Pulitzer Prize Winning Fiction Project discussion

We might like to read a couple of Pulitzer winners a year, but most of us are probably not going to read all 80 right away. My idea is that we can list the Pulitzers we've read in the order of our love for them so as to give others a jumping off point for their own reading of Pulitzers.

Without further ado, here's my list in order of my love:

5 Stars
1. Gone With the Wind
2. March
3. The Road
4. Middlesex
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
7. The Stone Diaries
8. Interpreter of Maladies
9. The Grapes of Wrath
3 Stars
10. Empire Falls
11. The Good Earth
12. The Yearling
2 Stars
13. Breathing Lessons

I have to admit that my top 3 favorites really tie for first place. Strangely, my top 2 are both set during the Civil War.

Amy-that's a great idea! I will have to think about the order of my list and post it.

Hi! I just joined yesterday; was going to join a couple of months ago when I was reading Gilead but got sidetracked.

Listing in order of belovedness is a good idea, and I expect there will be some real differences of opinion...

5 stars:
The Shipping News- my second favorite novel of all time.
Angle of Repose
Beloved
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay- just finished today and loved it.
The Hours
The Grapes of Wrath
The Color Purple.

4 stars:
The Executioner's Song
A Thousand Acres
Middlesex
The Reivers
To Kill a Mockingbird

3 stars:
The Good Earth
All The King's Men
Ironweed
The Age of Innocence- I am not much of an Edith Wharton fan.
The Road
The Stone Diaries
Breathing Lessons
Gilead- barely rated 3 stars

2 stars:
The Known World
The Optimist's Daughter- bleh.

1 star:
The Mambo Kings play Songs of Love- offensive.

Read so long ago that I can't remember what I thought:
The Old Man and the Sea

Too disturbing to rate:
The Yearling

To read:
Interpreter of Maladies
Empire Falls
Martin Dressler

Cheers!

Loved:
The Grapes of Wrath
A Thousand Acres
The Road

Liked:
March
Rabbit at Rest
Empire Falls

Not Impressed:
The Stone Diaries
The Known World

Hi All! I've taken a break from my Pulitzer list to read more books by some of the winning authors.

Loved:
Empire Falls
March
Middlesex

Liked:
Beloved
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer

Didn't really enjoy:
A Thousand Acres
The Shipping News
The Stone Diaries

And the award for worst Pulitzer I've read to date has just been awarded to ....

1 Star
Ironweed

So many great older ones. To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind, Grapes..,Rabbit books, but most here are listing recent ones. Here are mine:

The Known World (I'm shocked so many don't like)
March
Beloved
The Road
Kavalier and Klay (but Yiddish Detective is better)

Really? I haven't read it yet. Why was it so bad?

Here's my review of it, copied and pasted:

This is the absolute worst Pulitzer winner I've ever read. Were there no other books written in 1983? The author is constantly switching around in time and place in his story. Just when you think someone's dead, they show back up again in the narrative. This makes for a very confusing read. I suppose it's written like we remember things from our lives: out of order such that the past and the present, the dead and the living all intertwine. Frankly, I wasn't impressed. The main character, Francis, leaves his wife and family and becomes a bum after he accidentally drops the baby on its head and kills it. 20 years later, he's a nearly toothless drunk drifting from mission to abandoned building to stripped car every night looking for a place to lay his head. And he carries all the ghosts of the past with him in his memories. He refuses to come home even now because he still feels the need to do penance for dropping the 13-day-old baby on the head (among other deaths he has caused along the way involving cracked skulls). And that's seriously all there is to the story. A brilliant work it's not.

Loved:
Kavalier & Clay
Beloved
A Thousand Acres
Empire Falls
To Kill a Mockingbird

Liked:
Middlesex - though, I think Virgin Suicides is better
The Hours

Ok:
Stone Diaries

Next on my list to read:
Optimist's Daughter
The Color Purple

Hi Y'all!
So glad you've joined me in this project! I think I'm on my 27th PP, and struggling to get through Humbolt's Gift by Saul Bellow. So far the most difficult read has been A Fable by William Faulkner.

