The Man Booker Prize, 1977-1978

1977 Winner:
Staying On by Paul Scott

Shortlisted:
Peter Smart's Confessions by Paul Bailey
Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood
Shadows on our Skin by Jennifer Johnston
The Road to Lichfield by Penelope Lively
Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

1977 Judges:
Philip Larkin
Beryl Bainbridge
Brendan Gill
David Hughes
Robin Ray

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1978 Winner:
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Shortlisted:
Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis
Rumours of Rain by André Brink
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam
A Five-Year Sentence by Bernice Rubens

1978 Judges:
Sir Alfred J. Ayer
Derwent May
P.H. Newby
Angela Huth
Clare Boylan

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch is on my TBR for this year !

:(

Although I do notice a lot of the same names popping up again and again. What algorithm was employed?

Wow, I am finding out that I am very under-read when it comes to the mid-20th Century, from the 50s to the 70s. Nothing at all on any of the booker lists so far.

I've read The Bookshop (which was terrific) and I own Quartet in Autumn. Does that count?

Owning counts in my book. Speaking of quartets, Paul Scott wrote The Raj Quartet, a set I've had my eyes on for awhile, but never pulled the trigger. Anybody familiar with that?

I've read The Raj Quartet a couple of times--it's one of my desert island books. There's also a very well-done BBC adaptation of it that may be available on netflix or somewhere. I've also read Staying On, which is a humorous but bittersweet look at a British couple whose means forced them to "stay on" after the end of the Raj.

Also read Quartet in Autumn a couple of times. I love its portrayal of the loneliness of aging. The Sea, The Sea which I've also read is a very different look at aging.

I haven't read the Jane Gardham, but she seems to be having a Renaissance of sorts on LT with her more recent books, Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat.

The Raj Quartet is a very good series about that period of time leading up to partition. It is on my TB re-read list.

I started reading The Sea, The Sea, and it is around here somewhere . . . guess I should find it and pick it up again.

After hearing arubabookwoman label The Raj Quartet as one of her desert island books, I serendipitously was in the area of my favorite secondhand shop in Orange County, So. Cal, The Bookman, today, and wouldn't'cha know it, they had all four of the Raj Quartet series from the same publisher and printing (Avon) in good condition at affordable prices ($1.95 - $2.50 per) so of course I grabbed them and am jonesing to get to them asap.

Hope it doesn't disappoint. It demands a leisurely read.

All I've read is The Sea, The Sea which I found intriguing, but the only reason I read it was that I was leading a book discussion group based on women's books that had won major prizes. Oh well, ...

11> I'd completely forgotten (terrible of me!) that you, janeajones, are an author! How is it that you have not demanded your own "real life, underappreciated author" thread? where we get to grill you for an entire month with questions?

I haven't read any of these in the seventies, so far. Maybe it's not the lack of reading in this period as possibly the decline in good literature. After all the seventies-eighties is when everything seems to have fallen into that proverbial hand-basket, the one that finally landed in hell during the BushCo years. If America could elect idiots like them not once, but twice, what does that say about our taste in other things, such as literature.

Now of course, not having read any of these, I could be the idiot here. But I'm not sure.

Just chiming in to echo ABwoman's appraisals of *Raj*, *Staying*, and the Pym. On the other hand, *Sea2* is my least favorite of the Murdochs, and I've read a fair pile of them. It was probably just me at the time, but I've never been motivated to return to it for finding out.
(Absolutely, let's put Ms. Jones in the author seat!)
(gene, I guess we get the leaders we deserve, but I certainly feel as though I did not deserve BushCo, so I'm still mouthing off about my tastes in Lit-tra-chur.)

Quartet in Autumn - I am a Pym junkie.
Great Granny Webster - bizarre but enjoyable