Book Awards Reading Challenge

Before you even start reading this I'm going to let you know that I'm still thinking WHAT?!?! about this book, I finished it an hour ago and have read what a few of the papers had to say about it.
Gould's Book of Fish is set in Tasmania, Australia. An 'antique' dealer (faker) finds this book in a junk shop and becomes obsessed with proving that it is geuine. The little book is described as containing paintings of fish, with dense script surrounding the images and trapped on scraps of paper tucked into the book, the handwriting is crabbed and a mix of colours as the writer has had to make ink from whatever he can find around him.
Up untill then everything is clear, then you get to actually read 'The Book of Fish'. Gould is a convict, imprisoned on the island. He is sent each day to work for one of the wealthy men of the island, a scientist who claims he wants to categorise the fish in the area, with a limited ability to paint Gould sets to work. We then hear Gould talkig about his paintings and his growing obsession with fish, as well as his afairs with a local black woman, the murder of aboriginies, and the treatment of the convicts among many things far more confusing.

A Fine Balance
Rohinton Mistry
603 pages

This beautiful novel, set in India in 1975, expores the notion of "fine balance" in several different dimensions: the fine balance of keeping people in their caste; the fine balance of prosperity vs. poverty; the fine balance between love and loss. There are four principal characters: Dina Dalal, a widow with unconventional views; Maneck, a college student; and Ishvar and Om, two tailors from a remote village. To achieve financial independence from her brother, Dina takes in Maneck as a boarder, and hires the tailors to run a clothing business. The tailors were the most fascinating characters in this novel. Their chosen profession did not come without some cost to their family: What the ages had put together, Dukhi had dared to break asunder; he had turned cobblers into tailors, distorting society's timeless balance. Crossing the line of caste had to be punished with the utmost severity...(p. 147) To make their way in the world, Ishvar and Om lived in severe poverty, and repeatedly overcame obstacles necessary for basic survival.

The caste differences were, at first, a barrier between Dina, Maneck, and the tailors. But as the four spent more and more time together in Dina's small flat, they came to appreciate one another. They provided both tangible and emotional support. Dina, in particular, found a way out of the loneliness that had plagued her since becoming a widow. The deep relationships between the characters were uplifting, and formed their own "fine balance" against the many sad and depressing scenes in this book.

I loved the structure of this novel. It begins with a prologue, that shows how the characters come to know one another. Then Mistry takes the reader deep into the lives of each character, beginning with Dina, exploring her childhood and marriage. Mistry vividly describes Maneck's parents and the rural setting of his childhood. A full understanding of the tailors comes by going back a full generation to reveal their parents' life and values. Mistry relates each character's story up to the point where their lives intersect, sometimes presenting the same events from different points of view.

A Fine Balance is a must-read! ( )

My original review can be found here.

The Secret River
By Kate Grenville
Completed October 19, 2008

The Secret River by Kate Grenville, for me, was a meandering story, winding its way slowly but steadily into a tale of sad success. Will Thornhill, convicted for stealing in England, was sent to Australia with his wife and children to serve out his sentence. Will was a river man and saw the openness of Australia as a way to make a good living –a place where he can be free in every sense of the word.

After serving his sentence, Will claimed 100 acres and settled his family along a riverbank occupied by fellow Brits and (understandably) inhospitable natives. His wife, Sal, a strong-willed, sensible woman agreed to this settlement with a promise that they would return to London in five years. But in Will’s heart, he knew that his 100 acres was the only way to carve a living that would provide for his family without the English societal restraints.

Grenville’s account of the struggles between the colonists and aboriginal people was eye-opening and compelling. In a modern context, we know what happened of this struggle, but it was mesmerizing and suspenseful to see this story play out in an early 19th century setting.