I've discovered so many new favorite books and authors that I don't think it's possible to rank them in order of preference, but as you can see from what I've added to our list, I have thoroughly enjoyed many of them. Amongst the best have been: A Confederacy of Dunces, The Reivers, American Pastoral, The Good Earth, The Grapes of Wrath, The Yearling, The Magnificent Ambersons, A Death in the Family, Middlesex, and many of the others you've mentioned.

I loathed A Thousand Acres, but after learning it was based on King Lear have respect for the author's attempt.

I barely remember some of the others, even having read them recently.

After reading American Pastoral, I almost dropped this project and started to read only Phillip Roth, but I'm ankle-deep in PP's now and can't seem to stop.

Happy Reading!!!
Miriam

Miriam & group:

I'm the new kid on the block so thanks for allowing this group to be public. Yesterday I made some additions to the list but, after adding them, realized that most of what I added was non-fiction and all the list up until then was fiction. Hope these additions are OK with the group. If not, let me know and I will remove them and confine my posts to PP fiction. It's not problem either way. Just want to be a cooperative member.

John

My vote is to keep to the Fiction winners on in this group. So glad you've joined us, John!

NP with me Miriam. "Too much to read....not enough time"...and I LOVE the fiction as much as the non-fiction and biography so I'll just post up the fiction. Glad you all would have me! *smile*

John

Love:

Middlesex
Empire Falls
The Color Purple
To Kill a Mockingbird
One of Ours
The Good Earth

Like:

The Hours
American Pastoral
House Made of Dawn
The Age of Innocence

Okay:

Interpreter of Maladies
The Stone Diaries
A Thousand Acres

Puke:

Gone With the Wind
Beloved
Old Man and the Sea
The Shipping News

4 stars
Middlesex (but I agree that Virgin Suicides was better)
American Pastoral
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Grapes of Wrath

3 stars:
Beloved (but preferred Song of Solomon)
Old Man and the Sea
Interpreter of Maladies
The Hours
The Color Purple

1-2 stars:
The Shipping News
Gone With the Wind
The Good Earth

Will add as I go, up next Gilead.
I love that I found this group as this has been a project of mine for a long time now. Fun to share!

Jeanine,

Nice to see you here. I'm glad to hear you liked American Patoral, as that's slated for the November read in my book club.

I loved Gilead, but my friend disliked it so much she couldn't finish it. I'm curious to find out what you think.

Maybe sometime we can set up a folder to talk about specific books.

Here's my list, brief as it is:

Loved:
Independence Day (Loved all the Frank Bascombe books)
To Kill A Mockingbird (Great book, great movie)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Tales of the South Pacific

Liked:
The Road (too disturbing to love)
The Old Man and the Sea
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (raised from okay on the strength of one line: "...who had the sad airs of a man long accustomed to the spectacular demolition of dreams."

Okay:
The Caine Mutiny
Grapes of Wrath
March (loathed Mr. March)

Next for me is Empire Falls which I'm certain I'll love. I loved Mohawk, Risk Pool and Nobody's Fool.

Hi Denise!

Thanks for the welcome. American Pastoral is a really intense read but so well written and executed by Philip Roth. I really enjoy his writing style. I have Portnoy's Complaint as another book of his I'd like to read soon.

I'm going to get my copy of Gilead this week so I would definitley be interested in setting up a folder to discuss specific books.

Talk to you soon!

Jeanine

Jeanine,
I'm a little embarrassed, but there already are some books posted for discussion. I guess we just add one whenever we're ready to talk about it.

Incommunicado,

Welcome. I've only read one of the Frank Bascombe books, but I really loved Richard Ford's short stories based in Montana. I forget the name of the collection.

****Loved
***Liked
**Got through
*Don't get it

Grapes of Wrath***
The Road **
Empire Falls***
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay*
The Hours
American Pastoral**
Martin Dressler***
Independence Day****

The Shipping News*
A Thousand Acres**
Rabbit at Rest***
The Mambo Kings**
Breathing Lessons**
Beloved**
Lonesome Dove**
The Color Purple***
A Confederacy of Dunces****
To Kill a Mockingbird****
The Old Man and the Sea*
Rabbit at Rest ***
Breathing Lessons **
Foreign Affairs ***
Rabbit is Rich ***
Gone with the Wind ***
The Age of Innocence ***

Add:

Liked:
Oscar Wao (4 stars)

Bleh

Martin Dressler--wholly forgettable, dull characters, dull narrative. Why did this win???

