Intro and missing books from my Booker collection

You may call this an obsession, you may call it insane, however for the last 20 odd years I have been buying the Booker Prize shortlisted novels and have read them in order to be outraged or concur with the judge’s decisions.

Over that time I have managed to back fill my collection of Booker nominees and have randomly read older ones. Recently I decided that I would commence with the 1969 shortlist and read my way forward. Each September that will be put on hold whilst I churn through the current shortlist.

I’ve probably read between 80 to 120 or so of the 242 shortlisted books (I haven’t included the “missing Booker” from 1970 that they retrospectively awarded in 2010).

And my burning question about the Booker? A question that I’ve debated numerous of times….how on earth did Peter Carey’s “True History of The Kelly Gang” beat Ian McEwan’s “Atonement”?

Here's a listing of Books shortlisted for the Booker Prize that are still missing from my collection. Hopefully I'll fill in the gaps over the coming years (and no more go missing as I lend one's out to people and forget I did so!!!)

Kingsley Amis – Ending Up

John Arden – Silence Among the Weapons

Nina Bawden – Circles of Deceit

Elizabeth Bowen – Eva Trout

J.L. Carr – The Battle of Pollocks Crossing

Lawrence Durrell – Constance or Solitary Practices

Barry England – Figures in a Landscape

John Fuller – Flying to Nowhere

Mohsin Hamid – The Reluctant Fundamentalist

R.C. Hutchinson – Rising

Molly Keane – Good Behaviour

Thomas Kilroy – The Big Chapel

Doris Lessing – The Sirian Experiments

Peneloe Lively – According to Mark

Hisham Matar – In the Country of Men

Elizabeth Mavor – The Green Equinox

Brian Moore – The Doctor’s Wife

Julia O’Faolain – No Country for Young Men

Julian Rathbone – King Fisher Lives

Mordecai Richler – St Urbain’s Horseman

Bernice Rubens – The Elected Member

Bernice Rubens – A Five-Year Sentence

Ann Schlee – Rhine Journey

Zadie Smith – On Beauty (I’ve read this and have obviously lent it to someone as it is not to be found)

C.P Snow – The Their Wisdom

David Storey – Pasmore

Alice Thomas Ellis – The 27^th Kingdom

Rose Tremain – Restoration

William Trevor – Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel

T.W. Wheeler – The Conjunction

G.M. Williams – From Scenes Like These

Tim Winton – Dirt Music

I’ll post reviews, thoughts, comments etc on each of the nominees I read – knowing not all with agree with me, but I can guarantee I will be as opinionated as ever.

Cheers

Tony