October AwardsCAT - The Nobel Prize for Literature and The Giller Prize

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to a living author for their overall body of work (although the award citation may list specific books as especially noteworthy). The prize has been awarded 109 times to 113 laureates between 1901 and 2016. You’ll find a list of laureates at the Nobel Prize website here: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/

The choice of laureates is sometimes seen as more political than based on literary merit. Other times, the committee feels compelled to choose a compromise laureate (as was apparently the case for John Steinbeck). At any rate, attempting to guess who the committee will choose each year makes for a fun parlour game.



(book covers: The Saga of Gosta Berling, East of Eden, Dear Life, Death with Interruptions, July's People, Chronicles by Dylan)

The Giller Prize (the Scotiabank Giller Prize) is given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (or in English translation) the previous year. It was first awarded in 1994. A list of previous winners and shortlisters can be found at the Giller Prize website here: http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/about/past-winners/

The Giller Prize is Canada’s richest literary prize, with the winner receiving $100,000 (Canadian) and each of the shortlisted authors receiving $10,000. The prize was founded by Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his wife, Doris Giller. Rabinovitch died earlier in 2017 at the age of 74.



(book covers: The Sisters Brothers, The Stone Carvers, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Late Nights on Air, Barney’s Version, The Year of the Flood)

I have set aside The Saga of Gösta Berling, by Selma Lagerlöf, and The Navigator of New York, by Wayne Johnston, for this challenge.

I have a few to choose from: Blindness by Jose Saramago (a ROOT too!); Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz; a play or two from George Bernard Shaw...

I have usually not read for this challenge. However, in October I think I'll read My Century by Gunter Grass (1999 recipient), which I planned to read for the February RandomCAT (possessives) but did not. It will also give me another ROOT.

I am going to be reading The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing, who won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature. For the Giller Prize, I am planning on the 2016 short-listed 13 Ways of Looking At A Fat Girl by Mona Awad.

I'm swamped by RL for a couple of months but if I can do it I'll read The Color of Lightening by Paulette Jiles. It was longlisted for the Giller Prize in 2009.

I'm also planning to read The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing. I'm also hoping to fit in Us Conductors by Sean Michaels, which won the Giller in 2014.

Looks like I have three on my tbr for Giller Prize:

Runaway / Alice Munro
A World Elsewhere / Wayne Johnston
The Wonder / Emma Donoghue

I'm leaning toward the Johnston one. It's been on my tbr the longest.

I was hoping to read the new translation of Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Nobel Laureate 1905) but haven't managed to get a copy.

What is a ROOT?

I've got Half Blood Blues for the Giller on my TBR.

>10 sushicat: It's a term we use in the Read Our Own Tomes group and means books that have spent quite some time on the shelf.

>12 MissWatson: ah - I've got so many of these... thanks for explaining.

I plan to read De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage or The Piano Man's Daughter by Timothy Findlay both of which are sitting on the shelf patiently waiting.

The longlist for the 2017 Giller Prize was announced today: http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/the-scotiabank-giller-prize-presents-its-201...

I'll be reading The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Novel prize winner. I was assigned to read and review this back in Feb (sorry!) by whitewavedarling in the Go Review That Book group. So - I'll finally get it done!

>15 rabbitprincess: The Joel Thomas Hynes book looks good. I immediately put it on my wishlist.

I'll be reading Faulkner's The Reivers. For the Giller Prize, I'm hoping to get The Polished Hoe from the library before the month is out.

I started Samuel Beckett's novel The Unnamable hoping to squeeze in one final "U" title in September but didn't finish so now it will go here ;)

I see the Giller short list has been announced:

Transit by Rachel Cusk
Minds of Winter by Ed O'Loughlin
Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
I am a Truck by Michelle Winters

All of them look good to me.

If you would like to read something by Kazuo Ishiguro, he now qualifies for this month. Congratulations to him for winning the Nobel Prize.

>21 sturlington: That's so cool! I loved The Remains of the Day and really want to read more by him.

>21 sturlington: I was so happy to see this announcement today also. Never Let Me Go was the first book I read by him and it still resonates with me today. I've also read The Remains of the Day and A Pale View of Hills, both excellent. I look forward to reading the other four I have on the shelves here by him and pretty much anything else!

>23 LisaMorr: I was happy too. Usually, I am unfamiliar with the winner, but in this case I have already read most of his work!

I have Never Let Me Go on my TBR so that may be the book I read this month.

