Book Awards Reading Challenge Completed

I finished the BookAwardsChallenge.
I had 17 books on my original list. But somehow I had different books on my handwritten list. I picked up my original list for this post but on my sidebar I have a list of 20 books. I'll have to do better when I join BookAwards II.


Booker
1.) The Remains of the Day---Kazuo Ishiguro---1989

National Bood Award
2.) Cold Mountain---Charles Frazier---1997

Newbery Medal
3.) Up a Road Slowly---Irene Hunt---1967
4.) From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler---E L Konisburg---1968

Nobel Author W/ Pulitzer
5.) Sinclair Lewis 1930---Arrowsmith 1926
6.) Pearl S Buck 1938---The Good Earth 1932
7.) John Steinbeck 1962---The Grapes of Wrath 1940
8.) Saul Bellow 1976---Humbolt's Gift 1976
9.) Toni Morrison 1993---Beloved 1988

Pulitzer
10.) The Executioner's Song---Norman Mailer---1980
11.) Lonesome Dove---Larry McMurty---1986
12.) The Road---Cormac McCarthy---2007
13.) To Kill a Mockingbird---Harper Lee---1961
14.) Gone With the Wind---Margaret Mitchell---1937
15.) The Known World---Edward P Jones---2004
16.) Gilead---Marilynne Robinson---2005
17.) Middlesex---Jeffrey Eugenides---2003

Gone With the Wind

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

1937 Pulitzer Prize

Gone With the Wind is a story of the Civil War and it's effect on Southern culture through the eyes of Scarlett O'Hara. Scarlett is a spoiled, self-centered, shameless 16 year old when the war begins. She's in love with Ashley Wilkes who plans to marry his cousin Melanie. So Scarlett marries Melanie's brother, Charles Hamilton, to make Ashley jealous. But the war begins and Charles is soon killed. She has a son now that she doesn't want. And she has to be "in mourning" in proper Southern society. Used to being the belle of the ball, she finds this very difficult.

The war hits Georgia hard. The book details the hardships of an army who has no government footing the bills for arms or provisions. They have to take what they need from the communities they pass through, leaving the citizens with nothing. The rich are reduced to paupers.

I've never paid alot of attention to Gone With the Wind. I want to read all the books my book club read before I joined. So when I joined the BookAwardsChallenge I found out this one won a Pulitzer. I have to admit I dreaded it. But I was surprised at how much I liked it. It is an amazing book. Everyone should read it.

Up a Road Slowly

Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt

1967 Newberry Medal Winner


Up a Road Slowly follows Julie Trelling from the ages of 7 to 17. The book opens immediately after her mother's death. During a hysterical outburst Julie is sedated and wakes up to find herself moved into her spinster aunt's home where she spends the next ten years. The book has no major plot, just a simple story of a girl growing up. It follows her through childhood pettiness, adolescent jealousies and burgeoning adulthood.

This was another of my favorites when I was a child.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

1968 Newbery Medal

Claudia is a 12 year old girl who decides to run away from home. Being the careful planner she is, she decides to invite her 9 year old brother Jamie along. Jamie is a miser. So Claudia knows he can bring some much needed funds along. And Jamie agrees because he feels a sense of pride on being the one Claudia invites.

So the two head to New York. Claudia's plan is to live a t the Metropolitan Museum of Art until her parents learn to appreciate her. The two sneak around and hide for a few days and then Claudia sees the statue. She calls it her angel and begins a quest to prove it was sculpted by Michelangelo. Along the way she decides to visit the old woman who donated it to the museum, Mrs. Frankweiler.

Claudia is on a quest to feel special. Such a secret will do this for her.

I read this book when I was a child. It was one of my favorites growing up.

Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

1930 Nobel Prize for Literature
1926 Pulitzer (declined)

Martin Arrowsmith is an aspiring biologist. He's very serious about his work but he can't seem to get to it. First he marries and has to practice medicine so he can afford a wife. When that doesn't work out he moves to a larger town to become a public health officer. After that he gets on at a top-notch reasearch facility. But Arrowsmith's problem is that he doesn't know how to play the game. Everything from small town gossip to big town politics to big city jealousies get in his way.

