On Monday, the Pulitzer Prize Committee declined to select a winner for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The book loving corners of the internet basically exploded. Some sites have implied that the selection committee felt no book was good enough this year. But the committee’s deliberations are confidential, and the optimist in me thinks that the committee simply couldn’t make a decision – because the books were all outstanding in their own right.
So, add the three 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalists to your to-read list!
- Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, available on Amazon, Kindle and Nook.
- Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, available on Amazon, Kindle and Nook.
- The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (posthumous), available on Amazon, Kindle and Nook.
Want more details on the controversy? Check it out…
- The L.A. Times book blog Jacket Copy has some recommendations for improving the flawed selection process
- Publisher’s Weekly discussesthe sales boost nominated authors (and publishers) receive from winning the prize
- The Daily Beast has reactions from the jurors and other authors, lamenting the general unfairness of it all
Of these I’ve only read Swamplandia!, but hope to read the other two soon.
This article at Salon offered a nice perspective on the lack of winner this year, I thought. http://www.salon.com/2012/04/16/pulitzers_snub_fiction/
I haven’t read the other two either, but I’m going to stick them on my to-read list. Thanks for the Salon article – super interesting!
Wow, I didn’t know that. Very interesting! I’ll have to read the books and decide for myself
Yeah, I thought it was kind of crazy. I really liked Swamplandia, if your trying to choose which to read first.