Grenville has an easy writing style and her ability to draw her characters is superb. My only complaint about The Secret River was that it started too slowly for me. I say this with a grain of salt – there was a lot going on in my life when I started this book, which may have ruined my focus. For me, the second half of the book, when Will and his family settled on to their land, was exhilarating and gripping. The ending left me with a sense of sadness that reminded me that colonialism and the greed of a country can leave people heart-broken, even if they seem successful on paper.

This is my first Kate Grenville book but certainly not my last. I would recommend The Secret River to readers who enjoy quality literary and historical fiction. ( )

They call this Broken Bay, Blackwood said. River comes in yonder. He pointed ahead, where Thornhill could see only confusing stretches of water and thickly forested headlands. Best hidden river in the world, Blackwood said with satisfaction. Never find your way in nor you’d been shown like I’m showing you.

Looking inland, where gusts of wind scraped at the water, Thornhill strained to find that secret river. -From The Secret River, page 100-

Kate Grenville’s novel The Secret River was short listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize and won the 2006 Commonwealth Prize. Once you’ve read this harrowing and gorgeously constructed story, you will understand why.

Set in the early part of the nineteenth century, the novel tells the story of William Thornhill - a boy born into poverty along London’s Thames River who learns to steal early on to ensure his survival. Illiterate and quick to anger, William must learn to sustain himself in the face of hunger and cold. He finds his strength as a waterman, paddling hard against the unforgiving waters of the Thames, and turns away from towering spaces of Christ Church.

It was a place with no charity in its grey stones for a boy with the seat out of his britches.

He could not understand any of it, knew only that God was as foreign as a fish. -From The Secret River, page 10-

Then one day, Will gets caught stealing lumber. After a short trial, he is found guilty and sent to a penal colony (along with his young wife Sal and their infant son) in New South Wales. This new land is as beautiful as it is foreign.

For every one of the years of his life, this bay had been here, filling its shape in the land. He had laboured like a mole, head down, in the darkness and dirt of London, and all the time this tree shifting its leathery leaves above him had been quietly breathing, quietly growing. -From The Secret River, page 80-

For William, the vast and unsettled landscape of New South Wales becomes a place where he believes his dreams may grow.

A chaos opened up inside of him, a confusion of wanting. No one had ever spoken to him of how a man might fall in love with a piece of ground. No one had ever spoken of how there could be this teasing sparkle and dance of light among the trees, this calm clean space that invited feet to enter it. -From The Secret River, page 106-

As Will and his ever increasing family begin to scrape out a space of their own along the secret river, there seems to be only one thing standing between Will and his dreams: the native people.

Grenville shows the wide gap between English and Aboriginal cultures…and the tremendous misunderstanding fueled by an inability to adequately communicate. Her prose is magnificent as she describes the land of Australia and gradually builds the tension between the characters, before bringing the novel to its inevitable and devastating conclusion. I was completely absorbed by this historical piece of work which is evocative, poetic and pulsing with the life of a time far in the past. It is a novel which explores the moral wilderness of a man in parallel with the physical wilderness of a new country. It is a story about choices, dreams and sacrifice. A pioneer tale which translates well in today’s environment of cultural divides and racial differences, The Secret River is a must read.

Highly recommended.

J.M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace explores the ideas of race, gender and generational differences. In simple, yet powerful prose, Coetzee develops his main character - a professor of communications named David Lurie - amid the social and political complexities of South Africa.

David Lurie is a middle aged man of questionable morality, whose passions lie with young women...girls, really. When he begins an affair with one of his students - the beautiful Melanie - David finds himself on the other side of a sexual harassment investigation. He retreats to his daughter Lucy's farm in the country where terror and unexpected violence unfold.

Throughout the novel, Coetzee intersperses the poetry of Byron, and the tangled life of this poet as he pursues a girl much younger than himself. David Lurie's desire to write an opera about Byron and his lover is largely symbolic of David's own struggle within himself.


