Book Awards Reading Challenge

A Giller Prize and Governor General's Award winner, Michael Ondaatje weaves a story about Anil Tissera, a Sri Lankan who has studied and relocated abroad, returns to her native country as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international organisation on a human rights investigation amidst the violent civil conflict. She becomes embroiled in the unsafe political climate, trying to solve the mystery of a skeleton while rediscovering her personal history.

Many years ago, I read The English Patient. While I found the prose very nice at times, I did not feel for any of the characters or were particularly enchanted or engaged with them or the story. Like in TEP, Ondaatje shifts between narratives, flashbacks and perspectives in this book. It is his trademark non-linear prose style. Scenes are revisited more than once and dispensed later as if in memory of conversations past. Going forwards and backwards like short stories or vignettes in the novel. People in or affected by conflict seems to be a theme of his, such as World War II in TEP or the Sri Lanka civil conflict in this novel. The internal emotional life and identity affected by the external, violent conflicts, and there are many strangers amidst the confusion. I have noticed also that both books include people who have extramarital affairs and lost loves.

Sometimes I felt I was watching the characters through a screen or a gauze. I saw them move, but I couldn't quite get the feel of them or who they were. There were a few moments, I liked, but overall, I still have not warmed to Ondaatje's style. He introduced too many characters, and the plot suffers as a result. Being a character novel would be fine, but I was apathetic towards most of the characters. The book was slow even if it did not take me long to read. I think the book has some interesting themes, but falls short in pacing, plot and certain characterizations.

Crossposted from Aquatique.net

Giller Prize: Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
Booker Prize: The Gathering by Anne Enright
Nobel Prize for Literature: Doris Lessing

Elizabeth Hay for Late Nights on Air
Michael Ondaatje for Divisadero
Daniel Poliquin for A Secret Between Us, trans. Donald Winkler
M.G. Vassanji for The Assassin’s Song
Alissa York for Effigy

Last week, while banished from my house so that painter men could change our walls from a boring white to an inviting brown, I was thankful to live in beautiful California, and that our townhouse has a pool just outside the front door. So, I sat beside the pool and finished the next book in my Book Awards Reading Challenge, Runaway, by Alice Munro. This book won the Giller Prize, which is an award given for outstanding works of Canadian fiction.

If you're unaware of Alice Munro's work, it is almost exclusively comprised of short stories, and Runaway is no exception. There are 8 short stories in this volume, all of them about Canadian women. With so many short stories, I feel as though I am getting a glimpse of a story...like the author didn't have enough of an idea to write a novel, so they decided to keep it brief instead. With Munro's stories, however, I feel like she is giving me an entire story in a very brief period of time. There are no wasted words in the genre, and I get the feeling that Munro doesn't like to waste words.

I liked all of the stories in the book, though perhaps my favorites might be the trilogy focused on a character named Juliet. The first story in the series, Chance tells of Juliet's chance meeting with a man on a train, a meeting which changes her life forever. The second story, Soon, takes place a few years after Chance, and is about a visit that Juliet and her infant daughter, Penelope, make to her parents. The third, and saddest story in the group, Silence, tells of Juliet and Penelope's estrangement...you only see the story from Juliet's side, you don't get to find out exactly why it is that Penelope has decided to distance herself so completely from her mother.

Fans of An Affair to Remember will appreciate Tricks, the story of a young woman who escapes the obligations of her daily life, caring for her sister, who is ill, by attending a Shakespeare Festival in a neighboring village once a year.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Every story is full of well-developed, complicated characters. The motivations and actions of the characters are so rich and odd, you can't help but want to come back for more.

It was a fine day by the pool, I must say.

I'm alisonwonderland, and I blog about books at So Many Books, So Little Time. I blog about the rest of my life at We're All Mad Here.

This was a hard list for me to create. First, there are just so many possibilities to choose from, and second, because the challenge lasts a whole year, I'm tempted to bite off more than I can chew but I'm forcing myself to be somewhat reasonable (one book a month, for a total of 12). Here's my list:

• Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace (Giller Prize 1996)
• Jung Chang - Wild Swans (British Book Award 1994)
• Beverly Cleary - Dear Mr. Henshaw (Newbery 1984)
• Karen Cushman - The Midwife's Apprentice (Newbery 1996)
• John Grogan - Marley & Me (Quill Award in Biography/Memoir 2006)
• E. L. Konigsburg - The View from Saturday (Newbery 1997)
• Yann Martel - Life of Pi (Man Booker Prize 2002)
• Susan Patron - The Higher Power of Lucky (Newbery 2007)
• Louis Sachar - Holes (Newbery 1999)
• Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose (Pulitzer Prize in Fiction 1972)
• Lynne Truss - Eats, Shoots & Leaves (British Book Award 2004)
• Laurel Thatcher Ulrich - A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Pulitzer Prize in History 1991)

