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

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is my favorite day of the year. I hope everyone is celebrating in their favorite way! 

By pure serendipity, this is also my 1,000th blog post. That is quite a milestone. Another cause for celebrating around my house.

1 Day to Christmas

Literary Blog Hop: Wallflowers

The Blue Bookcase hosts a "Literary Blog Hop" for blogs "that primarily feature reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion."

Each week, in addition to hopping around and visiting some terrific book blogs, participants answer a bookish question.  This week's question comes from Lisa at bibliophiliac:

What literary title (fiction or non-fiction) do you love that has been under-appreciated? We all know about the latest Dan Brown, and James Patterson isn't hurting for publicity. What quiet masterpiece do you want more readers to know?

There are plenty of books I've read that I think deserve a wider audience.  David Lodge's How Far Can You Go? (reviewed here), The Assistant by Bernard Malamud (reviewed here), and  Play It As It Laysby Joan Didion (reviewed here) are just three I can think of off the top of my head.

But if I had to choose one "quiet masterpiece" to champion, it would be The Road Home by Jim Harrison.  In general, Harrison is an under-appreciated American treasure, which he has made a career out of.  A good part of his memoir, Off to the Side, is his telling of his life on the fringes of literary society.

The Road Home is a sweeping, multi-generational story in "The Great American Novel" tradition.  Set in the sandhills of Nebraska, the book takes up where Harrison's prior novel, Dalva, left off, filling in the story of Dalva's family, the formidable Northridges.  There are pioneers, farmers, Indians, artists, lovers, and birdwatchers.  There is art, literature, food, wine, love, and death.  It is wonderful.

My Top 10 list will always include The Road Home.  I've read it twice, including reading it out loud to my husband on a long road trip. I will read it again, for sure.

2 Days to Christmas

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peael Pie Society

"Dear Sydney,
Susan Scott is a wonder."


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

This has been waiting for me for over a year and I am so excited to finally turn my attention to it.

I was immediately sucked into this epistolary novel set in post-WWII England, including the Channel Island of Guernsey, which had been occupied by Germans during the war.

3 Days to Christmas

Teaser Tuesday: The Portrait of a Lady

"I've always been intensely determined to be happy, and I've often believed I should be. . . . But it comes over me every now and then that I can never be happy in any extraordinary way; not by turning away, by separating myself."

-- The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

I have a limited tolerance for Henry James, as I've discussed here and here.

Listening to the audio version has helped immeasurably. I can actually comprehend the narrative the first time through. But nothing will ever make James truly pleasurable for me because the main characters are always fussing about nothing.  This is how she explains why she is turning down the man's marriage proposal.  What is she dithering about?

This book is on the Radcliffe Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century list.  After I finish this, I'll only have six to go before I finish all the books on this list. That might be a great goal for 2011.


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

4 Days to Christmas

Mailbox Monday

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

I have high hopes that Santa will bring books this week! But last week, the pickings were slim.

Luckily, I got a book last night when we exchanged gifts with my one of my brainiac stepdaughters, this one in her residency at Columbia.  To help me plan our next trip to Manhattan to visit her, she got me:

eat.shop nyc: A Curated Guide of Inspired and Unique Locally Owned Eating and Shopping Establishments



This will tide me over with armchair travel fantasies until Christmas comes.

5 Days to Christmas

6 Days to Christmas

Foodie's Reading Challenge

Margot at Joyfully Retired is hosting a challenge for 2011 that I am very excited about: The Foodie's Reading Challenge!

I love reading books about food.  I often read cookbooks cover-to-cover, like a narrative book.  And there are several books sitting on my TBR shelves that focus on food.  This is going to be a lot of fun.

Definition of a Food Book 

Participants do not have to chose their books in advance, but here is a little guidance from Margot:

A food book is a book which is centered around food and/or drinks. That could be a cookbook, a food biography or memoir, a non-fiction book focused around a specific food, wine, chef or restaurant. Also allowed is a fictional story in which food plays a major role.

My Reviews

The Food of France by Waverley Root (reviewed here)

American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields, Rowan Jacobsen (reviewed here)

Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin (reviewed here)

The Onmivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (which I didn't review, but discussed here)

With a Jug of Wine: An Unusual Collection of Cooking Recipes by Morrison Wood (reviewed here, with a recipe) 

I also read French Spirits: A House, a Village, and a Love Affair in Burgundy by Jeffrey Green, which I thought would be about food, but wasn't at all, so doesn't count as my sixth book. Drats.

Possibilities

I signed up at the "Bon Vivant" level to read four to six books.  My plan is to read books that are already on my TBR shelves.  Some of those in the running include (in no particular order):

The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights by David E. Gumpert

James Beard on Food Delights and Prejudices by James Beard (I started this one on December 1)

On the Town in New York by Michael Batterberry

Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk

The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer

Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee

Epicurean Delight: The Life and Times of James Beard by Evan Jones

Vie De France: Sharing Food, Friendship and a Kitchen in the Lorie Valle by James Haller

A Cordiall Water by M. F. K. Fisher

The Feasting Season by Nancy Coons

Dumas on Food: Selections from Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine by Alexandre Dumas

And it might be a good idea to include this one:

French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating For Pleasure by Mireille Guiliano

Other Ideas

This challenge reminds me of the Spice of Life Challenge, which was a favorite of mine in 2009. For that challenge, I read and reviewed these four books, three of which I loved. Can you guess which one I didn't?

