A while back, I put together a post called “The Prizewinners,” which asked what books had been decreed by the major book awards to be the “best” books over that period. These awards are arbitrary but just as a certain number of batting titles and MVPs might qualify a baseball player for consideration by the Hall of Fame, so too do awards nudge an author towards the “canon” and secure places on literature class reading lists in perpetuity.
With two and a half years passed since I last performed this exercise, I thought it time to revisit it to see who is now climbing the list of prizewinners.
Here is the methodology I laid out back in 2005:
I wanted to include both American books and British books, as well as the English-language books from other countries that are eligible to win some of these awards. I started with the National Book Award and the Pulitzer from the American side and the Booker and Whitbread from the British side. Because I wanted the British books to “compete” with the American books, I also looked at a couple of awards that recognize books from both sides of the ocean, the National Book Critics Circle Awards and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The IMPAC is probably the weakest of all these, but since it is both more international and more populist than the other awards, I thought it added something. The glaring omission is the PEN/Faulkner, but it would have skewed everything too much in favor of the American books, so I left it out.
I looked at these six awards from 1995 to the present awarding three points for winning an award and two points for an appearance on a shortlist or as a finalist. Here’s the key that goes with the list: B=Booker Prize, C=National Book Critics Circle Award, I=International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, N=National Book Award, P=Pulitzer Prize, W=Costa Book Award [formerly the Whitbread]
bold=winner, **=New to the list since the original “Prizewinners” post
- 11, 2003, The Known World by Edward P. Jones – C, I, N, P
- 9, 2001, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen – C, I, N, P
- 8, 1997, Underworld by Don DeLillio – C, I, N, P
- 7, 2005, The March by E.L. Doctorow – C, N, P **
- 7, 2004, Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst – B, C, W
- 7, 2002, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides – I, N, P
- 7, 2001, Atonement by Ian McEwan – B, N, W
- 7, 1998, The Hours by Michael Cunningham – C, I, P
- 7, 1997, Last Orders by Graham Swift – B, I, W
- 7, 1997, Quarantine by Jim Crace – B, I, W
- 6, 2007, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz – C, P **
- 6, 2005, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai – B, C **
- 6, 2004, Gilead by Marilynn Robinson – B, P
- 5, 2007, Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson – N, P **
- 5, 2006, The Road by Cormac McCarthy – C, P **
- 5, 2006, The Echo Maker by Richard Powers – N, P **
- 5, 2005, Europe Central by William T. Vollmann – C, N **
- 5, 2005, The Accidental by Ali Smith – B, W **
- 5, 2004, The Master by Colm Toibin – B, I **
- 5, 2003, The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard – I, N
- 5, 2001, True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey – B, I
- 5, 2000, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon – C, P
- 5, 2000, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood – B, I
- 5, 1999, Waiting by Ha Jin – N, P
- 5, 1999, Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee – B, C
- 5, 1999, Being Dead by Jim Crace – C, W
- 5, 1998, Charming Billy by Alice McDermott – I, N
- 5, 1997, American Pastoral by Philip Roth – C, P
- 5, 1996, Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge – B, W
- 5, 1996, Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser – N, P
- 5, 1995, The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie – B, W
- 5, 1995, The Ghost Road by Pat Barker – B, W
- 5, 1995, Independence Day by Richard Ford – C, P
- 5, 1995, Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth – N, P
- 4, 2005, Veronica by Mary Gaitskill – C, N **
- 4, 2005, Arthur and George by Julian Barnes – B, I **
- 4, 2005, A Long, Long Way by Sebastian Barry – B, I **
- 4, 2005, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – B, C **
- 4, 2005, Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie – I, W **
- 4, 2004, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell – B, C
- 4, 2003, Brick Lane by Monica Ali – B, C
- 4, 2003, Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor – B, I
- 4, 2003, The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut – B, I
- 4, 2003, Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins – N, P
- 4, 2002, Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry – B, I
- 4, 2002, The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor – B, W
- 4, 2001, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry – B, I
- 4, 2001, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett – I, N
- 4, 2001, John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead – N, P
- 4, 2001, Oxygen by Andrew Miller – B, W
- 4, 2000, The Keepers of Truth by Michael Collins – B, I
- 4, 2000, When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro – B, W
- 4, 2000, Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates – N, P
- 4, 1999, Our Fathers by Andrew O’Hagan – B, I
- 4, 1999, Headlong by Michael Frayn – B, W
- 4, 1999, The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin – B, I
- 4, 1997, Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid – C, I
- 4, 1997, Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty – B, W
- 4, 1997, Enduring Love by Ian McEwan – I, W
- 4, 1997, The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick – I, N
- 4, 1996, Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood – B, I
- 4, 1995, In Every Face I Meet by Justin Cartwright – B, W
