Setting Goals: A Foolish Example

Much of what I choose to read is dependant on prior experience, a friend’s recommendation, reviews/hype and sometimes, I admit, simply a cover that takes my fancy. And I’ve always considered that for a book to have been awarded a prestigious prize, as good a reason as any to read it. The Mann Booker Prize is the book prize that I am probably most partial to. I am not too sure why, perhaps because Australians have a fighting chance of winning it, and I’m always keen to support local talent (this is where I break into a bad version of Peter Allen's 'I still call Australia Home').

So if I ever come across a Booker Prize winner, it is immediately added to the pile of books next to my bed (ie. ‘The Chosen Books’) And it has always taken my fancy that one day, I will have read them all. Which got me thinking of setting myself a challenge.

The Challenge:
To have read the entire Booker Prize Winner list by the end of 2007. Probably not a huge task, but seeing as I have no idea how time-consuming a baby will be, reading could become a thing of my past and the Challenge could be very steep indeed. Alternatively, having this task to accomplish could be the very thing to save me from the brink of insanity. We shall see.

So, I can’t quite fully grasp the size of the goal I am proposing. On the one hand I’ve already read a handful of them and I know that some (eg. The Sea, Amsterdam) will border on being novellas… But on the other hand, as we well know, Midnight’s Children took me the better part of a month to finish, so maybe it is a bigger concept than I realise. Hmmm… Oh well. Can only really throw myself in the deep-end really, and the worst that can happen is that I fail miserably. It’s not like people will die.


The Challenge Stats:
Total Number of Books :39 Books
Already Read: 12
Pending: 27

Revision: I read Oscar and Lucinda significantly earlier than the rest of those on the list (in the mid-nineties) and don’t think I had the mind to give it its proper dues. Seeing as I recently enjoyed True History of the Kelly Gang so much, Im going to give it another bash, and put it back on the Pending List for a re-read. And if I’m doing this, I really should re-read ‘The God of Small Things’ seeing as I read that back in 1997 and violently hated it (immaturity? We will see)

Revised Number of Books to read: 29

So there we have it. 29 books in 12 months. 2 a month. Should be easy-peasy really. So easy, im tempted to move the time frame to 6 months. But faced with the prospect of nothing BUT literature prize winners 6 month and the fact I have a number of Nick Hornby and Ben Elton books in the pile next to the bed, I will leave it at 12 months.



The Man Booker Prize:
Now in its thirty-eighth year, the prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The Man Booker judges are selected from the country’s finest critics, writers and academics to maintain the consistent excellence of the prize. In 1993 Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’ was judged to have been the 'Booker of Bookers', the best novel to have won the Booker Prize for Fiction in the award's 25-year history.

The Man Booker List:

2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
*Pending*
2005 The Sea by John Banville
*READ*
2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
*Pending*
2003 Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
*READ*
2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
*READ*
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
*READ*
2000 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
*READ*
1999 Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
*READ*
1998 Amsterdam: A Novel by Ian McEwan
*READ*
1997 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
*Pending*
1996 Last Orders by Graham Swift
*Pending*
1995 The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
*Pending*
1994 How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman
*Pending*
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
*READ*
1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (co-winner)
*Pending*
1992 Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (co-winner)
*Pending*
1991 The Famished Road by Ben Okri
*Pending*
1990 Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt
*READ*
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
*Pending*
1988 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
*Pending*
1987 Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
*Pending*
1986 The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
*Pending*
1985 The Bone People by Keri Hulme
*Pending*
1984 Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
*Pending*
1983 Life & Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee
*Pending*
1982 Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
*Pending*
1981 Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
*READ*
1980 Rites of Passage by William Golding
*Pending*
1979 Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
*Pending*
1978 The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
*Pending*
1977 Staying on by Paul Scott
*Pending*
1976 Saville by David Storey
*Pending*
1975 Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
*Pending*
1974 The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
*Pending*
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell
*Pending*
1972 G. by John Berger
*Pending*
1971 In a Free State by V. S. Naipaul
*Pending*
1970 The Elected Member by Bernice. Rubens
*Pending*
1969 Something to Answer For by P. H. Newby
*Pending*