The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch Chatto and Windus, U.K. 1978 This novel, to my mind, is Iris Murdoch’s masterpiece. The cover art is called The Great Wave off Kanagawa, a famous woodblock print done in 1831 by Japanese artist Hokusai. The Sea, The Sea, which won the 1978 Booker Prize, is the story of [...]
Vernon Good Little DBC Pierre Canongate, U.S.A. 2003 This scathing satire on American culture and, in particular, the American media, came from out of nowhere to win the 2003 Booker Prize. It also won the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction. To say that it received mixed reviews would be an understatement, as reviewers [...]
Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey University of Queensland Press, Australia, 1988 Peter carey won his first Booker Prize with this epic novel. It also won the Australian Miles Franklin Award and several regional awards. It was made into a major motion picture in 1997. It was included in the 1999 Callil/Toibin publication The 200 Best [...]
Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie Picador, London, 1981 I bought this Picador paperback several years ago at a yard sale. It was marked at $1. I noticed it was signed and mentioned it to the seller, and she just shrugged her shoulders. She said, “No haggling, then.” This is a second printing of the first paperback [...]
Alias Grace Margaret Atwood McClelland and Stewart, Canada, 1996 Margaret Atwood is one of the names Canadians bring up whenever there is talk of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her ninth novel, Alias Grace, is a compelling and well-researched work of historical fiction. It tells the story of Canadian Grace Marks, who was convicted of murder [...]
True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey University of Queensland Press, Australia, 2000 True History of the Kelly Gang, despite its title, is a fictionalized account of the life of infamous Australian outlaw, Ned Kelly. It won the Booker Prize, making Carey one of only two writers to win the prize twice. It also [...]
The Blind Assasin Margaret Atwood McClelland and Stewart, Canada, 2000 The Blind Assassin won the 2000 Booker Prize. It was nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Orange Prize and the IMPAC Award. It was Time magazine’s best book of 2000 and they added it to their list of the 100 Greatest English language novels [...]
Life & Times of Michael K J. M. Coetzee Viking, U.S.A. 1984 This Booker Prize winning novel by J.M. Coetzee follows Michael K, a simple black gardener with a hare-lip, through civil war-torn urban South Africa to his mother’s rural farm. It takes place at the height of apartheid in the late 1970′s and early 80′s. [...]
The Master Colm Toibin Picador, U.K. 2004 Colm Toibin, one of Ireland’s greatest writers, one of the greatest gay writers anywhere, won many awards for this brilliant novel about five prolific years in the life of writer Henry James, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Lambda Literary Award, The Los Angeles Times Book [...]
The Sea John Banville Picador, London, 2005 The Sea is my favourite of John Banville’s many novels. After getting the shortlist down to just two novels, Banville’s The Sea won the 2005 Booker Prize against Kazuo Ishiguru’s Never Let Me Go. The only other time Banville made it to the Booker Prize shortlist was for [...]