How many Booker prize winners have you read?

[LBirch02]

2 for me

Ive not read any winners. And only a couple of runners up. Wouldnt have read them if I'd known. Booker prize = boring heavy stuff which I wouldn't appreciate. I read for pleasure.

Oh! i only counted winners! With shortlisted its ...

60

Have I miscounted?

I have read 8 winners, it would be 10 but i just couldn't get through Milkman or Wolf Hall, not my cup of tea. I have also read 11 short listed ones, tbh i am surprised it's that many, a lot of the booker prize stuff is quite dull. Worthy perhaps, but dull.

Oh i didn't see Room or A history of wolves on the list, so thats 13 short listed, not 11.

Another one adding to the chorus of disbelief that A Fine Balance didn’t win. Rohinton Mistry was robbed! Such a brilliant, heartbreaking book.

18 winners. Not one of them amongst my favourite books.

More than I thought!

48 from the winners and shortlisted titles
plus 3 started but DNF.

My recommendations for perhaps less well known bookers would be:
JG Farrell 1970s
Beryl Bainbridge 1970s
The Butcher Boy 1992
England, England and Arthur and George, Julian Barnes

More well known favourites would be:
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop
Empire of the Sun, Ballard
English Patient
Vernon God Little
Fingersmith
Margaret Atwood (not the testaments)
The Secret River
Deborah Levy - both Swimming Home and Hot Milk
His Bloody Project

9 winners (boosted by my love of JG Farrell) and 12 shortlisted books. Plus English Passengers & The Children's Book, both of which I have started, and found fine, but never been engaged enough to actually finish.

14 winners and 15 shortlisted. Not too bad.

1, and that’s only because I read it at school (Schindler’s List) (#holds head in shame).

I did start ‘Life of Pi’ but gave up.

Even if I add it shortlisted books, I can only add in another three.

I'm closely related to a Booker winner.

3, possibly 4. I think I have read Vernon God Little and quite liked it but not sure. I have read and hated both The God of Small Things and The Finkler Question (especially the Finkler one) but I quite liked Life of Pi. The two that I hated made me realise I probably shouldn't buy anything based on whether it had won or been nominated for the Booker as me and the judges obviously have very different ideas.

4 and a quarter winners (couldn’t get into Life of Pi) and 2 shortlisted. What a pathetic list, must try harder 😆

15. I own more but keep not getting round to them!

All between 1997 and 2018 as my Christmas present from DH was always the shortlist, but I stopped asking for them as there were too many weird, depressing books and reading most of them became a chore rather than a pleasure.

I've recently read Shuggie Bain - it is absolutely incredible. I've failed to get through any others...

15 actual winners.
Had to give up on Vernon God Little.

Hotel du Lac - Unimpressive. I've enjoyed other Anita Brookner books far more than this one.
Possession - Heavy going at times, but ultimately rewarding and one of my favourite books
The Blind Assassin - Sublime! Loved it, definitely in my top 10 of all time best reads.
Lincoln In the Bardo - Unintelligible, well for me at any rate, hated it Top of my "the worst books I've ever read" list
Milkman - Thought it was clever, I veered between finding it tedious and then enjoying it some of the time once I got into what felt like a rhythm that ran through the narrative.

Milkman defeated me.

Brief History of Seven Killings is my (current) favourite.

Oh and I forgot The Luminaries, long tedious and boring. So that makes 6 for me.

I agree about The Luminaries, it was tedious and trying to be clever.
Hotel du Lac , a bit meh, not memorable.

I saw a documentary in celebration of Angela Carter who was up for the Booker but lost out to Hotel du Lac, and the contributors (Jeanette Winterson springs to mind) absolutely blasted Hotel du Lac.

Read and finished 19 winners, 9 more I abandoned part way through. Earliest was Siege Of Krishnapoor, 1973 (a book group choice)

Read 30 shortlisted books.

Of all of the ones I read, I think Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow was the one I most resented stealing hours of my life and The Luminaries was the most unreadable.

Possession - Heavy going at times, but ultimately rewarding and one of my favourite books
The Blind Assassin - Sublime! Loved it, definitely in my top 10 of all time best reads.

Love both of these. Blind Assassin is my second favourite Atwood after Alias Grace (which was shortlisted for the Booker in a very good year, same year as A Fine Balance and Every Man for Himself which is one of Beryl Bainbridge's finest IMHO).

Agree that Possession is wonderful, should really read more A. S. Byatt, The Children's Book was one of my favourites last year.

just one - Midnight's Children

Nominated: Handmaid's Tale and Satanic Verses. Possibly the Reluctant Fundamentalist but I may have just thought about it...

Goodness, that's a totally inaccurate picture of my reading tastes.

@JaninaDuszejko

Possession - Heavy going at times, but ultimately rewarding and one of my favourite books The Blind Assassin - Sublime! Loved it, definitely in my top 10 of all time best reads.

Love both of these. Blind Assassin is my second favourite Atwood after Alias Grace (which was shortlisted for the Booker in a very good year, same year as A Fine Balance and Every Man for Himself which is one of Beryl Bainbridge's finest IMHO).

Agree that Possession is wonderful, should really read more A. S. Byatt, The Children's Book was one of my favourites last year.

Yes me too, loved Alias Grace almost as much as Blind Assassin, my two favourite Margaret Atwood books. I have The Children's Book on my shelves but have yet to read it.