 08:40 am
My company follows (in addition to what's already been mentioned) the LA Times Book Prizes, the National Magazine Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. At least that's what I picked up on when I went hunting for publicity info.
0 Replies
 
tsarstepan
 
  1  
Reply Tue 27 Jul, 2010 03:27 pm
@boomerang,
Quote:
Longlist announced for Man Booker Prize 2010

27 July 2010
The judges for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction today, Tuesday 27 July, announce the longlist for the prize, the leading literary award in the English speaking world.

A total of 138 books, 14 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the ‘Man Booker Dozen' longlist of 13 books.

The longlist includes:

Peter Carey ~ Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue ~ Room (Pan MacMillan - Picador)

Helen Dunmore ~ The Betrayal (Penguin - Fig Tree)

Damon Galgut ~ In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic - Atlantic Books)

Howard Jacobson ~ The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy ~ The Long Song
(Headline Publishing Group - Headline Review)

Tom McCarthy ~ C (Random House - Jonathan Cape)

David Mitchell ~ The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Hodder & Stoughton - Sceptre)

Lisa Moore ~ February (Random House - Chatto & Windus)

Paul Murray ~ Skippy Dies (Penguin - Hamish Hamilton)

Rose Tremain ~ Trespass (Random House - Chatto & Windus)

Christos Tsiolkas ~The Slap (Grove Atlantic - Tuskar Rock)

Alan Warner ~ The Stars in the Bright Sky
(Random House - Jonathan Cape)

The chair of judges, Andrew Motion, comments:

"Here are thirteen exceptional novels - books we have chosen for their intrinsic quality, without reference to the past work of their authors. Wide-ranging in their geography and their concern, they tell powerful stories which make the familiar strange and cover an enormous range of history and feeling. We feel confident that they will provoke and entertain."

Peter Carey is one of only two authors to have won the prize twice, in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang. In 1985 his book Illywhacker was shortlisted for the prize and Theft: A Love Story was longlisted in 2006.

Three authors have been shortlisted before: David Mitchell (twice shortlisted in 2001 for number9dream and in 2004 for Cloud Atlas), Damon Galgut (in 2003 for The Good Doctor) and Rose Tremain (shortlisted in 1989 for Restoration). She was also a judge for the Booker Prize in 1988 and 2000.

Howard Jacobson has been longlisted twice for his book Kalooki Nights in 2006 and for Who's Sorry Now? in 2002.

The 2010 shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 7 September at a press conference at Man Group's London headquarters. The winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 will be revealed on Tuesday 12 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC Ten O'Clock News.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction will receive £50,000 and can look forward to greatly increased sales and worldwide recognition. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, will receive £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their shortlisted book.

Chaired by Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate, the 2010 judges are Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic.

I only can recognize one of these books' titles. Can't recognize any of the writers' names. Any genre pieces in this group? Science fiction? Mystery? I know I won't be holding my breath.

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1427
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 27 Jul, 2010 03:50 pm
@boomerang,
No, I never have felt prize winners were key reads for me, though, like you, Boom, I've read a bunch of the winners just running across the books. I do read newspaper articles about the Booker Prize nominees when I see them, though. I probably haven't bought a new book since my architecture and photography book heyday - the early and mid eighties, and even then some of those were pre-owned.

An example: I finally read The English Patient (Booker) recently - from GoodWill. I liked it... but then, I would.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 27 Jul, 2010 03:54 pm
@ehBeth,
ehBeth wrote:

Alice Munro is certainly my favourite short story writer, one of my favourite writers in any style/genre.


I've read everything by her I could get my hands on, at least six books.
But the same with William Trevor. And, back in the day, Laurie Colwin. And and and and...


0 Replies
 
 

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