'Tinkers' receives Pulitzer Prize

I read this morning that this year’s slate of Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced, and if you’re looking for a good book to read, you can’t go wrong in picking one that’s received a Pulitzer Prize.
Since 1917, Pulitzer Prizes ($10,000) have been awarded to recognize achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City. Currently, awards are given in 21 different categories, including fiction, history, biography, poetry and general non-fiction.
This year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was “Tinkers” by Paul Harding, who is maybe best known as the drummer for Cold Water Flat. “Tinkers” was his debut novel, so he’ll be hard pressed to top it with another book. (Fans of Harper Lee, does this sound familiar?)
Many famous books were also Pulitzer Prize winners, and if you’re looking for a good book to read, check out some of these past winners:
1918--His Family by Ernest Poole
1919--The Magnificant Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1920--No Award
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
1927--Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady 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 LaFarge
1931--Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932--The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
1933--The Store by T.S. Stribling
1934--Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline
1935--Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936--Honey in the Horn by Horld 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
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
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
1955--A Fable by William Faulkner
1956--Andersonville by Mackinlay Kantor
1957--No Award
1958--A Death in the Family by James Agee
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
1964--No Award
1965--The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1966--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--Collected Stories by Jean Stafford
1971--No Award
1972--Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1973--The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1974--No Award
1975--The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1976--Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1977--No Award
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
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 Hijuelos
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 Annie E. 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 and 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 Gerladine Brooks
2007—The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2008-- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2009--Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
In the end, if you’ve read any of these, let me know what you thought of them. (Those that I’ve read, I put in bold face type.)