Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winners

[CadyEastman]

Inspired by the Booker Prize thread I was wondering how many Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners you've read.

I've had a look through and my pitiful list is:

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler - one of my favourite books ever

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

I thought I had read very few - possibly none but I have read a couple - in some cases I've read other books by the winning author. In general I avoid prize winners - I put most of the blame for that on the Booker Prize - I have tried to read a few of those and not found one that grabbed or impressed me - I think they make some terrible decisions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize_for_Fiction

1940 - John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath. I might read it - I read a couple of others - Cannery Row was good (4's-ish), Mice and Men was OK - short - ~2.5's

1953 - Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea - if you've never read EH then this is the shortest intro you could have to his style - short sentences, plain language, straight to the point - I always think his sentences fit together perfectly like floorboards. You can take this novella at face value or read into it more if you're so inclined - it's OK - I'd only give it 2.5*'s TBH.

1981 - John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces - briliant - a very amusing and memorable 5* read - one I would (and have) recommend(ed) to many people.

1994 - E. Annie Proulx - The Shipping News - I struggled with some aspects of this - liked the descriptive language for place - never really warmed to the characters and I'm not a fan of novels that span decades - it's perhaps one book of very few that I would consider reading again as I feel I didn't get it at the time - 2.5* rating from me ATM but I did read it a long time ago.

2007 - Cormac McCarthy - The Road - I am very likely to read this because I'm impressed with the writing style I'm seeing in his "Blood Meridian" (at least 4*'s ATM) that I'm currently reading. I like inventive and descriptive language.

Further to @larkstar on the Booker and their bad decisions, I've enjoyed looking at the titles short listed but not winning the main prize and had success reading some of them.

I’ve read 9 of them but none of the recent winners.
i like the idea of looking at the nominations as well - sometimes the best book didn’t win and the winners haven’t stood the test of time .

Nine - Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Shipping News, The Hours, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Middlesex, March, A Visit from the Goon Squad and All the Light We Cannot See. The vast majority of those were book group books, the only ones I read off my own bat were Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird and Shipping News, not to say I didn't like the others. A lot of the earlier winners I wouldn't want to read, I am not a massive fan of Updike, Bellow, Roth, Hemingway etc.

Really enjoyed:

Gone with the Wind
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Color Purple
The Shipping News
The Road
Olive Kitteridge
All the Light We Cannot See

Thought 'meh':

The Grapes of Wrath
The Old Man and the Sea
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Goldfinch

Want to read Demon Copperhead and Beloved.

Haven't heard of most of them on the list

@CadyEastman FYI Sky Arts (on freeview) is showing a film about Grapes of Wrath in about half an hour 3pm.

Ooh it turns out I have read a lot of them

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Color Purple
Beloved (loved)
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (would not recommend)
A Thousand Acres
The Shipping News
The Stone Diaries
Interpreter of Maladies
Gilead (loved)
Olive Kitteridge (loved)
A Visit from the Goon Squad (loved)
The Goldfinch (hated)
The Sympathizer (loved, am a big Viet Thanh Nguyen fan)
I am reading Demon Copperhead now and enjoying it. I'm having fun thinking about the ways it is like David Copperfield.

I'm shocked with how few I have definitely read. I've read The Road and am currently reading The Grapes of Wrath. I DNF Beloved (I'm the only person I know that hated it). I feel that I should have read The Color Purple, but maybe I've just seen the film multiple times? I also think that I should have read To Kill a Mockingbird, but again, I dont know.

The Good Earth
Gone with the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath
The Old Man and the Sea
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Color Purple
Beloved
The Shipping News
Middlesex
Olive Kitteridge
The Goldfinch
All the light we cannot see
The Underground Railroad
The Overstory
Trust
(and I have Demon Copperhead and will read it soon)

I thought most of them were excellent, apart from Trust, which I didn't finish. The Underground Railroad was not quite what I was expecting, neither was Beloved, but they were both very good. Middlesex was a bit weird. The Shipping News is one of my favourite books ever - just very funny and dark.

Damn and blast, I typed out all the winners I have read then accidentally shut the window 😱. Anyway, I've read 11 but the whole list of winners kind of exhausts me. It's all a bit 'Great American Novel'. Which is probably a bit unfair to the individual books (the Booker on the other hand has a 'old middle class white man looks back at life' vibe for the first 50 years or so).

I've read 23 and I have Demon Copperhead, just didn't get around to reading it yet. I love Carol Shields, Ann Tyler, John Updike and Edith Wharton and I've read Gone With the Wind multiple times. Of recent winners I loved The Overstory but I didn't rate The Underground Railroad.

Damn and blast, I typed out all the winners I have read then accidentally shut the window. How annoying for you. That's the kind of thing I usually end up doing