By far my favorite of the Booker Prize winners is The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell. I can reread it every couple of years and still be enthralled.

Others I really like a lot:

1975 Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1990 Possession - A.S. Byatt
1992 Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth
1995 The Ghost Road - Pat Barker

Those I remember liking well enough while reading them, but for some reason they haven't stuck with me:

1984 Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner
1987 Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively
1988 Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
1989 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
1996 Last Orders - Graham Swift

Some I can quibble about but like over all:

1979 Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (I nominate Fitzgerald as Queen of the Non-Ending)
1985 The Bone People - Keri Hulme (sometimes I couldn't distinguish what was supposed to be real and what was not; I guess that's magical realism which I have a lot of trouble accepting)
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey

Didn't finish:

1992 The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
2000 The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
2006 The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai

Those I most intensely disliked:

2003 Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (Supposed to be satire but is stereotypical nonsense from a writer who obviously had never been to Texas and chosen by committee members who never had either)
2007 The Gathering - Anne Enright (Yee! The way Irish families are too often depicted, in my opinion. Maybe the Irish do have a lot of dysfunctional families, but I'm almost to the point of not caring to read about them, at all.)

I have read only three on the list, Heat and Dust, Midnight Children and Possession. I own two more but haven't read them yet, Life of Pi and The Inheritance of Loss. I think I may be excused as I am not a native English speaker. I am rather surprised that I have read even those. I liked Possession best of those few I have read.

It would be very difficult for me to choose just one, although I will say that I absolutely despised The Inheritance of Loss and hope that it isn't chosen. It was all fluff and beautiful prose but no substance. Well, maybe despised is a strong word, but I didn't care for it at all.

I suppose I haven't read enough on the list to make an informed decision which deserves the award, but if I had to choose my favorites of the ones I've read, they would be:

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Possession - A.S. Byatt

I haven't read them all, by any stretch of the imagination, but of the nine I have read, my favorites were "Staying On" and "Hotel du Lac". Oh, and "Last Orders". Oh, and "Life of Pi".

The most forgettable one I read was "Heat and Dust" - have no idea what that was about now I've read it and forgotten it.

This list makes me feel a very naive and uninformed reader. Of the few books on it that I have read, I liked Pat Barker's Ghost Road the best. In fact, I liked it so well that I read the trilogy.

Frieda - I'm impressed by the number you've read.

I collect them, so I have actually read all of them (bar one or two - for some reason, I haven't read How Late it Was, How Late, and I don't remember reading The Conservationist).

Those I actually couldn't finish are:-

In a Free State, The Old Devils, Saville, The Bone People, The Famished Road and G. The first three were just boring, and the second two I couldn't even get beyond the first few pages. But G. is the worst of the lot - it seemed to be quite readable, and I got about half-way through, though I wasn't quite sure what was going on. Then suddenly a particularly stupid sentence just brought me to a shuddering halt. I realized at that point it was just awful, and I vowed never to read anything by John Berger again.

Those I don't like - both the John Carey winners. I've read one other of his books, and it's clear that he and I don't get on. I really couldn't stand Vernon God Little either.

Those I really really liked - The Remains of the Day, Life of Pi, Possession, Moon Tiger and The Sea, The Sea.

Those I've deemed worth a re-read are Hotel du Lac, Rites of Passage, The God of Small Things, Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha, The Ghost Road, The Sea, The Blind Assassin - and Last Orders, Midnight's Children and Sacred Hunger will be re-read one of these days.

The rest range from not that good (eg Offshore, Holiday) through OK (eg Amsterdam, Schindler's Ark).

What's my tip for Booker of Bookers? I'd like to see Possession or The Remains of the Day. But the winner is going to be selected by the public from a short-list - so if Life of Pi is on the shortlist, it will win.

Martin, I left off Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea because I'm not sure I finished it. I remember only one unsettling scene: It's night. A character (I think he was a writer of some sort) sees a disembodied white face "floating" in the blackness of a windowpane. I can't recall if the face was something outside, something reflected from the room interior, something in the glass itself, or whether it was ever explained at all; but whichever, it was very creepy. Do you recall that part, Martin?

I don't think you mentioned The Siege of Krishnapur and what you think of it.

I would eventually like to finish (start over) The English Patient and The Blind Assassin because so many say they are both good. Ondaatje's style annoyed me for some reason that I don't remember, but it might not now. Atwood to me is apparently like Carey is to you, Martin: we just don't get on well. The only book of hers that I've liked is Alias Grace.

I'm not sure if I will ever read Life of Pi. Being described as a fantasy with talking animals, I'm afraid, is enough to put me off. That's probably not a fair assumption, but those two things are big hurdles for me. But I suspect the popularity of fantasy will make you right in your prediction.

I've read only a few, but mostly liked those I have, which are: "Possession", "the English Patient", and "Disgrace".

I tried to like "Remains of the Day" but could not, although I enjoyed the film. "Amsterdam" is the only book by McEwan that I have disliked, or been unable to finish.

Frieda, possibly the reason you might find Ontdaje difficult to read is that his prose style is so poetic. (He is an acclaimed poet, as well as a novelist). If you don't go for poetry, his work might not be your cup of tea. Just a guess....I rather enjoyed those bits, in "The English Patient."

Thanks for the caveat about "The Gathering."

I just today finished The Gathering. I felt like pulling my hair out through the whole book-and at the end I don't think I understood it at all!?