In fact, the novel's largest theme seems to be about the confusing nature of language - filled with misunderstanding, second meaning, and the breakdown of communication - specifically that between the sexes, the generations, and the races. It is clear throughout the book that David's perceptions, as a man, are different from Lucy's (or Melanie's) female perceptions; and that David's understanding of African culture as a white man, are different from the black Petrus (who lives on Lucy's land). David's struggles to communicate and connect with his daughter are fraught with misunderstanding.

Coetzee won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003 - and it is easy to see why after reading Disgrace. His style is spare and shocking, and the novel is not one that a reader can put down and forget.

Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5.

I loved this book. Again, it was a quick read, which I seem to be getting a lot of lately, so I polished it off in 2 sittings.
The first thing I noticed when I started this book was that the first chapter appeared to be chapter 2. Hmmm. Did I get a bum copy? Doesn't look like a bum copy. The next chapter is 3, then 5, then 7. Oh, OK, prime numbers. Christopher Boone is writing a murder mystery, and he is an autistic savant living in Swindon, England, and loves 'maths'. He finds great comfort in numbers and the way they work...it helps him to cope with the rest of the world, which he definitely doesn't understand. He doesn't understand emotions, or people's emotions and facial expressions. He likes maths and science and animals. The book starts with Christopher discovering the still-warm body of a neighbor's dog on her lawn, speared by a garden fork. Christopher liked the dog, and resolves to find out who the killer is, and to write a book detailing his quest. So he does what any good detective would do...he starts asking questions. His questions lead him on a journey where he discovers not only who killed the dog, but also some secrets that throw his world into a spiral that ends with him stretching amazingly outside of his comfort zone.

What I liked best about the book, I think, was Christopher's 'voice'. I liked how he detailed the rules that help him get through life, the rules that can help him to ground himself and make him feel safe when the world is somewhat out of control.

Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks. He said that I was clearly a very logical person, so he was surprised that I should think like this because it wasn't very logical.

I said that I liked things to be in a nice order. And one way of things being in a nice order was to be logical. Especially if those things were numbers or an argument. But there were other ways of putting things in a nice order. And that was why I had Good Days and Black Days. And I said that some people who worked in an office came out of their house in the morning and saw that the sun was shining and it make them feel happy, or they saw that it was raining and it made them feel sad, but the only difference was the weather and if they worked in an office the weather didn't have anything to do with whether they had a good day or a bad day.

About 1/3 of the way into the book, Christopher makes a discovery that throws him for a huge loop, and from that point on, I couldn't put the book down. I had to know what was going to happen, where the book was going with this, was he going to be able to cope with the new reality in which he found himself, seeing as how 4 yellow cars in a row could make him stop eating and communicating, and he was unable to stand being touched by anyone, even family.

I liked this book a lot, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I am looking forward to future novels from this author. This book was Mark Haddon's debut novel (though he's written childrens books before), and what a debut...it won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year, and the 2004 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book. I read it for the Book Awards Reading Challenge.

~In an odd moment of synchronicity, Christopher likes to watch his Blue Planet video...and, the same day I read about him watching Blue Planet, and he described which episode he was watching, Maya was watching TV, and started watching that very same episode. She rarely watches Blue Planet, doesn't have the DVD or anything, so it was indeed coincidence. She was excited, because it was talking about underwater mountains and volcanoes that she has studied in her Earth Science class, and I was excited because Christopher had talked about these same mountains and volcanoes in my book. Groovy, huh?

I loved this book. It was a quick read, which I seem to be getting a lot of lately, so I polished it off in 2 sittings.

The first thing I noticed when I started this book was that the first chapter appeared to be chapter 2. Hmmm. Did I get a bum copy? Doesn't look like a bum copy. The next chapter is 3, then 5, then 7. Oh, OK, prime numbers. Christopher Boone is writing a murder mystery, and he is an autistic savant, and loves 'maths'. He finds great comfort in numbers and the way they work...it helps him to cope with the rest of the world, which he definitely doesn't understand. He doesn't understand emotions, or people's emotions and facial expressions. He likes maths and science and animals. The book starts with Christopher discovering the just murdered body of a neighbor's dog on her lawn. Christopher liked the dog, and resolves to find out who the killer is, and to write a book detailing his quest. So he does what any good detective would do...he starts asking questions. His questions lead him on a journey where he discovers not only who killed the dog, but also some secrets that throw his world into a spiral that ends with him stretching amazingly outside of his comfort zone.

