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Original poster

How many Booker prize winners have you read?

106 replies

LBirch02 · 12/08/2021 16:44

2 for me

OP posts:
onemouseplace · 13/08/2021 10:53

19 of the winners, which is more than I would have thought.

Favourites are probably:

Lincoln in the Bardo
Bring up the Bodies
The Sea, The Sea (but I am a massive Iris Murdoch fan).

BestIsWest · 13/08/2021 10:46

7 and DNF quite a few others including Wolf Hall. Must try it again.

Soomanybooks · 13/08/2021 10:43

28 of the winners, would take me a while to go through the short lists but I would guess quite a few.

rc22 · 13/08/2021 10:40
  1. My favourite was Wolf Hall. I think I was helped by the fact that I'd seen the dramatisation on the telly before I read it.
shivermetimbers77 · 12/08/2021 23:34

17- My favourite was The Ghost Road by Pat Barker, followed by The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.

ElaineMarieBenes · 12/08/2021 23:29

I have read quite a few (went through a phase of reading the short list for a few years - generally agreed when the winner was announced!). Have enjoyed them all but top three are:

Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo
James: A brief history of seven killings
Mantell: Wolf Hall

BunnyRuddington · 12/08/2021 23:13

Just read through the list of winners and I've read 4 including Life of Pi which was so bloody awful, I just can't imagine what the Judges were thinking!

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 12/08/2021 22:56

9 of the winners plus 20 of the shortlisted. So far too few, really.

It might be quite a fun reading challenge - to tick off the whole lot!

ReadingIsFundamental · 12/08/2021 22:48

I’m very surprised to realise I’ve read 11 winners. I loved The God of Small Things, The Bone People and The White Tiger. I wasn’t a fan of Vernon God little or The Line of Beauty.

JaninaDuszejko · 12/08/2021 22:05

18 winners, 11 of the female winners. Clearly I like the female booker winners because I have a couple more in my TBR bookcase.

Original poster
LBirch02 · 12/08/2021 18:10

Recommendations:
Stanley Middleton - Holiday
Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan

OP posts:
DrWankincense · 12/08/2021 18:07

Any recommendations from the list?

Original poster
LBirch02 · 12/08/2021 18:01

I’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do!

OP posts:
NotThatSocial · 12/08/2021 18:00

7

NotableTree · 12/08/2021 17:31

I can’t even look at the Wiki of shortlists and winners because the judges made so many monumentally dimwit decisions so often. I’m assuming it’s often pure horse trading and none of the judges get the winner they really want, but anyone who genuinely thinks AS Byatt’s Possession (a novel I like) is better than John McGahern’s Amongst Women or William Golding’s Rites of Passage is better than Alice Munro’s The Beggar Maid should have their reading glasses confiscated.

ClumpingBambooIsALie · 12/08/2021 17:23

Lit fic has a particular set of conventions, which is why certain authors show up again and again… I think if you don't get on with the things Booker judges value, there's no virtue in forcing yourself to slog through them. If you do get on with them, though, the Booker list can be very handy!

KaptainKaveman · 12/08/2021 17:23

Lots

eddiemairswife · 12/08/2021 17:17

I've read 18 winners, and quite a lot of the short-listed books.

ClumpingBambooIsALie · 12/08/2021 17:05

@LBirch02

I salute anyone who gets through James Joyce you succeeded where I didn’t!
It helps to know you're going to have to discuss it for an hour with a subject specialist face to face, with Wolf Hall I didn't have that external motivator 😂
MoonlightWanderer · 12/08/2021 17:03

Loads, but I have had a bit of a bucket list thing going on with the Booker prize for years.

Sauvignonblanket · 12/08/2021 17:01

I started it...and it started so well.... but I don't want to pick it up and read 15 minute bursts, it needs a proper session and they're so few and far between! I loved two of his other books.

Original poster
LBirch02 · 12/08/2021 17:00

I salute anyone who gets through James Joyce you succeeded where I didn’t!

OP posts:
Original poster
LBirch02 · 12/08/2021 16:59

Sauvignon - you absolutely must!!!

OP posts:
Sauvignonblanket · 12/08/2021 16:58

16.... Blush but not The Narrow Road to the Deep North which I really want to read...

ClumpingBambooIsALie · 12/08/2021 16:56

I mean, "more of a slog than Pamela and War and Peace put together" is not the most sparkling endorsement.

But I know people who couldn't put Wolf Hall down. I wonder what it is about that book.