I couldn't narrow it down to 12 so I picked 16 and I will see how many I get through during the year. As I read them I will put up reviews on my blog at Rhinoa's Ramblings

The books I have picked are:

1) Perdido Street Station - China Mieville (Arthur C Clarke Award)
2) Quicksilver - Neil Stephenson (Arthur C Clarke Award)
3) Iron Council - China Mieville (Arthur C Clarke Award)
4) Life of Pi - Yann Martel (Man Booker Prize)
5) The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (Man Booker Prize)
6) The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (Man Booker Prize)
7) Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle (Man Booker Prize)
8) American Gods - Neil Gaiman (Bram Stoker Award and Hugo Award)
9) Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Truss (British Book Prize)
10) Wild Swans - Chang (British Book Prize)
11) Beowolf - Seamus Heany (Costa/Whitbread Prize)
12) Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood (Giller Prize)
13) Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanne Clarke (Hugo and World Fantasy Award)
14) On Beauty - Zadie Smith (Orange Prize)
15) Beloved - Toni Morrison (Pulitzer Prize)
16) Perfume - Patrick Suskind (World Fantasy Award)
17) Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson (Newbery Medal)

In 2007, before this challenge started I have read the following award winning novels:

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker (Pulitzer) - Finished January 12, 2007, rated 4.75, reviewed here.
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (Pulitzer) - Finished January 18, 2007, rated 5, reviewed here.
The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai (Booker and NBCC) - Finished March 16, 2007, rated 4.25, reviewed here.
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (Pulitzer) - Finished March 21, 2007, rated 5, reviewed here.
March, by Geraldine Brooks (Pulitzer) - Finished April 3, 2007, rated 4, reviewed here.
Fall On Your Knees, by Anne Marie MacDonald (Commonwealth Writers Prize) - Finished April 26, 2007, rated 4, reviewed here.
Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood (Giller Prize) - Finished May 13, 2007, rated 4.5, reviewed here.
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer) - Finished May 17, 2007, rated 5, reviewed here.
Slow Man, by J.M. Coetzee (Booker) - Finished June 4, 2007, rated 4, reviewed here.

I've also read other award winners prior to 2007. These include:

The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton (Pulitzer) - Finished December 27, 2006, rated 4.75, reviewed here.
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry (Pulitzer) - Read several times, rated 5, sorry no reviews!
The World According to Garp, by John Irving (NBA) - Read several times, rated 5, sorry no reviews!

Hello, I'm Athena of aquatique.net. Joining reading challenges seem to be a new habit of mine. I really look forward to the book discussions and making my own lists. These are the books I've already read over the years. Most of these books I've liked. Feel free to ask about any of them.

Booker Prize:
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (also a Governor General's Award winner)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

British Book Award:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by by Lynne Truss
Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Commonwealth Writers Prize:
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Costa (Whitbread) Book Awards:
The Amber Spyglass (HDM Book 3) by Philip Pullman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Giller Prize:
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Governor General's Award:
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Hugo Award:
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (also a Nebula)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Dune by Frank Herbert (also a Nebula)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

National Book Award:
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (also Pulitzer)

Newbery Medal Award:
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The High King by Lloyd Alexander
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman
Holes by Louis Sachar

Nobel:
Herman Hesse - Siddhartha
Albert Camus - The Stranger
John Steinbeck - East of Eden, Grapes of Wrapth, Of Mice and Men
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and couple of others.
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Jose Saramgo - Blindness, The Cave

PEN/Faulkner:
The Hours by Michael Cunningham (also a Pulitzer)

Pulitzer Prize:
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I've been using Lists of Bests for a couple years, which has allowed me to easily keep track of relevant lists and books I've read (and can compare with others). They have all the lists in the challenge, and I've tagged them BARC. Hope this tool helps anyone else.

2011 Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues
2010 Johanna Skibsrud, The Sentimentalists
2009 Linden MacIntyre - The Bishop's Man
2008 Joseph Boyden — Through Black Spruce
2007 Elizabeth Hay — Late Nights on Air
2006 Vincent Lam — Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
2005 David Bergen — The Time in Between
2004 Alice Munro — Runaway
2003 M.G. Vassanji — The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
2002 Austin Clarke — The Polished Hoe
2001 Richard B. Wright — Clara Callan
2000 Michael Ondaatje — Anil's Ghost (tie)
2000 David Adams Richards — Mercy Among the Children (tie)
1999 Bonnie Burnard — A Good House
1998 Alice Munro — The Love of a Good Woman
1997 Mordecai Richler — Barney's Version
1996 Margaret Atwood — Alias Grace
1995 Rohinton Mistry — A Fine Balance
1994 M.G. Vassanji — The Book of Secrets