Frieda - The Siege of Krishnapur would be in the OK category for me. Nothing special, but not bad either.

I've got a bit of a soft spot for it, though, as it was the last one I needed to get to complete my collection, so I was very pleased when I found a nice copy on ABE and the parcel arrived through the door.

It's a while since I read The Sea, The Sea so I don't remember the particular scene that you mention - obviously it didn't strike me in the same way as it did you.

Life of Pi is most certainly not a fantasy, and it doesn't have any talking animals. Part of the pleasure of the book is the unsentimental way that animals are treated.

Here's my review of it from the RP review thread we did a few years ago. (I think I might try reviving that...)

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This is one of the few times when a Booker Prize winner lives up to the type. I've rarely enjoyed a book so much. It's not a difficult read, but it's got enough in it to make anyone think. It's full of little twists, and some lovely touches of humour.

It's the story of a sixteen-year-old boy called Pi (as in 3.14159 - you'll have to read the story to find out why!). He and his family are on a cargo ship on it's way to Canada, carrying several large zoo animals; the ship is shipwrecked, and Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with a zebra with a broken leg, a hyena, an orang-utan - and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Which makes for a bit of a tense atmosphere....

It really is one of those books where I envy anyone coming to it for the first time. I'm sure I'll read it again soon.

Here's just a few extracts that particularly appealed to me. I hope they give a flavour of the book, without giving anything away.
It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith, Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap.

I'll be honest about it. It's not atheists that stick in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the Garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

I am not one to hold a prejudice against any animal, but it is a plain fact that the spotted hyena is not well served by it's appearance. It is ugly beyond redemption.

He's petulant! It's morning in Bethany and God's hungry; God wants His breakfast. He comes to a fig tree. It's not the season for figs, so the tree has no figs. God is peeved. The Son mutters, "May you never bear fruit again," and instantly the fig tree withers. So says Matthew, backed up by Mark.

My fellow castaway came into view. He raised himself on...

Hmmm, re Life of Pi, either I misinterpreted or was misled by reviews and conversations because I've read and heard it described as "fantastical, surreal, Alice in Wonderlandish, and you have to suspend disbelief" and many, many times called a "fable," a story intending to illustrate a moral dilemma (as in Aesop, Joel Chandler Harris, etc). I always think of fables as being inhabited by animals who act more like people than they ought to, including talking -- in other words, a fantasy, as the story can't be real but must be accepted as beyond real. No talking animals in Pi? Then why are folk calling it a fable?

Thank you, Martin, for bringing up your review. Maybe I'll give Pi a go, although I still can't say it sounds any more appealing to me than before. I hope I'm wrong.

I read and enjoyed these:

Midnight's Children
Blind Assasin
Remains of the Day
Possession
Moon Tiger
Ghost Road
Amsterdam

I couldn't finish:

The Sea The Sea
God of small things
Disgrace
The Sea
The Line of Beauty
Sacred Hunger, which is weird because I've like his other books

I will be reading Life of Pi for a reading group next month. I have heard it has animals, and while I loved Aesop's Fables as a kid, and still think Animal Farm is one of the best satirical novels ever written, most are just way too twee for me. Based on your review Martin, it sounds like its not.

I have read and enjoyed:

Staying On - I read this (part of The Raj Quartet) after seeing the miniseries.
Midnight's Children
Schindler's Ark
The Ghost Road - I went on to read the rest of the trilogy
The True History of the Kelly Gang - it took a while to get into this one, as it is written in a very different style.
Life of Pi

I couldn't finish either Oscar & Lucinda or The English Patient. I loved the movie of the latter, but couldn't get into the book.

It is interesting that Peter Carey is the only double winner there - the Kelly book is the only one of his that I have liked.

Ian McEwan will be here in Adelaide next week for Writers' Week. The link below may interest some of you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Adelaide Writers' Week Programme

Mary, you may be right about the poetical aspects of Ondaatje's writing putting me off, but I've liked other novels and writers described as "poetical," such as Possession -- though I did skip some of the poems in that one. I really can't recall what it was about The English Patient that made me stop reading it: I just have a remnant feeling of confusion. It's peculiar because I was really struck by the film, but the book seemed entirely different.

Cindy, about Sacred Hunger, could it be the subject matter being so sordid that made you dislike it? It was dense and detailed, though fascinating, to me.

Kath, do you figure that the use of dialect in The True History of the Kelly Gang stymies readers? That and its format -- I know I had trouble following it, at first. I tried to read a couple of Carey's earlier books, Bliss and Illywhacker, but they were so weird that I gave up. Oscar and Lucinda was pretty strange, too -- the characters and the whole thing about the crystal church -- but for some reason, it clicked with me. I liked Jack Maggs too, but that's probably because I enjoy just about anything to do with Great Expectations.

Freida, I think there would be little doubt that the dialect would put people off. That and the diary format and lack of punctuation. I normally would have stopped reading, I think, but I'm glad I didn't.

I've read 15 of them, total.

I LOVED:

Rites of Passage
The Bone People
Possession
Sacred Hunger
Life of Pi

I really liked:

The Sea, the Sea
Disgrace
The Blind Assassin
True History of the Kelly Gang
The Remains of the Day

These I thought were just "okay":

The Gathering
The English Patient
The Sea

And I hated:

Inheritance of Loss
The God of Small Things

Kelly

Kren - you reminded me.... I couldn't get into "The God of Small Things" although I gave it a good old college try...