The Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee

This book is a testament to the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity. It tells the story of Michael K, who was born with a cleft palate and made a living as a gardener until civil war in South Africa makes life untenable for Michael and his mother Anna. Then he tries to take her to the farm she remembers from her childhood. Nothing comes easily for Michael, and he's continually faced with setbacks. But he perseveres despite it all. Winner of the 1983 Booker prize.

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

In this book, Claudia, an old woman and the writer of a number of popular histories, sets out to write a history of the world, which quickly changes into the history of her world. As she peels the layers of her life back, Claudia gradually exposes her family relationships--which are all shaped by the hole left after the death of her lover during World War II in Egypt. Winner of the 1987 Booker Prize.

Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

This book combines a number of stories. While a mutiny on a slave ship is perhaps the key event in the story; the vast majority of the narrative focuses on the experiences of two English characters: Erasmus Kemp, the son of the man who outfitted the ship, and his cousin Paris, a disgraced doctor who sails with the voyage. The book explores kinds of possibility: How cruel can humans be to each other? What are the costs of disappointment? What possible satisfactions can we obtain from revenge? Is it possible for a group of people, one set of whom tried to sell the other set into slavery, and who speak many different languages, to live together in harmony? altogether it makes a fascinating story. Winner of the 1992 Booker Prize with The English Patient.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

This book owes something to the beginning of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: it's narrated by an Irish child struggling to make sense of his world. The plot develops slowly and secondarily to character development. By the time I realized I was, in part, reading the story of the dissolution of the Clarkes' marriage, I was halfway through. The prose is beautiful and the story is moving. Winner of the 1993 Booker prize.

How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman

This book requires patience: it's written in a Scots dialect and in a stream-of-consciousness style that takes you inside the head of Sammy, an ex-con on a string of terrible luck. He wakes up after a bender to find that he's now blind and has been arrested, and then, after his release faces the disappearance of his girlfriend, the police, who question him about his participation in a crime they won't reveal, and the horrors of the welfare state and its bureaucracy as he tries to register his disability. This is definitely a book you have to adjust your way of thinking to understand--its lyricism is tied to its unfamiliar (and at times coarse) dialect, the action (such as there is) can be obscured by the stream-of-consciousness style, and Sammy is not the most appealing protagonist at first glance. But after getting to know Sammy, his resilience in the face of adversity shines through. Winner of the 1994 Booker Prize.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

This book begins when a troubled young boy, Simon, breaks into Kerewin Holmes's tower. Kerewin, a loner, gradually becomes closer to Simon and his adoptive father Joe. But as Kerewin learns more about the family, including Simon's traumatic past, she begins to realize that there are still real troubles plaguing this family. There are no simple or easy answers here. Simon's past is something of a mystery--and it always remains mysterious. All of the characters are damaged, and engage in morally questionable behaviors. While the majority of the book is written in English, it's littered with Maori phrases (translated in the back) and it eschews conventions--inner monologues are set off almost as if they are block quotations, for example. These stylistic differences required attention, but were easy to get used to. In the end this book is lyrical and haunting. Winner of the 1985 Booker Prize.

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

I didn't realize that this book was the third of a trilogy until after I read it, but I think it stands fairly well on its own. It's a World War I story, with its perspective shifting between a doctor (and his memories of his previous imperial service) and a working class officer, friends with figures such as Wilfred Owen, who is determined to go back to war despite the fact he no longer believes it is just. Winner of the 1995 Booker Prize.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

This book subtly investigates the questions of what we give up when we subsume our personality and our moral judgment into unquestioning loyalty. Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, has lived the life of a perfect butler. Even as his father lay dying upstairs, he only worried about serving Lord Darlington and his guests as perfectly as possible. He decided to give his loyalty to Lord Darlington and then never questioned Darlington's decisions or actions--even the more hideous ones, such as firing two housemaids because they were Jewish. But when Lord Darlington dies in disgrace, and a new American buys the house, Stevens goes on a journey. Ostensibly, he's trying to find a new housekeeper, but more importantly, he attempts to reconcile his actions and his memories with his moral self. This book was absolutely lovely. It unfolds over the course of the journey, but is littered with flashbacks as Stevens's memories continue to haunt him. I really loved this book. Winner of the 1989 Booker Prize.

Last Orders by Graham Swift

This book is about the journey of a group of friends to scatter one of their friend's ashes off the pier at Margate. Over the course of the book, we see the friendships' long and deep roots, over the disappointments of life. I thought this book was okay, but not great--although others might enjoy the style more. Winner of the 1996 Booker Prize.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

This book is presented as a story written by Ned Kelly (the famous Australian outlaw, whose last stand was also made into a short story in Armored) for his unknown, infant daughter, telling the story of his life and how he came to be an outlaw. I think I enjoyed this book so much because Carey gives Kelly such a distinctive voice--it's full of quirks and I found it to be very believable. Even though Kelly is practically illiterate, this book presents his desire, above all else, as only to be heard, as if to be heard will justify all his wrong-doings, murders, and robberies. And in this book, it might at that.

