Book Awards Reading Challenge

The idea is to read 12 prize winning books between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008. Click on the link above for more info. I’d been meaning to read many of these anyway:

1. The New Life, by Orhan Pamok (Nobel Prize – Turkey)
2. Hunger, by Knut Hamsun (Nobel Prize – Norway)
3. Kristin Lavransdatter I: The Wreath, by Sigrid Undset (Nobel Prize – Norway)
4. The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass (Nobel Prize – Germany)
5. Women as Lovers, by Elfriede Jelinek (Nobel Prize – Austria)
6. Omeros, by Derek Walcott (Nobel Prize – Saint Lucia)
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison (Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize – United States)
8. The Secret River, by Kate Grenville (Commonwealth Writers’ Prize)
9. Midnight’s Children, Salmon Rushdie (Booker of Bookers)
10. The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak (2007 Book Sense, Children’s Lit)
11. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon (Pulitzer Prize)
12. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (Pulitzer Prize)

It may be subject to change as whim takes me. I wondered about including more Nobel Prize winners – but many of them looked very depressing. I thought I’d give Women as Lovers a go as it’s set in a remote Austrian village, something I’m quite familiar with. If I like The Wreath I’ll probably read the rest of the trilogy.

Prize winning books previously read in 2007

• The Hours, by Michael Cunningham (Pulitzer Prize)
• Disgrace, by J. M. Coetzee (Booker, Nobel Prize)
• Randolph Stow novels (these have won a variety of Australian prizes)