British Battle of the Prizes

January 1, 2012 to January 31, 2013

This is the third year Rose City Reader has hosted the British Version of the Battle of the Prizes Challenge.

This challenge pits winners of the English Man Booker Prize against winners of the Scottish James Tait Black Memorial Prize in a British Version of the Battle of the Prizes. (Click here for the American Version.)

Does one prize have higher standards than the other? Pick better winners? Provide more reading entertainment or educational value? Maybe challenge participants will be able to answer these and more questions – maybe they will simply read three or four great books!

DETAILS

OPTION ONE: Chose three books that you have not read before:

1) One that won both the Booker and the James Tait Black prizes (here is the short list of double dippers);

2) One that won the Booker but not the James Tait Black (Booker winners are here); and

3) One that won the James Tait Black but not the Booker (James Tait Black winners are here).

OPTION TWO: For those who have already read all three of the double-dippers, or otherwise do not want to read one of those three, pick two Booker winners and two James Tait Black winners for a total of four books.

OFFICIAL RULES

• The challenge runs for 13 months (I like an extra month to finish). Read all books between January 1, 2012 and January 31, 2013.

• Sign up here using the Mr. Linky under the PARTICIPANTS" heading.  Please use the link to your challenge post, not the home page of your blog.  If you do not have a blog, please leave a comment with the list of your three choices and I will add you to the participant list in this post.

• You do not have to commit to your choices now; you can change your mind about books at any time.

• Overlap with other challenges is allowed -- and encouraged! The Complete Booker is a logical crossover. The great thing is, for those working on both these lists, completing the challenge means reading three books, but crossing four items off the lists.

• As you progress, please let us know by leaving comments with links to progress reports and reviews. Reviews are not necessary, but encouraged. If you do not have a blog, put your reviews or reports in a comment on this post.
  

• You can copy and paste the button. Or, if you want me to send you the code, please leave a comment with an email and I will. I cannot figure out the fancy ways of giving directions. 
  

PARTICIPANTS

Please use Mr. Linky, below, to sign up by leaving a link to your sign up post, not your main blog address.  If you do not have a blog, sign up by leaving a comment with your possible book choices.

REVIEWS

Please use Mr. Linky, below, to list your review by leaving a link to your review post, not your main blog address.  If you do not have a blog, please post your review in a comment.

IDEAS

(FINISHED)

The list of prior participants with links to their reviews is here (2010) and here (2011).

I've read the three double dippers, so I'll be reading four this year.  As with all challenges, my goal is to read books already on my TBR shelves.

I finished two Booker choices:

• Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (reviewed here)
• The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (reviewed here)

I finished one of my Black choices so far:

• The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carre (reviewed here)
• The Prestige by Christopher Priest (reviewed here)

Other Black possibilities include:

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
• After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley