"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

My National Book Award Project

Today as I was investigating The National Book Award webpage and realized how many of these award books I've read and how many I want to read. This caused me to decide to attempt to read at least two of the winning books per year.

Up until last year four awards were given: Fiction; Nonfiction; Poetry; Young People's Literature. In 2018 one more award was started: Translated Literature.

To not completely overwhelm myself I decided to attempt this project for the past ten years only and I will try to read two of the four/five books. On the photos below I've made notes of the books I've already read and have already planned on reading.

 








































































































































































Goal: Read two per award year. Looking over the list, it looks like I have nine books left to go. Not a bad start! Since I am making up the rules, I may opt to read a finalist if the winning books don't interest me. I am excited to get started. First up, I want to check out a few of the poetry collections.




8 comments:

  1. This is a great plan!!!! I started reading all the Pulitzer Prize winners (fiction/novels) years ago and then stopped. Now that I see your plan, I'm thinking it might help me to set smaller goals. Instead of my original "I'm going to read all the Pulitzer Prize Winners" it would definitely help to narrow it down to one or two per year!!! So simple, yet it never occurred to me. Thank you and good luck on your project!

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    1. I, too, attempt to read the Pulitzers but only the literature, not the nonfiction and the journalistic choices. I decided to attempt this challenge because I really like all the National Book Award books I've read. So that tells me that the others should be good, too.

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  2. We read some of those in Book Club! Roundhouse is one of my favorites.

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    1. Mine, too. I loved Round House and it's partner book, LaRose. Erdrich is mentioned in our upcoming book There There There.

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  3. The Poet X, The Round House, and Claudette Colvin are all fantastic.

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    1. I have enjoyed everything I've read by Phillip Hoose so I am sure I will like the Claudette Colvin book. The other two are very good. The Round House is a favorite.

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  4. Well, I'm pleased to say I've read one from almost every year. I am surprised as I often don't pay attention to the National Book Award. Well, that's not true. I pay attention, think I won't read the books, then do after the fact. :-) Good luck with your goal of reading two from each year.

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    1. We often find ourselves reading one of the National Book Award books in book club.

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