Rites of Passage by William Golding

This book, presented as the journal of an aristocratic younger son, on his way to Australia, written for his patron, an English lord, tells the story of the death of the parson on board the ship--a death that's written off by the captain as a fever, but whose more sinister roots are preserved in this journal. I was particularly intrigued by the unreliability and the moral ambiguity of the narrator, who obviously thinks much better of himself than the reader will and who is initially unable to recognize his own role and culpability in the story. Winner of the 1980 Booker Prize.

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

This book is about a middle-aged romance writer who's sent away to a small hotel in Switzerland by her friends for her own good (after she jilts her boring fiancé in favor of the married man with whom she's been having an affair). As she settles into life at the hotel, she reexamines her choices--in friendships, in romances, and in career, and is ultimately able to see past the temptations of comfort. I enjoyed this book but wasn't overwhelmed by it. Winner of the 1995 Booker Prize.

Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre

This book is a send-up of US media culture. In the wake of a school shooting, the shooter's best friend--and the book's narrator and protagonist--is suspected of being involved with the plot. As the aftermath unfolds, however, we see the incompetent police, news media, and legal system, unfairly target Vernon Little. Although many descriptions of the book describe it as humorous, I was more horrified than amused. Winner of the 2003 Booker Prize.

The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis

This book focuses on the return home of Alun and Rhiannon Weaver. He's a writer who's made his name as one of his generation's great Welsh writers, even though most of his career has been spent in London. When he comes home, decades-old relationships, friendships, and betrayals are reevaluated as Amis skewers everyone with a dark humor. I enjoyed this book, though I have the strong suspicion that I don't find Kingsley Amis as funny as Kingsley Amis finds Kingsley Amis. 1986 Booker Prize winner.

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

This book is a bildungsroman of sorts of Nick Guest, a young gay man who spends the 1980s living in London at the wealthy, conservative, and political active family of a college friend of his. The book is a comedy of manners that exposes the emptiness not only of Nick's life but also of his friends and the people in his social milieu. As personal and political disaster close in on Nick and his household, he's left with the memory of the various lines of beauty (of someone's body, architectural, or even lines of cocaine) that he's experienced, but not much hope for the future. I found this book to be an extremely compelling read: the plot moves forward organically and the prose is beautifully styled. Winner of the 2004 Booker Prize.

The Sea by John Banville

In this book Max Morden confronts his memories of the past as he moves to the village where he summered as a child after his wife's death. The tone is elegaic, but as Max reveals more and more of his memories, we quickly discover that his childhood was not all that it seems. Max must confront questions of responsibility for long-past tragedies as he struggles to live through his latest loss. Winner of the 2005 Booker prize.

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

This book is about the improbable romance between the son of a dissenting minister and an Australian heiress who invests in a glass factory. Oscar Hopkins believes in gambling of a certain type--but won't allow himself to profit from it--at a very young age. Indeed, he uses a game of chance to determine that his father is incorrect on certain religious tenets and therefore becomes an Anglican minister. Lucinda Leplastrier is also a gambler of a sort--she invests half of her inheritance in a glass factory despite no background in the industry. They meet while traveling from England to Australia, and together concoct a plan to construct a glass church in the heart of the Outback. I really enjoyed this book--I thought the character development was superb--both Oscar and Lucinda are quirky, flawed individuals. Despite the improbabilities of the plot, Carey has constructed two characters who feel human. Winner of the 1988 Booker Prize.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

This book tells the intertwining stories of Sai, an orphan, who lives with her grandfather, a retired judge, in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains and Biju, the son of their cook, who is trying to make it as an illegal immigrant in the restaurants of New York City. There are beautiful scenes here, and the book is very attentive to the problems of colonialism, but the plot was a little meandering for my tastes--it took a long time for me to figure out quite where it was going. Winner of the Booker Prize, 2006.

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

This book tells the story of David Lurie, a middle-aged literature professor who is forced to leave his University post after he has an affair with one of his students. He moves to a rural part of the country, where his daughter lives alone on a farm, but his safety and his relationship with his daughter are imperiled when the farm is attacked. None of the characters clearly held the moral high ground, and I think that this ambiguity is one of the book's strengths. I'm not sure that the book had a fantastic answer, but it posed the question of how do you live life past disappointment and things not working out the way you might have hoped very well. Booker award winner, 1999.

The Gathering by Anne Enright

This book is a study in grief and loss: after Liam Hagerty's suicide, his remaining family gathers for his wake, and his sister Veronica tries to sort out her complicated feelings for her brother, her husband, and her children as she tries to make sense of why Liam died. Long-buried family secrets come to light as Veronica teases out how the past created the present she's now living in. Elegiacally and patiently this book slowly unwraps years of family trauma. Booker prize winner, 2007.