What I liked best about the book, I think, was Christopher's 'voice'. I liked how he detailed the rules that help him get through life, the rules that can help him to ground himself and make him feel safe when the world is somewhat out of control.

Mr. Jeavons, the psychologist at the school, once asked me why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, and 3 red cars in a row made it a Quite Good Day, and 5 red cars in a row made it a Super Good Day, and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks. He said that I was clearly a very logical person, so he was surprised that I should think like this because it wasn't very logical.

I said that I liked things to be in a nice order. And one way of things being in a nice order was to be logical. Especially if those things were numbers or an argument. But there were other ways of putting things in a nice order. And that was why I had Good Days and Black Days. And I said that some people who worked in an office came out of their house in the morning and saw that the sun was shining and it make them feel happy, or they saw that it was raining and it made them feel sad, but the only difference was the weather and if they worked in an office the weather didn't have anything to do with whether they had a good day or a bad day.

About 1/3 of the way into the book, Christopher makes a discovery that throws him for a huge loop, and from that point on, I couldn't put the book down. I had to know what was going to happen, where the book was going with this, was he going to be able to cope with the new reality in which he found himself, seeing as how 4 yellow cars in a row could make him stop eating and communicating, and he was unable to stand being touched by anyone, even family.

I liked this book a lot, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I am looking forward to future novels from this author. This book was Mark Haddon's debut novel, and what a debut...it won the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year, and the 2004 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book.

This challenge intrigued me from the first moment I saw it...and I joined immediately...I knew that this challenge would stretch me to read some books I wouldn't normally pick up...

I've selected eight that I'm for sure going to read...ones that I probably would have picked up...and then another eight that I'm interested in reading...but I probably wouldn't have picked up...and I'll select my final four from this list depending on what I'm in the mood for when the time comes...

here are the 8 definites...

• Unashamed by Francine Rivers (Christy 2001)


• Arena by Karen Hancock (Christy 2003)


• Songbird by Lisa Samson (Christy 2004)


• Whence Came a Prince by Liz Curtis Higgs (Christy 2006)


• Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski (Newbery 1946)


• The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois (Newbery 1948)


• The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli (Newbery 1950)


• Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes (Newbery 1952)

here are the 8 alternates...

• The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Pulitzer 1939)


• Lonesome Dove by Larry McCurtry (Pulitzer 1986)


• The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Pulitzer 1983, National Book Award 1983)


• Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (Commonwealth Writers' Prize 1995)


• Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann (Nobel 1929)


• Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (Nobel 1929)


• something by Rudyard Kipling (Nobel 1907)


• something by Ernest Hemingway (Nobel 1954)


• something by John Steinbeck (Nobel 1962)

I haven't read any of these books...so I'm really looking forward to this challenge...thanks, 3M!

blessings, mamabright :-)

Hello! My Blog is The Little Book Room. Here are my books:

1. The New Life, by Orhan Pamok (Nobel Prize - Turkey)
2. Hunger, by Knut Hamsun (Nobel Prize - Norway)
3. Kristin Lavransdatter I: The Wreath, by Sigrid Undset (Nobel Prize - Norway)
4. The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass (Nobel Prize - Germany)
5. Women as Lovers, by Elfriede Jelinek (Nobel Prize - Austria)
6. Omeros, by Derek Walcott (Nobel Prize - Saint Lucia)
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison (Pulitzer, Nobel Prize - United States)
8. The Secret River, by Kate Grenville (Commonwealth Writers' Prize)
9. Midnight's Children, Salmon Rushdie (Booker of Bookers)
10. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (2007 Book Sense, Children's Lit)
11. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (Pulitzer Prize)
12. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (Pulitzer Prize)
    

Many of these books I had already been meaning to read. It may be subject to change as whim takes me. I wondered about including more Nobel Prize winners - but many of them looked very depressing. I thought I'd give Women as Lovers a go as it's set in a remote Austrian village, something I'm quite familiar with. If I like The Wreath I'll probably read the rest of the trilogy.

