As many people may have heard, the 2012 Pulitzer awards were announced on Monday and for the first time since 1977 there is no award for Fiction. This has been a shock since many people would say that 2011 was a decent year for fiction. This is the 11th time since the Pulitzer began; in 1917 that there was no award for fiction. The judges of the award have said that they failed to reach a unanimous decision on who should win this award. The board had narrowed it down to three books; Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!, Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace but now we are left with no winners. Does this affect the book world? I think the biggest losers from having no award winner will be the booksellers who might have enjoyed the chance to sell a book that people may not have owned or read.
So while we have no Pulitzer award for 2012 I wonder; what do people think might have been the stand out books of 2011? While these books probably don’t fit the Pulitzer, I thought I might just use this chance to mention my favourite five books of last year.
5. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
4. The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan
3. Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson
2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
1. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
With honourable mentions to Me and Mr. Booker by Cory Taylor, The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock, Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes and The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. Please let me know what you thought was worth reading from 2011.
To hear the talk on Twitter, there was no other book but Swamplandia. It’s one of the things I dislike about Twitter, it’s a bit of a popularity contest, and you see the same handful of authors touted by everyone. I just yesterday heard of Steven Millhauser’s “We Others” which sounds dynamite.
To be fair, I haven’t read Swamplandia so I don’t know if I think it’s worthy of Pulitzer. I just get tired of the cliqueish-ness of Twitter and how everyone seems to fawn over a handful of people. I get stubborn and get my back up and refuse to read them. My loss, no doubt, but there it is.
Hi KL. I think stand out books for me were by Australian Authors. I had a chance to borrow many books from a friend last year who loves to read Australian literacy and only buys new releases. So here’s a few of my favourites
Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett
Me and Mr Booker by Cory Taylor
Desert Fish by Cherise Saywell
The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
I can’t say that I’m someone who gets caught up in the hype of award winning books, but if it looks interesting enough or a friends recommend it to me, I’ll give it a go
Cheers,
Mish
Sounds like you need to vote for the Miles Franklin awards Mish
Hi KL
Great blog. Wonder why they couldn’t decide. Wonder if they thought none of them were up to standard? Haven’t read them so don’t know, but now you’ve got me curious and I might. If this happens with enough others they might ALL sell as well as the one winner might have otherwise.
Me reading a book depends on it being cheap enough as a kindle e-book. Can’t read DTBs any more (hurts my weak eyes) and can’t afford expensive books. E-books ought all to be cheap of course but we know they ain’t.
Hi Tui, They just couldn’t reach a unanimous decision so they decided not to award one this year.