This was an enjoyable book. It had no big ideas. Just a small one--sometimes there's no particular cause for failure.

Life of Pi

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Piscine Molitor Patel decides his name will be Pi once his classmates begin to pronounce his name as pissing. He is not quiet so decisive when it comes to choosing a religion. He is a practicing Hindu, Christian and Muslim by the age of 16. He's a very likable boy.

His father owns a zoo. But politics cause him to uproot his family to take them to America. On the way the ship sinks. Pi had gone investigating in the middle of the night and wound up in a lifeboat by himself for a while. But it's not long before he is joined by a few fleeing animals. But very shortly the tiger has made meals out of the others. Now Pi must fight for survival not only against the ocean, but also against the tiger.

Life of Pi is a delightful book. Pi uses his fathers teaching along with his religious views to make sense of his situation. He sees God in everything and it helps keep his spirit up while he waits for rescue.

Humboldt's Gift

Humboldt's Gift
Saul Bellow 1976 Nobel Laureate

1976 Pulitzer Prize

Charles Citrine is a young man who loves literature. He sets off to New York City and meets the great poet Von Humboldt Fleisher. But in the early 20th century the fate of poetry is bleak. Humboldt's gifts are no longer being appreciated. But Charlie has success writing for the stage and the cinema. Humboldt thinks he has sold out his art.

After Humboldt's death, Charlie learns Humboldt has left him something in his will. The book is set in a four month time frame, but while Charlie tries to retrieve his legacy he reminisces about the past and the paths he and Humboldt took.

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

1940 Pulitzer Prize

The Great Plains were hit with major dust storms during the early 1930's. The Dust Bowl was caused by drought and farm mismanagement. Combined with the beginning of the Great Depression, farming families were unable to hold onto their land. Around 500,000 people were forced to leave their homes and go in search of work. The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joad family as they try to find a new place for themselves.

As the book opens, Tom Joad has just been released from prison for killing a man in a bar fight. He returns to his family's farm to find everyone gone. A passing neighbor tells him the family is at Uncle John's but will soon be leaving. Handbills advertising for pickers for California fruit have been distributed and people are heading west.

So after selling what they can't talk with them, the Joad family goes west. Thirteen people, 1 dog and everything they have left on one truck. But once on the road they find people from everywhere are doing the same. And some are returning because there are too many people and not enough jobs. Giant farm conglomerates are paying slave wages. They've built company stores with exorbitant prices. They have the police arresting anyone who even whispers "union". And if a profit can't be made, crops are destroyed rather than giving them to the starving migrants.

Steibeck tells the story of one family trying to survive. But he also writes sections about the era in general. These help explain how conditions got so bad and what should have been dome to ease the hardships the migrants faced.

I loved this book. It was incredible. Of Mice and Men is my favorite book. Looks like I'm destined to be a Steinbeck fan.

Beloved

Beloved by Toni Morrison
1988 Pulitzer Prize

Sethe is a former slave who escaped with her children to her mother-in-law's home in Ohio. Shortly after arriving, slave hunters track them down. Sethe performs a desperate act to protect her children from slavery.

Years later, Sethe's sons have run away, her mother-in-law has died and the town has ostracized Sethe and her remaining daughter Denver. And there's a ghost in the house. A former fellow slave shows up. Sethe hasn't seen Paul D. since she left the plantation but the two decide to try to build a life together. But coming home from a carnival one day, they find the mysterious Beloved sleeping in their yard. And Beloved slowly begins to control the household.

"Beloved" is a story about ghosts. Ghosts in the house, ghosts in the soul and ghosts of the past.