Prize winning books previously read in 2007

• The Hours, by Michael Cunningham (Pulitzer Prize)
  
• Disgrace, by J. M. Coetzee (Booker, Nobel Prize)
  
• Randolph Stow novels (these have won a variety of Australian prizes)
  

I'm Pamela and can be found at http://paigesbookblog.blogspot.com/

My list for the challenge is:

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - 1997 Pulitzer (Biography/Autobiography)
B is for Burglar by Sue Grafton - 1986 Anthony
The Black Echo by Michael Connelly - 1992 Edgar Award (First Novel)
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak - 2007 Book Sense (Children's Lit)
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen - 2001 National Book Award
Eldest by Christopher Paolini - 2006 Quill Awards (Young Adult/Teen)
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald - 1997 Commonwealth Writers (First Book)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - 2007 Pulitzer (Fiction)
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry - 1990 Newbery Award
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - 1962 Nobel Prize
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky - 2004 Prix Renaudot
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - 2007 Alex Award

Hello, I'm Athena of aquatique.net. Joining reading challenges seem to be a new habit of mine. I really look forward to the book discussions and making my own lists. These are the books I've already read over the years. Most of these books I've liked. Feel free to ask about any of them.

Booker Prize:
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (also a Governor General's Award winner)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

British Book Award:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by by Lynne Truss
Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Commonwealth Writers Prize:
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

Costa (Whitbread) Book Awards:
The Amber Spyglass (HDM Book 3) by Philip Pullman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Giller Prize:
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Governor General's Award:
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Hugo Award:
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (also a Nebula)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Dune by Frank Herbert (also a Nebula)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

National Book Award:
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (also Pulitzer)

Newbery Medal Award:
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The High King by Lloyd Alexander
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman
Holes by Louis Sachar

Nobel:
Herman Hesse - Siddhartha
Albert Camus - The Stranger
John Steinbeck - East of Eden, Grapes of Wrapth, Of Mice and Men
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and couple of others.
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Jose Saramgo - Blindness, The Cave

PEN/Faulkner:
The Hours by Michael Cunningham (also a Pulitzer)

Pulitzer Prize:
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I've been using Lists of Bests for a couple years, which has allowed me to easily keep track of relevant lists and books I've read (and can compare with others). They have all the lists in the challenge, and I've tagged them BARC. Hope this tool helps anyone else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Commonwealth_Writers_prizes#Commonwealth_Writers.27_Prize:_Best_Book_.281987-2011.29

1987 - Olive Senior, Summer Lightning
1988 - Festus Iyayi, Heroes
1989 - Janet Frame, The Carpathians
1990 - Mordecai Richler, Solomon Gursky Was Here
1991 - David Malouf, The Great World
1992 - Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey
1993 - Alex Miller, The Ancestor Game
1994 - Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
1995 - Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin
1996 - Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
1997 - Earl Lovelace, Salt
1998 - Peter Carey, Jack Maggs
1999 - Murray Bail, Eucalyptus
2000 - John Maxwell Coetzee, Disgrace
2001 - Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang
2002 - Richard Flanagan, Gould's Book of Fish
2003 - Austin Clarke, The Polished Hoe
2004 - Caryl Phillips, A Distant Shore
2005 - Andrea Levy, Small Island
2006 - Kate Grenville, The Secret River
2007 - Lloyd Jones, Mr. Pip
2008 - Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes (U.S. title: Someone Knows My Name)
2009 - The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas
2010 - Solo by Rana Dasgupta
2011 - The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna