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Literature
The Booker Prize

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Booker
Bad Sex Award
Pulitzers
British Book Awards
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Literary Awards

The Booker Prize

The Booker Group plc is the UK's largest food wholesaler. Originally founded in 1835, it was known in 1968 (when the prize was founded) as Booker–McConnell Ltd. John 'Jock' Campbell, who was its Chairman from 1952 to 1967, had founded an Author Division within the company, after purchasing 51 per cent of Glidrose Ltd, which owned the copyrights of his friend Ian Fleming. The Division later bought up the rights to the works of other well–known authors, including Denis Wheatley, and a 64% stake in those of Agatha Christie. Administration of the prize was transferred to an independent foundation in 2002, and from then until 2019 it was sponsored by the MAN Group plc, a London–based investment management company, and officially known as the MAN Booker Prize for Fiction. Since 2019 the prize has been sponsored by Crankstart, a charitable foundation run by the Welsh–born American venture capitalist and philanthropist Sir Michael Moritz, and known once again as the Booker Prize. Crankstart undertook to sponsor the prize for five years, with an option for a further five years.

Eligibility was originally limited to "citizens of" the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland, and Click to show or hide the answer

First awarded (as the Booker–McConnell Prize) Click to show or hide the answer
First winner Title Click to show or hide the answer
Author Click to show or hide the answer
Name changed to the Man Booker Prize for Fiction Click to show or hide the answer
Eligibility changed to any novel written in English Click to show or hide the answer

Youngest winner (2013 – aged 28) Click to show or hide the answer
Best–selling winner (2002) Click for more information Click to show or hide the answer

'Booker of Bookers' (2008)

The 'Best of the Booker' prize – commonly known as the Booker of Bookers – was awarded in 2008 to celebrate the prize's 40th anniversary. The winner was chosen by public vote from a shortlist of six. The other five shortlisted titles were the winners from 1973, 1974 (The Conservationist), 1988, 1995 and 1999.

Title Click to show or hide the answer
Author Click to show or hide the answer
Year of publication Click to show or hide the answer

'The Lost Man Booker Prize' (2010)

In the first two years of the Booker Prize – 1969 and 1970 – it was books published in the previous year that were eligible; from 1971 it was books published in the year of the award. This meant that books published in 1970 had never been eligible for a Booker prize. The Lost Booker Prize was awarded in 2010 to correct this anomaly. As with the Booker of Bookers, the winner was chosen by public vote from a shortlist of six.

Title Click to show or hide the answer
Author Click to show or hide the answer

Poignantly, the recipient of the Lost Booker Prize had died 31 years previously (see note below).

'Golden Man Booker' (2018)

The 'Golden Man Booker' prize was awarded in 2018 to celebrate the prize's 50th anniversary. The winner was chosen by public vote from a shortlist of five – one from each decade – which did not include any of the six books that had been shortlisted for the Booker of Bookers prize ten years earlier (see above). The other four shortlisted titles were the winners from 1971, 1987, 2009 and 2017.

Title Click to show or hide the answer
Author Click to show or hide the answer
Year of publication Click to show or hide the answer

Multiple winners

First person to win twice (South African – 1983 and 1999) Click to show or hide the answer
Second person to win twice (Australian – 1988 and 2001) Click to show or hide the answer
First woman, and the first British author, to win twice (2009, 2012) Click to show or hide the answer
Won in 1973, and won the so–called 'Lost Booker' prize in 2010 Click to show or hide the answer

All winners

Year Title   Author Nationality
2022 The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2021 The Promise M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2020 Shuggie Bain M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2019 Click for more information The Testaments F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
Girl, Woman, Other F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2018 Milkman F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2017 Lincoln in the Bardo M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2016 The Sellout M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2015 A Brief History of Seven Killings M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2014 The Narrow Road to the Deep North M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2013 The Luminaries F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2012 Bring Up the Bodies F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2011 The Sense of an Ending M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2010 The Finkler Question M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2009 Wolf Hall F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2008 The White Tiger M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2007 The Gathering F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2006 The Inheritance of Loss F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2005 The Sea M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2004 The Line of Beauty M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2003 Vernon God Little M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2002 Life of Pi M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2000 The Blind Assassin F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1999 Disgrace M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1998 Amsterdam M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1997 The God of Small Things F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1996 Last Orders M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1995 The Ghost Road F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1994 How Late it was, How Late M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1992 Sacred Hunger M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
The English Patient M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1991 The Famished Road M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1990 Possession F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1989 The Remains of the Day M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1988 Oscar and Lucinda M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1987 Moon Tiger F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1986 The Old Devils M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1985 The Bone People F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1984 Hotel du Lac F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1983 Life & Times of Michael K M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1982 Schindler's Ark M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1981 Midnight's Children M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1980 Rites of Passage M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1979 Offshore F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1978 The Sea, the Sea F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1977 Staying On M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1976 Saville M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1975 Heat and Dust F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1974 The Conservationist F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
Holiday M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1972 G M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1971 In a Free State M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1970 The Elected Member F Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1969 Something to Answer For M Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer

Bad Sex Award

The Literary Review is a British magazine, founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at Edinburgh University. It was edited from 1986 until his death in 2001 by the journalist Auberon Waugh – son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh, and a veteran of The Daily Telegraph and Private Eye.