I have to agree with my friend Incommunicado on The Road. It was way too disturbing to say that I "loved" it, but it is not often that I am so haunted by fiction, or so moved by it, that I cry. And I cried when I got to the end of The Road. It's one of those books that has to brew in my brain for a while after I've read it.

The Road had to brew in my brain awhile, too, Mae. I read it recently and think I like it better the farther away from it I am.

In order of my preference:
1. Lonesome Dove
2. Killer Angels
3. The Road
4. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
5. Gilead
6. To Kill A Mockingbird
7. Caine Mutiny
8. The Old Man and the Sea

Here is my list so far. I'm reading Confederacy of Dunces at the moment and so far am predicting it'll fall in the 5 stars category.

5 Stars

The Road
Th Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Gilead
March
Empire Falls
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Pastoral
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Lonesome Dove
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Death in the Family


4 Stars

The Color Purple
The Rabbit Books
Middlesex
The Known World
The Hours
A Thousand Acres


3 Stars

Breathing Lessons
Martin Dressler
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Interpreter of Maladies


2 Star

Foreign Affairs
Independence Day
The Stone Diaries
A Summons to Memphis

1 Star
The Shipping News (my vote for worst Pulitzer ever)
Beloved
Ironweed

Most years I am surprised by the choice like Oscar Wao last year.

My Top 5
Lonesome Dove
Middlesex
Color Purple
Independence Day
Mockingbird

Bottom 5
Ironweed
Summons to Memphis
Martin Dressler
Optimist's Daughter
Stone Diaries

Reading Tales of the South Pacific now

5 stars
1. To Kill A Mockingbird
2. The Grapes Of Wrath
3. The Old Man And The Sea
4. The Color Purple
5. The Killer Angels
6. Gone With The Wind

4 Stars
7. A Confederacy Of Dunces
8. Empire Falls
9. The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao
10. Interpreter Of Maladies

2 Stars
11. The Road
12. A Visit From The Goon Squad

I'm reading all of the Pulitzers in chronological order (and skipping ahead occasionally). My favorites so far:

The Grapes of Wrath
Andersonville
The Color Purple
Arrowsmith
The Store
The Old Man and the Sea
Gone With the Wind
The Good Earth
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Magnificent Ambersons
Alice Adams
The Way West
The Travels of Jamie McPheeters
All the King's Men

Books I actively disliked:
The Fable (this confirmed for me that I just hate reading Faulkner)
Now in November
Honey in the Horn
The Late George Apley

I'm just about to start The Killer Angels, but first I'm reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals (nonfiction), which has taken me just about the entire summer.

Amy wrote: "We might like to read a couple of Pulitzer winners a year, but most of us are probably not going to read all 80 right away. My idea is that we can list the Pulitzers we've read in the order of our ..."

Love Empire Falls and I forgot that I loved it! :) This is a great project. I've always thought a book about the Pulitzer winners would be interesting. Somebody reads them all and then offers a critical take on the "collection."

I just found and joined this group and thought I'd share my favorites. I'm currently reading The Orphan Master's Son, which is great 100 pages in.

Favorite Ever - The Grapes of Wrath

Loved:
Interpreter of Maladies - her newest one The Lowlands is fabulous also
The Road
The Hours
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Empire Falls
Middlesex
Tinkers
A Thousand Acres
To Kill A Mockingbird

Liked:
American Pastoral
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wa
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Gilead
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Beloved

Was ok...:
The Known World

Just can't get into:
A Confederacy of Dunces - this one is driving me nuts

Angie, I am so pleased to see that you share my love of The Grapes of Wrath. I think this and To Kill a Mockingbird are the two true Great American Novels.

