Thursday, April 10, 2008

2008 Pulitzer Prizes

So...the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week. I really don't pay much attention to the journalism ones. I know I should. But I really do feel the news is so biased anymore, I rarely read the papers anyway.

But I do read books. Duh. And the winner of the fiction award is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Now, I've heard good buzz about this one. But I haven't read it. And I'm curious. Have you read it?? Is it worth the effort?? Any opinions??

And the other 2 finalists. I haven't heard of either. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson and Shakespeare's Kitchen by Lore Segal.

3 comments:

Marg said...

I had heard a lot of good things about the winner, but not much about the other two nominees. Haven't read it though, but I am planning too.

Ana S. said...

I haven't read the winner yet, but look at this summary from Amazon:

"The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus "lovesick ghetto nerd" with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is also the story of a multi-generational family curse that courses through the book, leaving troubles and tragedy in its wake."

It sounds very, very promising to me!

kookie said...

I read "Oscar Wao" and found it very annoying. There was lots of potential in the story, but it got bogged down with politics. You may feel differently about it, though.