What The Literary Review is most famous for (in quizzing circles, certainly, but also on Wikipedia) is its annual Bad Sex Award – introduced by Waugh in 1993, to highlight "poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction".

Selected winners:

First winner (1993), for A Time to Dance (British media giant, made a life peer in 1998) Click to show or hide the answer
1998: Charlotte Gray (best–selling British novelist, and a team captain on BBC Radio 4's literary quiz The Write Stuff) Click to show or hide the answer
1999: Starcrossed (controversial British journalist and critic) Click to show or hide the answer
2004: I Am Charlotte Simmons (author most famous for The Bonfire of the Vanities) Click to show or hide the answer
2005: Winkler (member of a famous English media dynasty) Click to show or hide the answer
2007: The Castle in the Forest (double Pulitzer winner, for The Executioner's Song and The Armies of the Night; also wrote The Naked and the Dead; unfortunately died 16 days before being announced as the winner – the judges were quoted as saying "We were sure he would have taken the prize in good humour") Click to show or hide the answer
2008: Lifetime Achievement Award (author of the acclaimed Rabbit series) Click to show or hide the answer
2014: The Age of Magic (1991 Booker winner with The Famished Road) Click to show or hide the answer
2015: List of the Lost ("1980s pop singer") Click to show or hide the answer

Pulitzer Prizes

Ivy League university that administers the Pulitzer Prize (after newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer left money to it in his will for the purpose) Click to show or hide the answer

1918: the source for Orson Welles's second film (after Citizen Kane) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1937: her only novel (and her only book, apart from juvenilia and newspaper articles published posthumously) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1939 novel: John Ford won the Best Director Oscar for the 1940 film version, which starred Henry Fonda Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1951: filmed in 1954, starring Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1957: short biographies of eight US senators who defied the opinions of their party and voters to do what they felt was right Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1983 novel: the 1985 film, directed by Steven Spielberg, was nominated for 11 Oscars but failed to win any Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1984 play: adapted by the playwright in 1994 for a film, which starred Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin as four real estate agents (1992) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1985 novel: a fictionalised account of a real–life (1868) cattle drive by Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving: made into a hugely successful and highly acclaimed 1989 TV miniseries, starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones as former Texas Rangers Augustus 'Gus' McCrae and Woodrow F. Call Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1996 memoir, which spawned two sequels: Alan Parker's 1999 film version starred Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1998: a novel by one of America's most respected authors; Ewan McGregor made his directorial debut with the film version, released in 2016 Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer

British Book Awards

The US National Book Awards were established in 1936, abandoned during World War II, and re–established in 1950. The UK versions were inaugurated in 1990. They are awarded by the UK publishing industry, and have appeared in various guises over the years. In 2016 they were rebranded as the British Book Industry Awards; the following year they were taken over by the Bookseller Magazine, and the word 'Industry' was dropped.

Sponsors of the British Book Awards like to refer to them as "the Nibbies".

A cynic might suggest that these awards are simply a bunfight for the publishing industry, celebrating the authors that have made them the most money over the year. But they also provide an excellent snapshot of Britain's favourite reading matter over the years – and that makes them a useful benchmark for the quizzer.

So here are the winners of the Book of the Year award, in all its various guises:

2023: a "groundbreaking book which discusses every aspect [of its subject] with candour, rigour and common sense" Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2022: a motivational self–help book for children, by "the nation's favourite footballer" Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2021: the previous year's Booker winner – "an uncompromising yet tender and warmly witty exploration of love, pride and poverty" Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2020: "a darkly comic and unflinchingly raw depiction of a young (black) woman trying to navigate her way in the world" (Amazon) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2019: "a spellbinding twenty–first–century love story" (TLS) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2018: "a funny and sad tale of a survivor who tackles the challenges of emotional reconnection with grave courage" (Sunday Express) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2017: "What seems to be a story about superstition and a strange prehistoric monster becomes an exposition of the Victorian world in microcosm" Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2016: an "eerie, suspenseful debut novel about two brothers hailed as a masterful excursion into terror" Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2014: the debut novel of a former actress, inspired by a real–life exhibit at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2013: a novel by the author of the comic book series The Sandman, whose early works included Good Omens, a collaboration with Terry Pratchett set at the time of the end of the world Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2012: a novel – the first in a trilogy that traces the deepening relationship between a female college graduate and a young male business magnate; the UK's fastest–selling paperback ever Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2011: a feminist memoir by a former music journalist and broadcaster Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2010: a novel that covers the lives of its two protagonists on St. Swithin's Day (15 July), each year for twenty years (each chapter covering one year) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2009: the story of the investigation into a real–life murder that helped to inspire the first English detective novel Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2008: a short novel, by the author who won the Booker Prize in 1998 for Amsterdam, set on and around the famous Dorset coastal feature that appears in the title Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2007: a retro–style "guidebook" aimed at boys "from eight to eighty", describing how to build a treehouse, grow a crystal, or tell direction with a watch (among lots of other things) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2006: the sixth and penultimate volume in a series of children's novels that also represents the summit of many an adult's literary ambitions, and was made into the second–highest–grossing film series ever Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2005: controversial mystery–detective novel, highly critical of the Catholic Church – the 2006 film adaptation grossed three quarters of a billion dollars Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2004: subtitled The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation; a lament for the neglect of punctuation in the English language, by a former Times journalist and BBC Radio 4 panel game host Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2003: subtitled … and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!; a highly critical appraisal of the policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations, and US government in general Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2002: a biography of her famous husband, by a New Zealand–born actress and clinical psychologist Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2001: the book that established the reputation of this former music journalist as a novelist Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
2000: the first in a seemingly endless series of autobiographies by "one of the greatest and most successful managers of all time" Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1999: a collection of poems by Britain's Poet Laureate, published just months before his death in 1998; widely considered to be his most explicit response to the suicide in 1963 of his estranged (and equally famous) wife, and to their widely discussed, politicised and "explosive" marriage Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1998: a 1996 novel that began in 1995 as an anonymous column in The Independent newspaper Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1997: the story of John Harrison, an 18th–century clockmaker who revolutionised the science of navigation, simply by creating a highly–accurate clock (chronometer); quite possibly the book that inspired the ending to Only Fools and Horses Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1996: the follow–up to How to Cook (Books One, Two and Three) Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1995: a memoir and a collection of essays by a multi–talented British author – probably best known for the series of television monologues Talking Heads and the play The Madness of George III Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer
1994: subtitled Three Women of China; a family history spanning a century, recounting the lives of the author's grandmother and her mother, then finally her own autobiography Click to show or hide the answer Click to show or hide the answer

Other Awards

Despite what you might expect, not all pub quizzers are great readers. Or if they are, they tend to have their specialist subjects. What they don't tend to read is the type of books that win awards – in which so–called 'literary fiction' is one genre that figures strongly. This is why book awards don't feature all that often in the pub quiz – or so, at least, it seems to me.

Apart from the Booker, and the very occasional mention of the other awards we've already looked at, the most you're likely to get asked is to identify an award from a brief description, or the type of book that a particular award is concerned with. So here's a selection.

One of Britain's earliest annual literary awards: established in 1919 by the philanthropist Alice Warrender (1857–1947); awarded to authors aged 40 or under, on the quality of their "imaginative literature" (either poetry or prose) Click to show or hide the answer
Founded in 1919 in memory of a partner in the publishing house of A & C Black Ltd, by his widow; awarded in three categories – Fiction, Biography and Drama Click to show or hide the answer
Founded in 1996: awarded annually to a female author, of any nationality, for the best original full–length novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom in the preceding year 1996–2012 Click to show or hide the answer
Since 2014 Click to show or hide the answer
Three annual awards for political writing (two prior to 2015), founded in 1993 by the political theorist Bernard Crick and administered by University College London; named after a prominent British political writer of the 20th century Click to show or hide the answer
Founded in 1999 based on an anonymous donation, and administered by the BBC: awarded for the best non–fiction writing in the English language and published in the UK; renamed in 2016 after its new sponsor, an Edinburgh–based investment management company 1999–2015 Click to show or hide the answer
Since 2016 Click to show or hide the answer
Awarded by the Society of Authors to the best writer or writers under the age of 35, to be spent on foreign travel; named after the English author who instituted it in 1947 Click to show or hide the answer
Prize for historical fiction, founded in 2010 by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleugh and named after a writer who was closely linked to their family Click to show or hide the answer
Founded in 1971: awarded for English–language books by writers based in Britain and Ireland, in five categories – Novel, First novel, Children's book, Poetry, Biology; given for readability as well as literary merit; the overall winner is chosen from the winners of the five categories 1971–2005 Click to show or hide the answer
Since 2006 Click to show or hide the answer
(UK) Sports Book of the Year award: founded in 1989, sponsored throughout its life to date by (bookmaker) Click to show or hide the answer

The Hugo awards (named after Hugo Gernsback, founder of the pioneering magazine Amazing Stories) are for Click to show or hide the answer

Came top in Waterstone's 1997 poll (in association with Channel 4) to find the public's choice as Book of the Century, and also in the BBC's Big Read (2003) Click to show or hide the answer

© Haydn Thompson 2017–23