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

1997 National Book Award

Set during the Civil War, Cold Mountain tells the story of Inman, Ada and Ruby. Inman is a soldier. After being severly wounded in battle, he practically has to heal himself. No one thinks he'll live so they din't waste their time on him. While at the hospital, he decides he's had enough and packs up and walks home. Meanwhile Ada has lost her father and is trying to live on the farm, but she has no clue about how to survive on her own. She's been raised and educated to be a city lady and cannot fend for herself. So along comes Ruby, a backwoods girl whose father left her to raise herself mostly.

The book tells the story of the journeys the three make, either physically or emotional. It's a calm, slow story about people and survival.

Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

1986 Pulitzer Prize Winner

"Lonesome Dove" is the story of a cattle drive. Former Texas Rangers Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae run a small cattle outfit in south Texas when an old riding friend shows up. Jake Spoon puts the seed of ambition in Captain Call's head when he begins talking about Montana. Call decides he wants to build the first cattle ranch in what is still the wild west.

So, the Hat Creek Cattle Company set off on a 3,000 mile cattle drive. There's thunderstorms, dust storms, snow storms and a grasshopper storm. They meet old enemies and an old girlfriend. And plenty of rivers to get across.

This is my favorite book. It's truely amazing.

The Good Earth

The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck

Wang Lung is an extremely poor farmer in pre-revolutionary China. The book opens on his wedding day to a slave girl.

Wang Lung has a deep love for the land he works. But drought brings on famine and Wang Lung must take his family to the city to find work and food. But riots send them back home again.

This is a story about the ups and downs of one man. "The Good Earth" tells of Wang Lungs hard times and his good times and how he changes with each.

Middlesex

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

"Middlesex" is the story of a family. From the grandparents' early life in Asia Minor to the sexually misidentified Cal/Callie born in Detroit. The grandparents were siblings who fell in love. After fleeing a war, they moved to Detroit where a cousin lived. Free of the people who knew them, they married. The cousin had secrets of her own and kept theirs.

Because of a genetic defect, Cal/Callie is intersexed and must figure out which sex is the best fit.

The Echo Maker

The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
2006 National Book Award Winner

The title comes from the Cherokee name for the birds, echo makers, calling to each other across millenia, answering to just the instinctive recognition that Mark Schluter lacks....From Guardian Unlimited

Karin Schluter returns to Kearney, Nebraska to care for her brother Mark who had a rollover accident. Severe brain damage has left him with Capgras syndrome. This condition causes a person to physically recognize another person, but there is no emotional recognition. The victim feels there is something "not quite right"; the person is an imposter.

"The Echo Maker" explores identity. Does memory make you who you are? Are we who we think we are or who others think we are? What makes us us? Time Magazine had a cover story on consciousness early this year that reported on the brain and the efforts scientists are making to determine what "I" means. "The Echo Maker" does the same thing from the emotional angle.

The Executioner's Song

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1980 Pulitzer Prize

Gary Gilmore was the first man executed after the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 11976. After committing two murders, he was sentanced to death. He then refused to appeal and demanded his sentance be carried out.

Gilmore had been defiant from a very young age. He was sent to reform schoolo at the age of 14. In 1976, after 13 years in prison, he was released and went to live with a cousin in Utah. But after so long in prison he was unable to adapt to life outside. He had a mean streak and was argumentative. He fought everyone. If he wanted beer, he's simply go into a store and take it. Finally on a quest to obtain a pick-up truck, he resorted to robbery...and murder.

"The Executioner's Song" is classified as a narrative nonfiction novel. The true story is compied from interviews from anyone who crossed paths with Gilmore in the nine months from his realease until his execution. It's a big book...1050 pages, but it's an easy read. Even with all the detail the legalities are written in layman's terms. You get a feel for the way Gilmore and his circle lived. And you understand why Gilmore would insist on his execution.

The Plague

"The Plague" by Albert Camus
1957 Nobel Prize Winner For Literature

The plague strikes Oran, in western Algeria, in the 1940's. Oran is a brown,dusty dismal city. Life is dull and predictable. It has no gardens or pigeons. It is baking hot in the summer and muddy in the winter. But on April 16th, with spring in the air, the rats begin to die. The first human dies on April 30th.

