Wednesday, April 20, 2022

The Big Jubilee Read

 The BBC has put together a list of 70 books for the Big Jubilee Read in celebration of Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee.

I don't really need another list of books to try to read, but this list is so intriguing. I'm going to go ahead and keep track of the ones I manage to read.

1952-1961

 

The Palm-Wine Drinkard - Amos Tutuola (1952, Nigeria)

The Hills Were Joyful Together - Roger Mais (1953, Jamaica)

In the Castle of My Skin - George Lamming (1953, Barbados)

My Bones and My Flute - Edgar Mittelholzer (1955, Guyana)

The Lonely Londoners - Sam Selvon (1956, Trinidad and Tobago/England)

The Guide - R. K. Narayan (1958, India)

To Sir, With Love - E. R. Braithwaite (1959, Guyana)

One Moonlit Night - Caradog Prichard (1961, Wales)

A House for Mr Biswas - VS Naipaul (1961, Trinidad and Tobago/England)

Sunlight on a Broken Column - Attia Hosain (1961, India)


1962-1971

 

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (1962, England)

The Interrogation - J.M.G. Le Clézio (1963, France/Mauritius)

The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark (1963, Scotland)

Arrow of God - Chinua Achebe (1964, Nigeria)

Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney (1966, Northern Ireland)

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (1966, Dominica/Wales)

A Grain of Wheat - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1967, Kenya)

Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay (1967, Australia)

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born - Ayi Kwei Armah (1968, Ghana)

When Rain Clouds Gather - Bessie Head (1968, Botswana/South Africa)


1972-1981

 

The Nowhere Man - Kamala Markandaya (1972, India)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré (1974, England)

The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough (1977, Australia)

The Crow Eaters - Bapsi Sidhwa (1978, Pakistan)

The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978, England)

Who Do You think You Are? - Alice Munro (1978, Canada)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (1979, England)

Tsotsi - Athol Fugard (1980, South Africa)

Clear Light of Day - Anita Desai (1980, India)

Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981, England/India)


1982-1991

 

Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982, Australia)

Beka Lamb - Zee Edgell (1982, Belize)

The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1984, New Zealand)

The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (1985, Canada)

Summer Lightning - Olive Senior (1986, Jamaica)

The Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera (1987, New Zealand)

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989, England)

Omeros - Derek Walcott (1990, Saint Lucia)

The Adoption Papers - Jackie Kay (1991, Scotland)

Cloudstreet - Tim Winton (1991, Australia)


1992-2001

 

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992, Canada/Sri Lanka)

The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields (1993, Canada)

Paradise - Abdulrazak Gurnah (1994, Tanzania/England)

A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (1995, India/Canada)

Salt - Earl Lovelace (1996, Trinidad and Tobago)

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (1997, India)

The Blue Bedspread - Raj Kamal Jha (1999, India)

Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee (1999, South Africa/Australia)

White Teeth - Zadie Smith (2000, England)

Life of Pi - Yann Martel (2001, Canada)


2002-2011

 

Small Island - Andrea Levy (2004, England)

The Secret River - Kate Grenville (2005, Australia)

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (2005, Australia)

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006, Nigeria)

A Golden Age - Tahmima Anam (2007, Bangladesh)

The Boat - Nam Le (2008, Australia)

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (2009, England)

The Book of Night Women - Marlon James (2009, Jamaica)

The Memory of Love - Aminatta Forna (2010, Sierra Leone/Scotland)

Chinaman - Shehan Karunatilaka (2010, Sri Lanka)


2012-2021

 

Our Lady of the Nile - Scholastique Mukasonga (2012, Rwanda)

The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton (2013, New Zealand)

Behold the Dreamers - Imbolo Mbue (2016, Cameroon)

The Bone Readers - Jacob Ross (2016, Grenada)

How We Disappeared - Jing-Jing Lee (2019, Singapore)

Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo (2019, England)

The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo (2019, Malaysia)

Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart (2020, Scotland)

A Passage North - Anuk Arudpragasam (2021, Sri Lanka)

The Promise - Damon Galgut (2021, South Africa)