Monday, June 15, 2009

Musing Mondays


Hosted by MizB at Just One More Page.

"Today’s Musing Monday post is about award winning books…

Do you feel compelled to read prize-winning (Giller/Booker/Pulitzer etc) books? Why, or why not? Is there, perhaps, one particular award that you favour?"
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My response:

I do feel compelled to read books that are nominated for awards, yes. But the winners are irrelevent to me. I read from the shortlists of all literature awards of books in English, including translated works, and as much of the longlists as I can - if the book's subject interests me. Award nominated books have been already been screened by knowledgeable readers and judged better than average in some way. I find I can rely on that for the most part. It's a life long habit since my mother told me about the Nobel prizes when I was very young. I get a list of 438 books on LibraryThing when I search under "award" in my catalogue, and 200 more under "Nobel".

Right now for example I am working my way through this year's shortlists of the Orange Prize nominations (2 out of 6), and the Miles Franklin Award (2 out of 5) and doing challenges for the Pulitzer, Man Booker, Orange, and Nobel authors. But I am watching all the award nominations for my next good read. I still choose carefully and find that I am rarely disappointed. I tend to find more favourites among the Orange and Impac Dublin Prize nominees.

What about you?
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6 comments:

  1. I do check out books by Nobel prize winners. And Booker prize winners work for me too.

    Mondays: Musings/Mailbox/whereabouts

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  2. I do think literary awards are important, but I don't necessarily seek out award winning books.

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  3. I tried to read through the whole Booker longlist one year. An interesting experience ... I wouldn't do it every year, but discovered some memorable books I wouldn't have read otherwise.

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  4. I can't say I follow the awards or prizes or seek out the winners. My experience with them has not been the greatest really.

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  5. I read the Printz Honor books, Newbery Award winners and some other ones too. I try to include a little bit of everything into my reading habits!!

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  6. wow! That's sounds terrific! I have never really tried anything other than Man Booker and the Pulitzer!

    I am not really INTO them :) I have tried reading 1 Nobel Prize winners book... But couldn't finish it :)

    Let's see... i will surely see the challenges u mention and hunt for the book for me :)

    thanks!
    have a good day!

    hope you are doing good!

    ReplyDelete

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