1. Au Revoir to All That by Michael Steinberger (my non-fiction choice; reviewed here)
2. The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones (my fiction choice; reviewed here)
3. The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso (my cookbook choice; reviewed here)
4. Julie & Julia by Julie Powell (my memoir/essay choice; reviewed here) 

NOTES: Updated December 3, 2011.

7 Days to Christmas

8 Days to Christmas

9 Days to Christmas

Scene and Be Seen

Cathy at Kittling: Books is featuring Rose City Reader in her entertaining Scene of the Blog event this week. Thanks, Cathy!

Scene of the Blog is a big favorite of mine.  It's the most voyeuristic event in the book corner of the blogosphere and I love it. Every week, Cathy spotlights a different blog, with pictures of where our favorite bloggers find inspiration, hit the laptops, and store their TBR stacks. 

Cathy herself is a fellow "list" reader, with a fondness for mysteries. Her reviews are sprightly and to the point -- just how I like them. Hers was one of the very first blogs I followed.  Please stop by for a visit and tell her I sent you!

Here's one of my Scene of the Blog pictures.  Click on it to go to the Scene of the Blog post to see the others, read the post, and visit Kittling Books.

10 Days to Christmas

Teaser Tuesday: The Human Stain

Now, most writers are brought to a standstill after rereading two year's work -- even one year's work, merely half a year's work -- and finding it hopelessly misguided and bringing down on it the critical guillotine are reduced to a state of suicidal despair from which it can take months to begin to recover.  Yet Coleman, by abandoning a draft of a book as bad as the draft he'd finished, had somehow managed to swim free not only from the wreck of the book but from the wreck of his life.

-- The Human Stain by Philip Roth.

I like this teaser. I like this book. As I read it, I hear in my head the voice of Ron Silver, who narrated the audio versions of several of Roth's books, including I Married a Communist, American Pastoral, and The Plot Against America.  Unfortunately, he did not narrate this one, or I would get it on audio, because he did a brilliant job on the others.

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

11 Days to Christmas

Mailbox Monday

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

Several books came into my house last week, many through my mail slot.

because you might not remember by Don Colburn (a chapbook, a little book of 25 poems, which was a finalist for this year’s Finishing Line Press Poetry Prize)



One City's Wilderness: Portland's Forest Park by Marcy Cottrell Houle (published by the Oregon State University Press)



Heart to Heart: Considered Sentiments for Teatime by Earlene Grey (another wee slim volume of verse)



Just Enough Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (including the novels, Joy in the Morning and Right Ho, Jeeves, and the short story collection, Very Good, Jeeves. From LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program)



Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell (from a friend who's name is also Sarrah, but with two Rs)

12 Days to Christmas

13 Days to Christmas

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Human Stain

It was the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk -- who, before retiring two years earlier, had been a classics professor at nearby Athena College for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more as the dean of faculty -- confided to me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at the college.

-- The Human Stain by Philip Roth.

Wow! That's a whole novel in itself. What a terrific opening sentence! It reminds me of why I love Philip Roth.

This won the PEN/Faulkner Award, and would have counted as one of my books for the Book Awards Reading Challenge, if I hadn't messed up and failed to realize that the challenge ended on November 1, not the end of the year. Oh, well. Maybe the new challenge started on Nov. 1 and this will count for that one.

Book Beginnings on Friday is a weekly Opening Sentence event now hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.  I'm a day late this week. 

14 Days to Christmas

15 Days to Christmas

Literary Blog Hop: How Irritating!

The Blue Bookcase has started a "Literary Blog Hop" for blogs "that primarily feature reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion." It is a lot of fun and I have found several wonderful blogs through this event.

Each week, in addition to hopping around and visiting some terrific book blogs, participants answer a bookish question.  The Blue Bookcase team came up with this week's question:

What is one of your literary pet peeves? Is there something that writers do that really sets your teeth on edge? Be specific, and give examples if you can.

I try not to read books that set my teeth on edge, so I don't have a lot of literary pet peeves.  In fact, I am pretty tolerant once I commit to reading a book.  This is in complete contrast with the rest of my life, in which I suffer daily from a host of pet peeves too embedded and byzantine to even examine.

Christie at the Blue Bookcase already covered one p.p. I could come up with: long dialog with no identification of the speaker.  If you get to the point where you have to go back and count every other paragraph to figure out who's talking, it needs help!

I've recently become frustrated with authors using the same word over and over again, like it got stuck in the author's head and no editor caught it.  This seems to happen in mysteries a lot.  The author of The Club Dumas, which I am reading now, used "rictus" one too many times for me. And I can't remember now which book I recently read, but the author used "sanguine" at least a couple dozen times (I stopped counting at about 28) to describe different people in different situations.