I'm thrilled about the news too. Never Let Me Go is a favourite.

My book club selection this month, The Disappeared by Kim Ecklin turns out to be a Giller shortlisted book from 2009.

>27 raidergirl3: I enjoyed The Disappeared when I read it a couple of years ago. I'll watch for your opinion.

A World Elsewhere / Wayne Johnston
3 stars

Landish Druken is from Newfoundland and, while attending Princeton, meets George Vanderluyden. They have a falling out, but years later, Vanderluyden has since built a mansion, is married, and has a daughter. He takes in Landish and the boy Landish has taken in, Deacon.

I have to admit to being quite distracted as I read the first 2/3 of the book, so I know I missed some things. For the first 1/3 of the book, I kept reading Landish’s last name as “Drunken”. Oops! It got better (though still wasn’t terribly exciting) for the last 1/3 of the book, when I was able to better focus on it. There were a few twists at the end.

I actually smiled at the dedication and the acknowledgments: I knew his parents and it was dedicated “in loving memory” of them. I was a good friend of his youngest sister so have met some of her siblings, as well (all mentioned in the acknowledgments), though I’ve never met Wayne. Of course, that’s just a personal reaction to those parts of the book that really don’t have to do with the book itself!

From the Giller prize long list 2017
4.5 stars

We'll all be burnt in our beds some night by Joel Thomas Hynes

If you can get past the profanities, this is a heartbreaking tale tinged with black humour of young petty criminal Johnny Keough. When the girlfriend he injured - accidentally with a teapot - died of an overdose on the morning of his court case, he was suddenly off the hook instead of facing years in a federal penitentiary. Johnny decided to use the freedom to hitchhike across Canada from Newfoundland to Vancouver with the urn containing her ashes under his arm, to scatter them on a Vancouver beach she remembered from childhood.

Johnny is a long-time hardened malefactor but Hynes brings out likeable elements and we feel sympathetic toward him. He's had a brutal childhood, never experienced a role model of the positive kind, and trouble follows him like a shadow. Hynes injects this misery with a dark comic humour that keeps the story from spiralling downwards. He often shifts viewpoint from past to present, letting the reader into Johnny's head to find out how events really happened. I desperately wanted him to succeed on his monumental journey, but Johnny is the master of his own fate.

If it had been possible, I would have read this book from the acknowledged bad boy of Canadian literature in one sitting. It is coarse and ribald, but you won't forget Johnny Keough.

Nobel Prize 1917: Henrik Pontoppidan

I found Der Teufel am Herd on the German Gutenberg site. Henrik Pontoppidan received the 1917 Nobel prize in literature for this collection of five stories. Four of these analyse the relationship between husband and wife, the disappointments, the mutual misunderstandings, the gradual disillusion, and the resentments that grow from this. I found his characters very convincing in their psychology, and he gives great insight to country life in the Danish province of Jutland, where alle these stories are set. The translation seemed a bit overliteral at times, but pleasant to read. A great discovery.

Nobel Prize 2007: Doris Lessing

I read The Grass Is Singing by this author and found it an intense, haunting story about the inequality of life that colonialism encouraged. I have now read a couple of books by this author and find her writing exceptional.

>32 DeltaQueen50:, I have not read anything by Lessing yet, I am happy to see your strong endorsement of her writing.

I finished Never let me go by this year's Nobel laureate, Kazuo Ishiguro. One of the scariest books I've read in a long time, you can see it happen here and now so easily...

>33 Kristelh: I avoided Doris Lessing for years under the assumption that her writing would be complicated and/or difficult to comprehend but so far I have found her books very accessible.

>32 DeltaQueen50: I will have to try The Grass is Singing; I found The Golden Notebook was complex and somewhat difficult to comprehend!

I too just finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I really enjoyed the writing style and want to read some more of his books.

I have finished George Seferis Collected Poems, written by (obviously) George Seferis, 1963 Nobel Prize winner.

I read God Help the Child by Toni Morrison who won the Nobel Prize for literature 1993 and Transit by Rachel Cust, which is on the shortlist for the Giller. Not sure why it is as the author lives in England and the story is set in London.

I finished The Grass is Singing and I agree with >32 DeltaQueen50: that this is an excellent book, definitely recommended! It was much more disturbing and gripping than I'd expected.

I also finished Us Conductors by Sean Michaels, which won the 2014 Giller Prize and is a fictionalized account of Leon Theremin's life. I had the theme song from Midsomer Murders playing through my head the whole time I was reading this. :)