A Walk Through My Home Library: The Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Welcome back to my Home Library, aka my Man Cave.  We first started our tour a couple months back looking through my Pulitzer Prize collection.  And last time here we perused my collection of National Book Award winners for Fiction.  For this visit let's skip over to The Man Booker Prize section where some of the more fascinating novels and short story collections can be found.  

Originally, the Booker was awarded only to authors who were citizens of the UK Commonwealth, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.  That all changed in 2013, when the eligibility was widened to any English language novel.  The Man Booker Prize is one of the most elite and sought after awards in the literature world.  

Let's go inside shall we...

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Photo above showcases all of the Man Booker winners I own...all First Editions and several are signed, which we will take a closer look at in a few.

49 works of Fiction have won this elite award.  P.H. Newby was the first to win in 1969 for his novel Something to Answer For.  And the latest winner (2015) is Marlon James for his invigorating novel A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Authors who have won the Booker award twice:
J.M. Coetzee:  (1983) Life and Times of Michael K, (1999) Disgrace
Peter Carey:  (1988) Oscar and Lucinda, (2001) True History of the Kelly Gang
Hilary Mantel:  (2009) Wolf Hall, (2012) Bring Up the Bodies

​The Man Booker can boast proudly for the fact that 3 of it's winners are also Nobel prize winners:  V.S. Naipaul, William Golding, and J.M. Coetzee.

Do you like trilogies?  Then look no further than what the Man Booker Prize offers:
William Golding:  To The Ends of the Earth trilogy
Ben Okri:  Famished Road trilogy
Pat Barker:  Regeneration trilogy 
Hilary Mantel:  Thomas Cromwell trilogy (3rd novel TBR 2017)

I own a total of 44 Man Booker Prize winners...I need 5 more to have a complete collection.

Let us now take a closer look at the signed editions...   

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Out of the 44 I own, 8 are signed by the author.  All 8 are shown above.  

• Schindler's List  (1982)
• Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha  (1993)
• Last Orders  (1996)
• The God of Small Things  (1997)
• The Blind Assassin  (2000)
• The Inheritance of Loss  (2006)
• The Gathering  (2007)
• The White Tiger  (2008)

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I have read a total of 11 Man Booker Prize winning novels / short story collections thus far...

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Here is a quick list and rating for each:

In a Free State by V.S. Naipaul:  ****

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner:  ****

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro:  ****

The Famished Road by Ben Okri:  ****

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle:  *****

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan:  ***

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee:  ***

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood:  *****

Life of Pi by Yann Martel:  *****

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton:  *****

​The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan:  ****

Wow, over one third have 5 stars!  Incredible!

My 3 Favorites:

1. Life of Pi
2. The Luminaries
3. The Blind Assassin

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Which Man Booker Award winners have you read?
Which ones do you recommend?

​Once again, Thank you!