The small ambition...

I came across a folder on the PC that said Pulitzer prize books. I opened this and saw that there were 50 books all in all. When  I went through the list, I came across barely 10 books that I had read and some of them being ones that I really appreciated.

With such a ready made folder at my disposal. I have set myself a challenge to read all the books that have won the Pulitzer in the fiction category. Having googled this, I realize that my list has grown to 85 books over the last so many years from 1918 to 2012. 

So here I am putting this list down here, hoping that I finish each and every one of these books before the year is out. 

• 1918: His Family by Ernest Poole
• 1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

• 1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• 1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
• 1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather
• 1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
• 1925: So Big by Edna Ferber
• 1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined prize)
• 1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
• 1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
• 1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin

• 1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
• 1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
• 1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• 1933: The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
• 1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
• 1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
• 1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
• 1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• 1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
• 1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

• 1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• 1941: no award given ^[2]
• 1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
• 1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
• 1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
• 1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
• 1946: no award given
• 1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
• 1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
• 1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens

• 1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
• 1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
• 1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
• 1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• 1954: No award given
• 1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
• 1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
• 1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee (posthumous win)
• 1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor

• 1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
• 1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• 1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
• 1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner
• 1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
• 1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
• 1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
• 1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
• 1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

• 1970: Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
• 1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
• 1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
• 1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
• 1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
• 1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
• 1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever

• 1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
• 1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (posthumous win)
• 1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
• 1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• 1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
• 1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
• 1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• 1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
• 1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
• 1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
• 1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar HijuelosBilly Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

• 1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
• 1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
• 1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
• 1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
• 1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
• 1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
• 1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
• 1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
• 1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham

• 2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• 2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• 2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
• 2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• 2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• 2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• 2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
• 2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
• 2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

• 2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding
• 2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

So I guess..I have 7 months and quite a few books to go. Mind you, my target is not to finish reading all these books. But to read a substantial portion of them and be able to understand why these books were commended and selected for such a great honor as the Pulitzer. 

Dreaming...

A nice day at home....If there was a fireplace at home, then have the fireplace lit and keep home nice, warm and cosy. Snuggle up with a good book to read.

Now, that to me is the best way that one can spend their time. I am not a recluse who spends her time cooped up in a place and not interacting with people. But to me quality time with myself and my books is pretty special.

I do love going out with my friends and family and that fills me with happiness. 

But a romantic I am...and a romantic I will be. Dreaming about my books and living the lives of each of the characters of my book I am content. My heart rate increases as the murders take place, I try to seek out the murderers and the detective in me triumphs each time I find the murderer, I turn an adventurer and go places never gone before. But the best among all this is the Victorian era with the corsets and the plumes and the laudanum and the powders and the patches, not to mention the romance in each.

My heart lifts up each time I think of these. And I remain dreaming about my books, my stories, my library and my fireplace to snuggle with my books.

So I remain dreaming