You've read all the most recent Pulitzers, while I'm reading them (more or less) in chronological order. I'm currently trying to pound my way through Humboldt's Gift, which I am finding pedantic and overwritten at best and God-awful boring at worst. I don't know why the reviews talk about the book's humor—it is completely lost on me. Yet I will finish it, because I can't stand to put a book down and leave it unfinished (with Faulker's A Fable as the only exception).

Randi wrote: "Angie, I am so pleased to see that you share my love of The Grapes of Wrath. I think this and To Kill a Mockingbird are the two true Great American Novels.

You've read all the most recent Pulitze..."

Randy,
Thanks for the heads-up on Humboldt's Gift and A Fable. I normally love Faulkner, so it will be interesting to see what I think since A Fable was written so much latter than most of my favorites of his like The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. When you get to A Confederacy of Dunces, I'd love to know what you think. It is the one that I started and have never finished because the humor and the main character were more sad/pathetic to me than "darkly funny" as most people describe them as. One of these days I'll go back and finish it, but too many other great ones to read now.
I have been reading the most recent Pulitzer Winners first, as I like to keep up with current literature, but this year my goal is to start reading some of the older ones since so many of my favorite books were written in the 1920-40's . I have The Killer Angels on my self right now, ready for me to find the right mood to start it.
Good luck getting through Humboldt's Gift!
Angie

Pulizer Prize Winning Fiction I've Read from Favorites to Least Favorites:


1. Gone With the Wind
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. A Conderacy of Dunces
4. The Road
5. Olive Kitteridge
6. The Age of Innocence
7. The Good Earth
8. All the King's Men
9. The Grapes of Wrath
10. Empire Falls
11. The Yearling
12. Interpreter of Maladies
13. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
14. Middlesex
15. The Optimist's Daughter
16. The Killer Angels
17. Beloved
18. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
19. The Color Purple
20. March
21. The Old Man and the Sea
22. The Orphan Master's Son
23. The Known World
24. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
25. The Late George Apley
26. Tinkers
27. Gilead
28. American Pastoral
29. A Thousand Acres

I finished reading all of the Pulitzer winners over a year ago. I still think of many of them, and now and then I even take some of them down from my bookshelves to dip into and read again some of their passages.

The wonderful thing about reading is that no two people read in the same way. I agree with some of your favorites, though not all.

"Gone With the Wind" would be far down the list for me. Though well-written, I wasn't very keen on spending over 1,000 pages with characters so self-involved and greedy. As the story progressed, I saw no viable changes in Scarlett or Rhett. The thought to which I kept returning was: Well, miserable, spoiled people deserve one another.

"The Road" and "March" would also be at the bottom of my list. McCarthy has written better books ("Blood Meridian") more deserving of the prize. "The Road" struck me more as notes for a novel or a screenplay. While there are some beautiful passages, most of the book struck me as repetitious. As for "March," it seemed to me more a literary conceit or gimmick than a novel of real depth.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" would be my first choice. Such a beautifully written and realized story. Every character had dimension and weight. And how clever it was of Ms. Lee to explore prejudice through the eyes of children.

"A Thousand Acres" and "American Pastoral" also rate high for me. Smiley's novel is brilliant: "King Lear" set in a 1970s farm community. She also gave the story more of a humanistic slant, and made of it a kind of emotional mystery. At one point in the story, you learn information that changes everything that has come before. There is a sharp shift suddenly in one's perception of what he or she has been reading. And, like "Lear," Smiley accomplished nothing less than to present us with tragedy on a grand level. The same may also be said for Roth's majestic "American Pastoral." It's difficult to pick a favorite book where Roth is concerned ("The Human Stain" is also stunning), but "Pastoral" might well be it.

"All the King's Men" also rates high for me. As I read it, the phrase "Great American Novel" kept going through my mind. As it also did with "Beloved." As with nearly all of Ms. Morrison's work, one must earn the story he or she is reading. You have to do some lifting, but when you do, the experience is deepened.

"The Color Purple" I place in my top five. It may be one of the best books ever written about the human condition, about courage, about love as it truly exists -- something that changes us and makes us better people.

