THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE
The James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction is one of the oldest and most prestigious book prizes. It has been awarded since 1919 for literature written in the English language. The award is based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The winner is chosen by two academic scholars in the English Department, with the assistance of PhD students.
I am not going to keep updating the winners after 2020. My enthusiasm for prize-winners is waning with the 2020s. I plan to focus my efforts on reading the winners up to 2020 then declare victory and move on to other bookish projects.
So far, I have read only 19 of the winners. The prize may offer literary prestige and £10,000, but it doesn't guarantee popular success or that your book will stay in print! Some of these are hard to find. Here is the list, with notes about whether I've finished a book, if it is on my TBR shelf, or if it available as an audiobook from my library:
So far, I have read only 19 of the winners. The prize may offer literary prestige and £10,000, but it doesn't guarantee popular success or that your book will stay in print! Some of these are hard to find. Here is the list, with notes about whether I've finished a book, if it is on my TBR shelf, or if it available as an audiobook from my library:
2020 Lote by Shola von Reinhold
2019 Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann ON OVERDRIVE
2018 Crudo by Olivia Lang
2017 Attrib. and Other Stories by Eley Williams
2016 The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride FINISHED
2015 You Don’t Have to Live Like This by Benjamin Markovits
2014 In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman ON OVERDRIVE
2013 Harvest by Jim Crace ON OVERDRIVE
2012 The Deadman's Pedal by Alan Warner
2010 The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli ON OVERDRIVE
2009 The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt ON OVERDRIVE
2008 The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (reviewed here) FINISHED
2007 Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belben
2006 The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2005 Saturday by Ian McEwan FINISHED
2004 GB84 by David Peace
2003 Personality by Andrew O'Hagan
2002 The Corrections by Jonathon Franzen FINISHED
2001 Something Like a House by Sid Smith
2000 White Teeth by Zadie Smith FINISHED
1999 Renegade or Halo2 by Timothy Mo
1998 Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge TBR SHELF
1997 Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller TBR SHELF
1996 Last Orders by Graham Swift (FINISHED) and Justine by Alice Thompson
1995 The Prestige by Christopher Priest (reviewed here) FINISHED
1994 The Folding Star by Alan Hollinghurst TBR SHELF
1993 Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips
1992 Sacred Country by Rose Tremain
1991 Downriver by Iain Sinclair
1990 Brazzeville Beach by William Boyd (reviewed here) FINISHED
1989 A Disaffection by James Kelman
1988 A Season in the West by Piers Paul Read
1987 The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories by George Mackay Brown
1986 Persephone by Jenny Joseph
1985 Winter Garden by Robert Edric
1984 Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard and Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter TBR SHELF BOTH
1983 Allegro Postillions by Jonathan Keates
1982 On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin TBR SHELF
1981 Midnight's Children (reviewed here) and The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux FINISHED BOTH
1980 Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
1979 Darkness Visible by William Golding TBR SHELF
1978 Plumb by Maurice Gee
1977 The Honorable Schoolboy by John le Carre TBR SHELF
1976 Doctor Copernicus by John Banville TBR SHELF
1975 The Great Victorian Collection by Brian Moore
1974 Monsieur, or The Prince Of Darkness by Lawrence Durrell TBR SHELF
1973 The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch TBR SHELF
1972 G by John Berger (reviewed here) FINISHED
1971 A Guest of Honour by Nadine Gordimer
1970 The Bird of Paradise by Lily Powell
1969 Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen TBR SHELF
1968 The Gasteropod by Maggie Ross
1967 Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble TBR SHELF
1966 Such by Christine Brooke-Rose and Langrishe, Go Down by Aidan Higgins TBR SHELF
1965 The Mandelbaum Gate by Muriel Spark (reviewed here) FINISHED
1964 The Ice Saints by Frank Tuohy TBR SHELF
1963 A Slanting Light by Gerda Charles
1962 Act of Destruction by Ronald Hardy
1961 The Ha-Ha by Jennifer Dawson TBR SHELF
1960 Imperial Caesar by Rex Warner
1959 The Devil's Advocate by Morris West TBR SHELF
1958 The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot by Angus Wilson
1957 At Lady Molly's by Anthony Powell FINISHED
1956 The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macauley FINISHED
1955 Mother and Son by Ivy Compton-Burnett
1954 The New Men TBR SHELF and The Masters FINISHED by C. P. Snow
1953 Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
1952 Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh TBR SHELF
1951 Father Goose by W. C. Chapman-Mortimer
1950 Along the Valley by Robert Henriquez
1949 The Far Cry by Emma Smith
1948 The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene FINISHED
1947 Eustace and Hilda by L. P. Hartley TBR SHELF
1946 Poor Man's Tapestry by G. Oliver Onions
1945 Travellers by L. A. G. Strong
1944 Young Tom by Forrest Reid
1943 Tales From Bective Bridge by Mary Lavin
1942 Monkey by Wu Ch'eng-en (translation by Arthur Whaley)
1941 A House of Children by Joyce Cary
1940 The Voyage by Charles Morgan
1939 After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley FINISHED
1938 A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours by C. S. Forester
1937 Highland River by Neil M. Gunn
1936 South Riding by Winifred Holtby
1935 The Root and the Flower by L. H. Myers
1934 I, Claudius (FINISHED) and Claudius the God by Robert Graves ON OVERDRIVE
1933 England, Their England by A. G. Macdonell TBR SHELF
1932 Boomerang by Helen Simpson
1931 Without My Cloak by Kate O'Brien TBR SHELF
1930 Miss Mole by E. H. Young
1929 The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley
1928 Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon TBR SHELF
1927 Portrait of Clare by Francis Brett Young
1926 Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall
1925 The Informer by Liam O'Flaherty
1924 A Passage to India by E. M. Forster FINISHED
1923 Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett
1922 Lady Into Fox by David Garnett FINISHED
1921 Memoirs of a Midget by Walter de la Mare
1920 The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence
1919 The Secret City by Hugh Walpole TBR SHELF
NOTES
This list is so long, and there are so many books on it that look good to me, that I plan to confine myself to completing the 20th Century winners only. I'll cut myself some slack and not try to keep up with the list into the 21st Century. I think I will adopt the same plan for several of the lists I'm working on. My heart is with mid-20th Century fiction so I'll stick with that. I get enough contemporary fiction as it is without keeping up with all the prize winners.
This list is so long, and there are so many books on it that look good to me, that I plan to confine myself to completing the 20th Century winners only. I'll cut myself some slack and not try to keep up with the list into the 21st Century. I think I will adopt the same plan for several of the lists I'm working on. My heart is with mid-20th Century fiction so I'll stick with that. I get enough contemporary fiction as it is without keeping up with all the prize winners.
Updated as of March 20, 2024. This is a redo of the list I originally posted in 2009.