May AwardsCAT -- Reporting on the Fantastic

The main award this month is the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. While focusing mainly on journalism, there are several awards given in the arts, including drama, history and fiction. Here's the link:

http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat

The genre award this month is The Kitschies which is presented by The Kraken Rum, reward the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic. The link is here:

http://www.thekitschies.com/#

I hope this combination has something for everyone, covering journalism, history, speculative fiction, literary fiction, drama and poetry. Have fun and let us all know what looks interesting, what you plan to read and what you end up reading.

Yippee! I have an excuse for tackling John Adams by David McCullough (Pulitzer Award for Biography 2002) !

I love the thread titles you keep coming up with!

I'm not a fan of speculative or fantastic fiction, but I'm going to give The Night Circus a try. A lot of people are raving about Jim Dale's audio version and it's available for download from the public library so I may go that route.

My Pulitzer list includes In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790, and possibly the audio version of Alice Adams.

Ooh, Rivers of London was a Kitschie finalist in 2011! That will probably be my choice.

I've been looking forward to the Kitschie Awards, a lot of book that I want to read have been nominateed or won one of these awards. I am thinking either A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness or Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.

My Pulitizer Prize read will be Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne, which was a 2011 General Non-Fiction finalist.

Most of the books listed for the Kitschie are things I'd NEVER read! But looking closer, I did find a few that seemed interesting. Including Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which was already on my wishlist and is now on my library hold list. I'll pick a Pulitizer another day.

I am enjoying the CAT themes, especially the awards. The problem I've been having is deciding on a book, then acquiring it, then actually reading it before the end of the month. Even though I know it doesn't "count" unless I finish it during the month, I've gone ahead and marked them "completed" on the wiki along with the date. Better late than never is what I'm going with here.

think I'll read the orphan masters son for the Pulitzer, lots to choose from for the Kitschies, may need to purchase something though...

For the Kitschies The Folly of the World by Jesse Bullington looks like one I might enjoy and my local library has a copy.

I'll take a look at the Pulitzer later - much more to investigate there:)

sjmccreary, if you don't want to count a book you finish before or after the appropriate month, no one can tell you you're wrong, but it's likewise fine to decide to count those books, especially if you got the idea to read them then, or intended to get to them then. We all interpret the challenges as we see fit.

I hadn't expected to see anything I wanted to read in the Kitschies' lists, but have found several.

I have both The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco and The Magicians by Lev Grossman already in the TBR pile. So I'll probably pick one of those. I do like the cover on this years winner, I must say.

For the Pulitzer, I'm going to do Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King.

I'm going to be reading plays, plays and more plays in May - but also plan to tackle Bernard Bailyn's The Barbarous Years a Finalist for the History Category this year.

I'm really tempted by Devil in the Grove, too....

I'm going to do one fiction and one non-fiction for the Pulitzer: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (a 2010 fiction finalist) and The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (1983 history winner). I'm listening to the audio of The Night Circus for the Kitschie. If it's available after I finish The Night Circus, I may also listen to Alice Adams, a Pulitzer winner from 1922.

I toyed with the idea of reading Alice Adams, but decided to pass for the moment. I'll be interested to hear what you think of it!

The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 was calling to me, too, but Bernard Bailyn won.

The library copy of The Barbarous Years arrived the other day and I just managed not to drool all over it and ruin it. I'll get to it eventually.

I actually bought it for myself - I had a coupon and got a great deal. I loved (and own) The Peopling of British North America and Voyagers to the West. I had to complete the set.

ETA: Bailyn won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1987 for Voyagers to the West and in 1968 for The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. As I noted above, The Barbarous Years was a Finalist this year / 2013.

I'm planning on reading Lonesome Dove for the Pulitzer and A Monster Calls for the Kitschies. I might do Rivers of London as well, but it was nominated for cover art and the version nominated is not the one I have, so does it still count? Or have I just given myself a reason to buy the pretty version as well...? :)

I'm about 1/3 into The Orphan Master's Son, it wast just awarded the 2013 Pulitzer for fiction. I'm also planning on reading two other fiction winners from my bookshelf Empire Falls and Angle of Repose. Very tempted to try a play or two.

I'll be reading The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay

I tried to get to Miss Peregrine's last month. Perhaps I shall try again. But I've already got a pretty full plate.

Completed Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King. Winner of 2013 Pulitzer for general nonfiction. Highly recommended.

Completed Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs - 2011 Kitschie finalist for debut fiction (golden tentacle).

I finished In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin. It was a Pulitzer finalist in the fiction category in 2010.

I just joined the group read for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and only noticed this evening that this will fit the May AwardCAT. I am quite happy about that!

I just finished Neil Simon's Pulitzer Prize Finalist play Broadway Bound - I really enjoyed it.

I tearfully finished my Kitschies' book, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. It was the winner of the 2011 Red Tentacle and was a five star read for me.

I finished the audio of The Night Circus this morning, a Kitschie finalist in 2011. It's a CAT trick since it also fits this month's AlphaCAT and RandomCAT challenges.

> Nice job on a CAT trick!

I just finished a great read. Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne was a 2011 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-Fiction.

I've finished Ironweed by William Kennedy which won the Pulitzer for Best Novel in 1984.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell was also a CAT trick, but I didn't enjoy it.

I stayed up late to finish A Monster Calls (Kitschies Award), and found myself sobbing quietly, trying not to disturb my sleeping husband. What a great book.

I'm about 100 pages from the end of The Magicians which was on the 2009 shortlist for a Kischie, but I'm not sure I'll get it done by tomorrow night. Maybe if I didn't have to work today or tomorrow (darn work - interferring with my reading), but I'm going to add it to the wiki when I get it done.

Goofed off at work a bit and managed to finish The Magicians today - yeah!

I finished The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 last night. It won the Pulitzer for history in 1983. It's also an AlphaCAT.

I had read two Kitschie finalists this month: Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (which qualifies as a CAT Trick) and vN by Madeline Ashby.

Yay! Another CAT trick!