Along with "To Kill a Mockingbird," I must also place "The Orphan Master's Son" in the number-one slot. It's been a long time since I read a novel as well-written and -realized as Johnson's masterpiece. That he could present a character whom you initially don't like very well and then, as you discover his story, grow to love and admire is no small feat.

Although I LOVED the top 5 on this list, The Grapes of Wrath and The Good Earth tie for second.

1. The Color Purple
2. The Grapes of Wrath
3. The Good Earth
4. Gone with the Wind
5.Lonesome Dove
6. To Kill a Mockingbird
7. Middlesex
8. The Age of Innocence
9. Beloved

I read several of these many years ago, I wish I could remember my particular feelings at the time I finished them, it would be helpful for this list.

John wrote: "I finished reading all of the Pulitzer winners over a year ago. I still think of many of them, and now and then I even take some of them down from my bookshelves to dip into and read again some of ..."

It's funny how the frame of mind and the time of life when you read something can also play into how well you like a book. Although both "A Thousand Acres" and "American Pastoral" have literary merit, I found them both so depressing and hopeless that I had to rate them lower. I listened to "The Orphan Master's Son" on audio and think I may have gotten more out of it if I had actually read the book. This may be one that sticks with me for awhile and may make me want to move it up a couple of slots. It was also depressing but more clever than Pastoral or Acres for me.

Mari wrote: "Although I LOVED the top 5 on this list, The Grapes of Wrath and The Good Earth tie for second.

1. The Color Purple
2. The Grapes of Wrath
3. [book:The Good Earth|1078..."

It seems like Middlesex is a book people either really like or not at all. I liked it but a coworker of mine couldn't get through it because she found it offensive.

It's actually the second time I've picked it up, I found it a little boring the first time. Now I'm listening to it, so I should be finished soon. I think the subject matter is creative, and I'm looking forward to where it's leading to.

I thought the subject matter was creative too, but it took a bit to get going.

Awesome idea. Seems like a dead thread, but here goes.
5 Stars
The Shipping News
A Confederacy of Dunces
To Kill a Mockingbird
4 Stars
All the Light We Cannot See
Empire Falls (not Russo's best novel)
The Reivers (As I Lay Dying, Sound and the Fury, and Light in August were shafted and would be 5 star novels)
Arrowsmith (highly underrated)
3 Stars
Tinkers
The Color Purple
A Fable
Old Man and the Sea
2 Stars
Ironweed
A Visit from the Goon Squad
1 Star
Mambo Kings - trash novel
Breathing Lessons

Biggest Snubs Ever - beyond the Faulkner trio:
Ragtime and The March by E.L. Doctorow
Any of Proulx's short story collections and Accordion Crimes
and most definitely Colum McCann's National Book Award Winner Let the Great World Spin.

Not dead, just a bunch of high end readers who don't post very often. lol....not that we don't have opinions, we're all just reading and not posting..haha.

I like your list and it prompts me to go back and take a look at a couple of reads that I have overlooked. Especially Colum McCann and Amy Proulx, both sitting on my shelf right now.

Oh, and BTW, not a literary gem, but if you want an excellent little historical fiction read, I'm just finishing up "The Last Days of Night" by Graham Moore, the Academy Award–winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian, It's about the fight between Edison and Westinghouse (light bulbs and AC versus DC electricity.) Fun read and well researched.

Thanks for the post...now I am back to reading....

I am so glad to see JDSmith43's post, particularly your disdain for The Mambo Kings. It's been on my nightstand for months, and I just can't get into it. I may have to skip it in my Pulitzer chronology and go on to A Thousand Acres.

Other huge snubs: The Poisonwood Bible, one of the most magnificent novels I have ever read--it was a finalist and lost to The Hours. And Catch 22 -- hardly the fault of the Pulitzer committee, as that year's winner was To Kill a Mockingbird.

Hi all - Not sure if this group is still active, but I read all the winners from 1948 on and am counting them down (in reverse order) on my blog at www.pulitzerschmulitzer.com. If interested, check it out. Always love feedback. :) Happy reading!

John;
It is very interesting to hear from others who are making their way through the long list of books. I read the books mostly in reverse chronological order. This pathway shows how society has struggled for liberation. Keep up your blog.
Ray