18. Read a book that has won an award

[Martha]

Listopia:
Man Booker Winnners
Pulitzer Fiction Winners
Goodreads Choice Awards
National Book Award Winners
Women's Prize of Fiction Winners

Some Examples
A Brief History of Seven Killings - Man Booker 2015
Life of Pi - Man Booker 2002
The God of Small Things - Man Booker 1997
The Remains of the Day - Man Booker 1989
Midnight's Children - Man Booker - 1981
The Color Purple - Pulitzer & National Book Award 1983
The Hours - Pulitzer 1999
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Pulitzer 2008
All the Light We Cannot See - Pulitzer 2015
How to Be Both - Women's Prize for Fiction 2013
The Tiger's Wife - Orange Women's Prize for Fiction 2011
Half of a Yellow Sun - Orange Women's Prize for Fiction 2007
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Orange Women's Prize for Fiction 2005
The Girl on the Train - Goodreads Choice 2015
Why Not Me? - Goodreads Choice 2015
Modern Romance - Goodreads Choice 2015
Red Queen - Goodreads Choice 2015
All the Bright Places - Goodreads Choice 2015
The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories - Goodreads Choice 2014
Yes Please - Goodreads Choice 2014
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - Goodreads Choice 2012
Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal - Goodreads Choice 2011
Just Kids - National Book Award 2010

Discussion Prompts
- What did you / will you read for this task? What did you think?
- Does being an award winner encourage you to try a book?
- Are there any books that you think were overlooked by awards committees? Why do you think they deserved an award?

[Martha]

For this task I read Northern Lights, winner of the 1995 Carnegie Award. I liked it a lot!

I'll admit, I didn't read this book because it was an award winner, I wanted to read it anyway! However, I sometimes use awards lists as a way of finding new book recommendations - if it's won an award there must be something good about it right? Plus sometimes I just want to pretend I'm cultured...

I can't think of any books that have been overlooked (I probably had one in mind when I wrote this prompt and have subsequently forgotten it...), but obviously it can be quite difficult when there are so many books out there. I would like to see more variety in the books that are represented - you often get classic biases that favour white authors, or sometimes male authors (at least for the "serious" awards) etc. etc., so I imagine there are a shed load of amazing books that have been overlooked because of that.