Along the same lines, it really does bother me when authors use similar sounding names.  Things seldom are as bad as in Advise and Consent, Allen Drury’s 1959 Pulitzer winner, in which many characters have the same name. For instance, the nominee and the Senate Majority leader are both names Robert and both go by Bob. Context usually makes clear which one is under discussion, but it takes a while to pick it apart. There are also two Hals, two Toms, and two Johns (but no Mikes, Marks, or Daves). Maybe it is more like real life to duplicate names, but some literary customs are there for a reason.

More recently, George Pelacanos drove me a bit nuts with The Night Gardener when he used the following character names: Ramone, Romeo, Rhonda, Ramirez, Rudy, Red, Rogers, Randolph (aka Randy), Regina, Robert, Ronald, Richard, Richards, Raymond, Raynella, and Ray. I needed a diagram!

How about you?  I'm looking forward to some real rants on the hop this week. 

16 Days to Christmas

17 Days to Christmas

Teaser Tuesday: The Club Dumas

"As he struggled to his feet, fastening his belt, he saw Liana Taillefer stand up, pale and terrifying, unconcerned by her disheveled clothes, he magnificent thighs still exposed. She slapped him so hard, his left ear vibrated like a drum."

-- The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. It's scenes like this, when the characters loom bigger than life, that you get the sense of adventure in the book.

 

It feels like I have been reading this forever. Even though it is a page turner, it took me a while to get into it and actually start turning those pages. Now I am halfway through and committed.  

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

18 Days to Christmas

Mailbox Monday

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

Just when I was despairing of having no books to list in Mailbox Monday, I got a surprise present from my wonderful husband. He got me a present for becoming an equity partner at my law firm, O'Donnell Clark & Crew (and yes, Steve Crew is a person, "Crew" is not a hip designation for the other lawyers in the firm).

Hubby is really, really good about giving me book sets as gifts.  These are sets that I would not get for myself.  He doesn't mind going back to the same well, and has found me terrific sets of Dickens, Hawthorne, and Twain.

This time around, it is a small but lovely set of P. G. Wodehouse "Autograph Editions."  No, they are not really autographed by my favorite comic author.  But they are beautifully bound editions of some wonderful, very entertaining books.  I can't wait to read and re-read them.

19 Days to Christmas

Challenge: Battle of the Prizes, British Version

This challenge pits winners of the English Man Booker Prize against winners of the Scottish James Tait Black Memorial Prize in a British Version of the Battle of the Prizes. (Click here for the American Version.)

Does one prize have higher standards than the other? Pick better winners? Provide more reading entertainment or educational value? Maybe challenge participants will be able to answer these and more questions – maybe they will simply read three or four great books!

CHALLENGE ENDS JANUARY 31, 2011.  There is still time to join and plenty of time to finish if you are already participating. 

DETAILS

OPTION ONE: Chose three books that you have not read before:

1) One that won both the Booker and the James Tait Black prizes (here is the short list of double dippers);

2) One that won the Booker but not the James Tait Black (Booker winners are here); and

3) One that won the James Tait Black but not the Booker (James Tait Black winners are here).

OPTION TWO: For those who have already read all three of the double-dippers, or otherwise do not want to read one of those three, pick two Booker winners and two James Tait Black winners for a total of four books.

OFFICIAL RULES

• Read all books between February 1, 2010 and January 31, 2011.

• Overlap with other challenges is allowed -- and encouraged! The Complete Booker is a logical crossover. The great thing is, for those working on both these lists, completing the challenge means reading three books, but crossing four items off the lists.

• You do not have to commit to your choices now; you can change your mind about books at any time.

• Sign up here by leaving a link to your post in a comment, or the list of your three choices in the comment. I will add the links to the participant list in this post.

• As you progress, please let us know by leaving comments with links to progress reports and reviews. Reviews are not necessary, but encouraged. If you do not have a blog, put your reviews or reports in a comment on this post.
  

• You can copy and paste the button. Or, if you want me to send you the code, please leave a comment with an email and I will. I cannot figure out the fancy ways of giving directions. 
  

IDEAS

My three choices are:

1) G by John Berger for my double dipper choice;

2) The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch for my Booker winner; and

3) The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry for my James Tait Black winner.

I picked these three because they were all on my TBR shelf had been for a while.  As of December 1, I've finished The Secret Scripture and The Sea, the Sea.  The links to my reviews are in the list below.

PARTICIPANTS

Rose City Reader

chaotic compendiums 

Musings  (The first to complete the challenge -- congratulations!)

Oh, So Many Manias . . .  

Books in the City 

ExUrbanis

J.G. at Hotch Pot Cafe 

Birdie's Nest

REVIEWS

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel on chaotic compendiums 

G by John Berger on Musings 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro on Birdie's Nest

Without My Cloak by Kate O'Brien on Musings

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry here on Rose City Reader

Something to Answer For by P. H. Newby on Musings

The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch here on Rose City Reader