List of the Day: NBCC Award

First awarded in 1976, the National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote the finest books and reviews published in English.

The main awards fall into six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism. Awards are not given to titles that have been previously published in English, such as re-issues and paperback editions.

This is the list of fiction winners.  So far, I've read exactly half, 17 out of 34.  Those I have read are in red.  Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue.

2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

2008 2666 by Robert Bolano

2007 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

2005 The March by E.L. Doctorow

2004 Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here)

2003 The Known World by Edward P. Jones

2002 Atonement by Ian McEwan

2001 Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald

2000 Being Dead by Jim Crace

1999 Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

1998 The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro

1997 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

1996 Women in Their Beds by Gina Berriault

1995 Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin

1994 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

1993 A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy (reviewed here)

1991 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

1990 Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

1989 Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

1988 The Middleman and Other Stories by Bharati Mukherjee

1987 The Counterlife by Philip Roth

1986 Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price

1985 The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

1984 Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

1983 Ironweed by William Kennedy

1982 George Mills by Stanley Elkin

1981 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike

1980 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

1979 The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan

1978 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here)

1977 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

1976 October Light by John C Gardner

NOTE

Last updated on December 30, 2010

OTHERS READING THE BOOKS ON THIS LIST

(If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with links to your progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.)

Review of the Day: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The ever-perky Juliet Ashton is in a slump after the success of her book, Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War, a collection of her popular, London-during-the-Blitz newspaper columns.  Looking for love – and an idea for a new book – leaves Juliet torn between a post-war fling with a dashing American publisher and her first-hand investigation of the German occupation of the Channel Island of Guernsey.


The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is told through a series of lively letters among the many characters, primarily Juliet, her editor, and a group of Guernsey residents who survived the war.  Juliet is delightful and witty without being cloying, the islanders are quirky and charming, and the supporting characters do their part as straight men to the comedians.

There are a few places where the epistolary structure teeters – where an important story point or key transition too perfectly arrives in the morning post, just in time to move the narrative forward.  But the book is so short and the story moves along at such a quick pace that it is easy to rush past without noticing these minor flaws.

Mary Ann Shaffer wrote the book after years of researching the not widely known history of Guernsey’s occupation during World War II.  She includes horrific details of the war, including slave labor, executions, collaboration, and concentration camps, but telling the story from the post-war perspective provides needed distance, and the humor and cheerfulness of her characters make the darker themes tolerable.  Shaffer’s niece, Annie Barrows, finished the book when her aunt became too ill to complete it.

OTHER REVIEWS

So Many Precious Book, So Little Time

(If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Teaser Tuesday: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I know of three women who are mad for him -- he'll be snapped up in a trice, and I'll spend my declining years in a grimy bed-sit, with my teeth falling out one by one.  Oh, I can see it all now: No one will buy my books, and I'll ply Sidney with tattered, illegible manuscripts, which he'll pretend to publish out of pity.

-- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows.

I loved this lively, funny, sweet little novel. I wish I had read it a year and a half ago, when my friend Cynthia first gave it to me.  My review will be up tomorrow.

 Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Merry Mailbox Christmas Monday

Lady Q at Let Them Read Books is the December host of Mailbox Monday. Thanks Lady Q!

I'll be hosting in January, so please stop by next Monday to leave your first list of 2011.  And come back for all five Mondays in January because I will be hosting a book giveaway each week.

Santa came through for me this Christmas in a big way.  He brought me a lovely nine-volume set of Alexander Dumas novels published in 1893.  Each book has the same cover and the set includes:

The Count of Monte Cristo;  
The Three Musketeers;  
Viconte De Bragelonne (in 2 Volumes);
Marguerite de Valois and Chicot, the Jester;  
The Forty Five Guardsmen, The Conspirators, and The Regent's Daughter;  
Memoirs of a Physician;  
The Queen's Necklace and Taking the Bastille; and  
The Countess de Charney and The Chevalier de Maison Rouge.   

But the biggest surprise -- and the project that took Santa a lot of time on Ebay -- was an incredible collection of gorgeous Easton Press and Franklin Library editions.  Some are personal favorites, others are classics, and several are Pulitzer winners I've been looking for for a long time.

The Pultzer winners in the bunch are:

Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington;
One of Ours by Willa Cather;
Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes;
The Store by T.S. Stribling;
Honey in the Horn by H. L. Davis;
Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair;
Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin;
Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens;
Andersonville by Mackinlay Kantor;
Advise and Consent by Allen Drury;
The Reivers by William Faulkner;
The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau;
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner;
Humbolt's Gift by Saul Bellow; and
Rabbit is Rich by John Updike

List: The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (formerly called the Prize for the Novel) has been awarded since 1918 for distinguished works of fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. During some years (1920, 1941, 1946, 1954, 1957, 1964, 1971, 1974, 1977, and 2012) no award was given.

Those I have read are in red. Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue, although I intend to read them all eventually. If anyone else is reading all the winners, I am happy to add a link to your progress reports. Please leave a comment with your link and I will add it.

The Prize winners since 1918 are:

2018: Less by Andrew Sean Greer

2017: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

2016: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

2015: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer

2014: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

2013: The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding (reviewed here)

2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (reviewed here)

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2007: The Road by Cormack McCarthy

2006: March by Geraldine Brooks (reviewed here)

2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed here)

2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones

2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo (reviewed here)

2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham

1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth

1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (reviewed here)

1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford

1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler

1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

1991: Rabbit At Rest by John Updike

1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (reviewed here)

1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison

1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (short review here)

1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie

1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy

1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike

1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole

1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed here)

1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson

1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (reviewed here)

1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

1970: Collected Storiesby Jean Stafford

1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (reviewed here)

1966: Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter

1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau

1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner

1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor

1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (reviewed here)

1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor

1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee

1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

1955: A Fable by William Faulkner

1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

1951: The Town by Conrad Richter

1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens

1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener

1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (reviewed here)

1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (reviewed here)

1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin

1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair

1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow

1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand

1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis

1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson

1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller

1933: The Store by T. S. Stribling

1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes

1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge

1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin

1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield

1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

1925: So Big by Edna Ferber

1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson

1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather

1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (reviewed here)

1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

1918: His Family by Ernest Poole


NOTE

Updated December 31, 2018.

OTHERS READING THE PULITZER WINNERS

If you are working on reading all the Pulitzer fiction winners and want to list your blog or related link here, please leave a comment with the link and I will add it.

The Pulitzer Project (a group blog)
Rebecca Reads