I’ve decided to trade in one of my New Years Resolutions for this one. I like it much better.
I, Muttrox, declare that by the end of 2008, I will read 10 fiction and 10 non-fiction Pulitzer prize winning books. The lists of winners are here (fiction and non-fiction).
What started this?
I recently read Empire Falls, and just finished The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (by Michael Chabon, who wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay). They’re both fantastic books, as was Guns, Germs, and Steel. I want more of that. I thought about the Nobel prize winners, but they’re so… um… well, foreign. I’ve read a few and liked them, but I don’t want to spend a whole year reading other cultures. I only like to do that once in a while. The Pulitzer prize winners seem closer to my tastes.
Here’s what I’ve read so far:
Fiction
2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1980: The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer (overrated)
1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
(I also started Beloved by Toni Morrison, but hated it. I read the first of Updike’s Rabbit books and only thought it was so-so.)
Non-Fiction
1998: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
1992: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin (I didn’t finish reading this, but I still intend to and I did read the incredibly dense follow-up, The Commanding Heights, so I’m giving myself credit)
1988: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (very good)
1980: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter (I’ve read this about thirty times)
1962: The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore White
I’m sorry, but I just cannot believe that you have never read either The Old Man and the Sea or To Kill a Mockingbird before taking on this quest. Shame, shame.
And by the way, all this talk of Prize-itzer Pule winners keeps making me think of the movie, The Hudsucker Proxy…and if you haven’t seen THAT, then you definitely have another list of things to do this year: see all of the Coen brothers movies!
Matt,
Good to have you here, welcome! You misread the post — those are the ones I have read already.
Hudsucker is a great movie! I’ve seen all the Coen brothers comedies, but not all of their crime/suspense ones.
Speaking of the coen brothers and Chabon…
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117980719.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
Wow, how awesome. I had no idea. I wonder how Kavalier & Klay will turn out.
I am NOT looking forward to K and K. For me, geek that I am, I was far more interested in reading about the comic making. And I found the last quarter of the book to be, basically, disappointing and dull.
I know I am virtually alone on this.
I can’t see the movie being anything other than a sad little “no one finds the love they need” story.
*shrug*
BTW, go rent Sunshine.
(it looks particularly good on Blu-Ray)
Caveat: I actually hate the classic novel as a format. I’ve always felt it was a very forced representation of reality (which, strangely, is why I think comics have such huge potential).
IMHO, the best example of how the novel SHOULD be done is Tim Obrien’s The Things They Carried
You are alone, K&K is great stuff the whole way through. You’re quite mad you know! I added the Tim O’Brien to my list. Of course the whole point of this post is that I am going to read Pulitzer Prize books, which is already pushing some other ones out.
well, it was a finalist for the prize in 1990.
And I know I’m quite mad.
Format is as important as content.
Anyhow, O’Brien’s book is short. You can read it easily in a day.
I really need to go back and read it again. Last time was in grad school.
Hey “Mutt,” good to be here! (lol, you’ve got to give some backstory on that name!)…
Okay, you got me, I was thinking that you meant you had read those books *this year*, as if you hadn’t ever had the chance to read them before in your life. I now comprehend, and lo, light has dawned on Marblehead.
And btw, though I’ve only missed 3 of the Coen’s 12 films that they’ve made, sadly No Country for Old Men is one of them. I do hope to catch that one very soon!