The local government is slow to react. Reality is only faced when the death toll hits 30 a day. The city is closed. The port is shut down. Gas, food and electricity are rationed. People are forced to stay where they are. Visitors cannot leave and residents cannot return home.

"The Plague" explores the emotional turmoil of the citizens, collectively and individually. People are slow to face the reality of the situation. Even with the death toll steadily increasing, they go about their daily life. The go to work. The congregate at cafes, bars and cinemas. And the mood swings from disbelief to panic. They go through a period of extravagance. Despair sets in for a while and eventually with time indifference sets in.

This is a book well worth reading. It's a calm, objective view of the ways in which the human race deals with what life throws at it.

To Kill a Mockingbird

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
1961 Pulitzer Prize Winner

Scout is a young tomboy growing up with a single father and big brother Jem in a small Alabama town. The children spend their days outside playing and are soon joined by a neighbors young relative, Dill. The three are fascinated with a recluse in a neighboring house and spend their time trying to bet the shy Boo Radley to show himself.

Scout and Jem's father is a local attorney assigned with the defense of Tom Robinson, a local black man accused of raping a white woman. The book is set in 1935 when such a crime was punishable by death.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is about a child trying to figure out the world around her. Her father is patiently trying to teach his children about prejudice and hatred and how all people deserve respect. It's a deceivingly simple book that covers very complex issues from a child's point of view.

Gilead

I believe I'll make an experiment with candor here.

"Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson

John Ames is a 77 year old preacher living in Gilead, Iowa. He's dying from heart disease. Forty years after the death of his first wife, he has remarried and now has a 7 year old son. This book is written to his son as a way to pass on everything Rev. Ames wanted to be able to tell his son. Things like family history, the need for love and God in everyday life, and who he is himself.

"Gilead" is a calm, thoughtful book, not to be rushed. It covers the history of a town and a family during the abolitionist movement before the Civil War. It hits on John Ames' views on religion. It explores the relationship between fathers and sons.

John Ames tell the story of the world he lived in with a courage and honesty seldom seen. He's not afraid to see himself as he is, not as he should have been.

The Known World

"The Known World" by Edward P. Jones
2004 Pulitzer Prize

"The Known World" tells the story of the people of Manchester County, Virginia during the 1850's. The novel is focused on Henry Townsend a farmer and former slave. After Henry buys his freedom, he gets his own farm---and begins buying his own slaves to work it. Henry is dying and he's worried his wife, Caldonia, won't be able to keep order on the farm. The book explores slavery from many different viewpoints: The white man who thinks slavery is the answer to economic issues, the slave who wants freedom, and the black man who resorts to slavery because that's the way the world is.

This was an amazing book. Jones' writing style flowed from past to future to present. And it was easy to keep up with who was who, which is incredible since the character list contains 40 people. Jones would drop in tidbits about something that happened 20 years ago or something that would happen in 60. I was left with a sense of the lives of all the characters beyond the book. I'm keeping my copy for rereading someday.

The Remains of the Day

"The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro
1989 Booker Prize

Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day.

Mr. Stevens has been the perfect butler for 4 decades. He believes he serves humanity by serving a "great" English gentleman. But at the end of WWII his world is changing. After 35 years serving Lord Darlington, the estate has been bought by an American. Mr. Farraday foots the bill for Mr. Stevens to take a road trip. Mr. Stevens plans to look up the housekeeper who left service to get married 20 years ago. On this trip Mr. Stevens reflects back on his life.

Hindsight is 20/20. Mr. Stevens begins to realize his employer may not have been the "great" man he saw as the events of WWII were unfolding.

Mr. Stevens is a fascinating character. Over his career his determination to be a great butler has molded his character to the point where that is all he is. His dedication to duty has prevented him from seeing what his employer was doing, pursuing a woman or even exploring life outside the estate gates. And he never developed the ability to communicate on a purely personal level.

I loved this book. It's a new entry on my list of all-time favorites.