Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Teaser Tuesday: Birds of Wonder by Cynthia Robinson


Taking him in without a warrant was a skate along the knife-edge of the Fourth Amendment, but once she had a confession protocol wouldn't matter. Consent searches weren't illegal; he'd consented, she'd searched.

Birds of Wonder by Cynthia Robinson. Sounds dicey! This snippet gets my lawyer ears perked up and I'm not a criminal lawyer.

This exciting new novel is part thriller, part family drama, set in upstate New York. Here's the publisher's description:

One August morning while walking her dog, high-school English teacher Beatrice Ousterhout stumbles over the dead body of a student, Amber Inglin, who was to play the lead in Beatrice’s production of John Webster’s Jacobean tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi. Barely able to speak, Beatrice calls the police. That is to say, she calls her daughter. Jes is a detective with two years of experience under her belt and a personal life composed primarily of a string of one-night-stands, including the owner of the field in which Beatrice has found Amber. In addition to a house and a field, Child Services lawyer Liam Walsh owns a vineyard, where Amber Inglin, along with a handful of other teens who’ve had difficulty negotiating the foster system, was an intern. Set among the hills and lakes of upstate New York and told in six vibrantly distinct voices, this complex and original narrative chronicles the rippling effects of a young girl’s death through a densely intertwined community. By turns funny, fierce, lyrical and horrifying, BIRDS OF WONDER probes family ties, the stresses that break them, and the pasts that never really let us go.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by The Purple Booker. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from the book they are reading or featuring. Please remember to include the name of the book and the author. You can share your teaser in a comment below, or with a comment or link at the Teaser Tuesday site, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winners -- BOOK LIST


The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (formerly called the Prize for the Novel) has been awarded since 1918 for distinguished works of fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.

The prize is named after its founder, legendary American publisher Joseph Pulitzer. No prize was awarded in several years, most recently in 2012. The prize is currently $15,000.

This is one of my favorite books lists, but I am not going to update the winners after 2021. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I may focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.

So far, I've read 65 of the winners. The list of the winners through 2021 is below, with notes about whether I've finished it, it is currently on my TBR shelf, or if it is available as an audiobook from my library.

The Prize winners since 1918 are:

2021: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich ON OVERDRIVE

2020: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead FINISHED
 
2019: The Overstory by Richard Powers FINISHED

2018: Less by Andrew Sean Greer FINISHED

2017: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead FINISHED

2016: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen FINISHED

2015: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer FINISHED

2014: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt FINISHED

2013: The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson FINISHED

2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan FINISHED

2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding (reviewed hereFINISHED

2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (reviewed hereFINISHED

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz FINISHED

2007: The Road by Cormack McCarthy

2006: March by Geraldine Brooks (reviewed hereFINISHED

2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (reviewed hereFINISHED

2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones FINISHED

2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides  FINISHED

2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo (reviewed hereFINISHED

2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon FINISHED

2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri FINISHED

1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham FINISHED

1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth FINISHED

1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (reviewed here) FINISHED

1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford FINISHED

1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields FINISHED

1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx FINISHED

1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler TBR SHELF

1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley FINISHED

1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike FINISHED

1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos FINISHED

1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (reviewed hereFINISHED

1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison FINISHED

1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (short review hereFINISHED

1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry FINISHED

1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie FINISHED

1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy FINISHED

1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker FINISHED

1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike FINISHED

1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole FINISHED

1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer ON OVERDRIVE

1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (reviewed hereFINISHED

1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson TBR SHELF

1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (reviewed hereFINISHED

1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara ON OVERDRIVE

1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty TBR SHELF

1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner FINISHED

1970: Collected Stories by Jean Stafford

1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday FINISHED

1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron FINISHED

1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (reviewed hereFINISHED

1966: Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter

1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau FINISHED

1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner TBR SHELF

1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor

1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee FINISHED

1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (reviewed hereFINISHED

1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor FINISHED

1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee FINISHED

1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

1955: A Fable by William Faulkner

1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway FINISHED

1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk ON OVERDRIVE

1951: The Town by Conrad Richter

1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens FINISHED

1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener FINISHED

1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (reviewed hereFINISHED

1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (reviewed hereFINISHED

1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin TBR SHELF

1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair TBR SHELF

1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow

1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck FINISHED

1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand FINISHED

1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell FINISHED

1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis TBR SHELF

1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson

1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller

1933: The Store by T. S. Stribling TBR SHELF

1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck FINISHED

1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes TBR SHELF

1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge TBR SHELF

1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin

1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder FINISHED

1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield FINISHED

1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis FINISHED

1925: So Big by Edna Ferber FINISHED

1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson

1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather FINISHED

1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (reviewed hereFINISHED

1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton FINISHED

1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington FINISHED

1918: His Family by Ernest Poole


NOTE

Updated October 26, 2023. 

OTHERS READING THE PULITZER WINNERS

If you are working on reading all the Pulitzer fiction winners and want to list your blog or related link here, please leave a comment with the link and I will add it.