The Pulitzers Reading List
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The Pulitzers Reading List |
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Update: Feb 25, 2019
Ha, just so you know, I didn't make it in a single year.
It is 8 years later and I am finally updating the website.
I will taking up this chore again in 2019. Stay tuned.....
In a single year (2011) read the entire list of novels that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Why not? I read a lot anyway. I typically read 200-250 books a year, so this is really not a stretch. And I get to read some good books.
Here is the official list of winners from the Pulitzer website.
For you folks out there who don't have the time to read all the books (And who would want to?), here is my top ten list.
(Editors Note (2024): Why isn't Steinbeck on the list?,
well, because 'Of Mice and Men' was published in 1937 compteting with 'Gone With the Wind'.
Steinbeck and Hemingway are fabulous writers with lousy timing on some their best books.
Mark Twain? Well he dies in 1910 before the Pulitzers get started, but Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer
would have made it into the top 5 of my list. Read them!
Also of note, Irving Stone ('The Agony and the Ecstasy') loses against Harper Lee in 1961.
I read 'em so you don't have to. Below is a list of quick reviews of each book I read. If I didn't read the book, there is no link to a review (click on the year). Some books I just couldn't easily get ahold of. I may in the future do a library search for some of the missing ones.
| Year | Author | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | no award | |
| 1918 | Ernest Poole | His Family |
| 1919 | Booth Tarkington | The Magnificent Ambersons |
| 1920 | no award | |
| 1921 | Edith Wharton | The Age of Innocence |
| 1922 | Booth Tarkington | Alice Adams |
| 1923 | Willa Cather | One of Ours |
| 1924 | Margaret Wilson | The Able McLaughlins |
| 1925 | Edna Ferber | So Big |
| 1926 | Sinclair Lewis | Arrowsmith |
| 1927 | Louis Bromfield | Early Autumn |
| 1928 | Thornton Wilder | The Bridge of San Luis Rey |
| 1929 | Julia Peterkin | Scarlet Sister Mary |
| 1930 | Oliver LaFarge | Laughing Boy |
| 1931 | Margaret Ayer Barnes | Years of Grace |
| 1932 | Pearl S. Buck | The Good Earth |
| 1933 | T. S. Stribling | The Store |
| 1934 | Caroline Miller | Lamb in His Bosom |
| 1935 | Josephine Winslow Johnson | Now in November |
| 1936 | Harold L. Davis | Honey in the Horn |
| 1937 | Margaret Mitchell | Gone With the Wind |
| 1938 | John Phillips Marquand | The Late George Apley |
| 1939 | Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings | The Yearling |
| 1940 | John Steinbeck | The Grapes of Wrath |
| 1941 | no award | |
| 1942 | Ellen Glasgow | In This Our Life |
| 1943 | Upton Sinclair | Dragon's Teeth |
| 1944 | Martin Flavin | Journey in the Dark |
| 1945 | John Hersey | A Bell for Adano |
| 1946 | no award | |
| 1947 | Robert Penn Warren | All the King's Men |
| 1948 | James A. Michener | Tales of the South Pacific |
| 1949 | James Gould Cozzens | Guard of Honor |
| 1950 | A. B. Guthrie | The Way West |
| 1951 | Conrad Richter | The Town |
| 1952 | Herman Wouk | The Caine Mutiny |
| 1953 | Ernest Hemingway | The Old Man and the Sea |
| 1954 | no award | |
| 1955 | William Faulkner | A Fable |
| 1956 | MacKinlay Kantor | Andersonville |
| 1957 | no award | |
| 1958 | James Agee | A Death In The Family |
| 1959 | Robert Lewis Taylor | The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters |
| 1960 | Allen Drury | Advise and Consent |
| 1961 | Harper Lee | To Kill A Mockingbird |
| 1962 | Edwin O'Connor | The Edge of Sadness |
| 1963 | William Faulkner | The Reivers |
| 1964 | no award | |
| 1965 | Shirley Ann Grau | The Keepers Of The House |
| 1966 | Katherine Anne Porter | Collected Stories |
| 1967 | Bernard Malamud | The Fixer |
| 1968 | William Styron | The Confessions of Nat Turner |
| 1969 | N. Scott Momaday | House Made of Dawn |
| 1970 | Jean Stafford | Collected Stories |
| 1971 | no award | |
| 1972 | Wallace Stegner | Angle of Repose |
| 1973 | Eudora Welty | The Optimists Daughter |
| 1974 | no award | |
| 1975 | Michael Shaara | The Killer Angels |
| 1976 | Saul Bellow | Humboldt's Gift |
| 1977 | no award | |
| 1978 | James Alan McPherson | Elbow Room |
| 1979 | John Cheever | The Stories of John Cheever |
| 1980 | Norman Mailer | The Executioner's Song |
| 1981 | John Kennedy Toole | A Confederacy of Dunces |
| 1982 | John Updike | Rabbit Is Rich |
| 1983 | Alice Walker | The Color Purple |
| 1984 | William Kennedy | Ironweed |
| 1985 | Alison Lurie | Foreign Affairs |
| 1986 | Larry McMurtry | Lonesome Dove |
| 1987 | Peter Taylor | A Summons to Memphis |
| 1988 | Toni Morrison | Beloved |
| 1989 | Anne Tyler | Breathing Lessons |
| 1990 | Oscar Hijuelos | The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love |
| 1991 | John Updike | Rabbit At Rest |
| 1992 | Jane Smiley | A Thousand Acres |
| 1993 | Robert Olen Butler | A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain |
| 1994 | E. Annie Proulx | The Shipping News |
| 1995 | Carol Shields | The Stone Diaries |
| 1996 | Richard Ford | Independence Day |
| 1997 | Steven Millhauser | Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer |
| 1998 | Philip Roth | American Pastoral |
| 1999 | Michael Cunningham | The Hours |
| 2000 | Jhumpa Lahiri | Interpreter of Maladies |
| 2001 | Michael Chabon | The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay |
| 2002 | Richard Russo | Empire Falls |
| 2003 | Jeffrey Eugenides | Middlesex |
| 2004 | Edward P. Jones | The Known World |
| 2005 | Marilynne Robinson | Gilead |
| 2006 | Geraldine Brooks | March |
| 2007 | Cormac McCarthy | The Road |
| 2008 | Junot Diaz | The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao |
| 2009 | Elizabeth Strout | Olive Kitteridge |
| 2010 | Paul Harding | Tinkers |
| 2011 | Jennifer Egan | A Visit from the Goon Squad |
| 2012 | no award | |
| 2013 | Adam Johnson | The Orphan Master's Son |
| 2014 | Donna Tartt | The Goldfinch |
| 2015 | Anthony Doerr | All the Light We Cannot See |
| 2016 | Viet Thanh Nguyen | The Sympathizer |
| 2017 | Colin Whitehead | The Underground Railroad |
| 2018 | Andrew Sean Greer | Less |
How do the best fiction novels of the year stack up with the best science fiction novels of the year? Check it out here .
(Editors Note: this was originally written in in 2011, I left it in for historical amusement.)
You didn't really think that the list was all that I read this year? If nothing else,
I am a voracious and onmivorous reader. I never keep track, but below is a sampling of
other random things.
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The Pulitzers Reading List |
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