The Pulitzers Reading List

Update: Feb 25, 2019
Ha, just so you know, I didn't make it in a single year. It is 8 years later and I am finally updating the website. I will taking up this chore again in 2019. Stay tuned.....

The Goal

In a single year (2011) read the entire list of novels that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Why?

Why not? I read a lot anyway. I typically read 200-250 books a year, so this is really not a stretch. And I get to read some good books.

The List

Here is the official list of winners from the Pulitzer website.

The Best of the Best

For you folks out there who don't have the time to read all the books (And who would want to?), here is my top ten list.

1. The Old Man and the Sea (1953)
2. A Bell for Adano (1945)
3. Gone With the Wind (1937)
4. Laughing Boy (1930)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird (1961)
6. The Caine Mutiny (1952)
7. All the Kings Men (1947)
8. The Good Earth (1932)
9. Lonesome Dove (1986)
10. Killer Angels (1975)

(Editors Note (2024): Why isn't Steinbeck on the list?, well, because 'Of Mice and Men' was published in 1937 compteting with 'Gone With the Wind'. Steinbeck and Hemingway are fabulous writers with lousy timing on some their best books. Mark Twain? Well he dies in 1910 before the Pulitzers get started, but Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer would have made it into the top 5 of my list. Read them! Also of note, Irving Stone ('The Agony and the Ecstasy') loses against Harper Lee in 1961.

The Reviews

I read 'em so you don't have to. Below is a list of quick reviews of each book I read. If I didn't read the book, there is no link to a review (click on the year). Some books I just couldn't easily get ahold of. I may in the future do a library search for some of the missing ones.

The Hugos

How do the best fiction novels of the year stack up with the best science fiction novels of the year? Check it out here .

A Postscript

(Editors Note: this was originally written in in 2011, I left it in for historical amusement.)

You didn't really think that the list was all that I read this year? If nothing else, I am a voracious and onmivorous reader. I never keep track, but below is a sampling of other random things.

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson
• The Great Stink by Clair Clark
• Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman
• SD Specifications Part 1 Physical Layer Simplified Specification Version 2.00 by Technical Committee SD Card Association
• The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• KFD840 Software Design Requirements, Phase I by David English (I write too!)
• Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
• Murder at the ABA by Issac Asimov
• Startide Rising and the Uplift War by David Brin
• The first two John Rain books by Barry Eisler
• Building Embedded Linux Systems by Karim Yaghmour, etc.
• Drunkards Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
• At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen

The Pulitzers Reading List