The Booker Prize: Past Winners

1. The seven moons of Maali Almeida

by Shehan Karunatilaka

€11.20 €14.00

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023 Now with added author content - a Map of Colombo as viewed from the afterlife + Dramatis Personae A magical realism whodunnit set amid Sri Lanka's civil war Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka's foremost author delivers a rip-roaring epic, full of mordant wit and disturbing truths. 'Recalls the mordant wit and surrealism of Gogol and Bulgakov.' Guardian 'Outstanding... the most significant work of Sri Lankan fiction in a decade.' New European

2. The promise

by Damon Galgut

€11.59 €14.50

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 One family. One promise. One chance to tell a new story. 'A moving, brilliantly told family epic' Elizabeth Day THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER On a farm outside Pretoria, the Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for - not least their treatment of the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. Salome was to be given her own house, her own land...yet somehow, that vow is carefully ignored. As each decade passes, and the family assemble again, one question hovers over them. Can you ever escape the repercussions of a broken promise? 'A tour de force... A spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh' Booker Judges, 2021 'Astonishing' Colm Tóibìn 'Utterly compelling' Patrick Gale

3. Shuggie Bain

by Douglas Stuart

€11.59 €14.50

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF 'BOOK OF THE YEAR' AND 'DEBUT OF THE YEAR' AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER 'An amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love.' - The judges of the Booker Prize 'Douglas Stuart has written a first novel of rare and lasting beauty.' - The Observer 'Shuggie Bain means so much to me. It is such a powerfully written story . . . I love a heartbreak book but there is so much love within this one, particularly between Shuggie and his mother Agnes.' - Dua Lipa It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life, dreaming of greater things. But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and as she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different, he is clearly no' right . But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place. Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. For readers of A Little Life and Angela's Ashes , it is a heartbreaking novel by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell. 'A heartbreaking novel' - The Times 'Tender and unsentimental . . . The Billy Elliot-ish character of Shuggie . . . leaps off the page.' - Daily Mail

4. Girl, woman, other

by Bernardine Evaristo

€11.59 €14.50

THE SUNDAY TIMES 1# BESTSELLER & BOOKER PRIZE WINNER *One of Goodreads Most Popular Books of the Past Decade* This is Britain as you've never read it. This is Britain as it has never been told. From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They're each looking for something - a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . . 'The most absorbing book I read all year' Roxane Gay '[Bernardine Evaristo] is one of the very best that we have' Nikesh Shukla 'Beautifully interwoven stories of identity, race, womanhood, and the realities of modern Britain. The characters are so vivid, the writing is beautiful and it brims with humanity' Nicola Sturgeon 'A choral love song to black womanhood in modern Great Britain' Elle 'Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life' Ali Smith 'Exceptional. You have to order it right now' Stylist

5. The testaments

by Margaret Atwood

€11.59 €14.50

**THE NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE** In this electrifying sequel to The Handmaid's Tale , Margaret Atwood answers the question that has tantalised readers for decades: What happened to Offred? The Republic of Gilead is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, two girls with radically different experiences of the regime come face to face with the legendary, ruthless Aunt Lydia. But how far will each go for what she believes? Now with additional material: book club discussion points and an interview with Margaret Atwood about the real-life events that inspired The Testaments and The Handmaid's Tale . 'The Testaments is Atwood at her best . . . To read this book is to feel the world turning' Anne Enright _________________________________ PRAISE FOR THE TESTAMENTS : 'Everything The Handmaid's Tale fans wanted and more. Prepare to hold your breath throughout, and to cry real tears at the end' Stylist 'She manages to write about the darkest and most terrifying parts of human psychology in a way that is still deeply funny and full of dark strange hope' Naomi Alderman, author of The Power

6. Milkman

by Anna Burns

€11.59 €14.50

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2018, shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019, shortlisted for The Women's Prize For Fiction 2019, shortlisted For The Orwell Prize For Political Fiction 2019. In an unnamed city, where to be interesting is dangerous, an eighteen-year-old woman has attracted the unwanted and unavoidable attention of a powerful and frightening older man, 'Milkman'. In this community, where suggestions quickly become fact, where gossip and hearsay can lead to terrible consequences, what can she do to stop a rumour once it has started? Milkman is persistent, the word is spreading, and she is no longer in control . . . 'Blazing.' Daily Telegraph 'Outstanding.' New Statesman 'A triumph.' Guardian 'Utterly compelling.' Irish Times 'The best Booker winner in years.' Metro 

7. The sellout

by Paul Beatty

€10.44 €13.05

  A Book of the Decade, 2010-2020 (Independent) A LAUGH-OUT-LOUD SATIRE ABOUT RACE, CLASS AND INEQUALITY IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA, BY A LITERARY GENIUS AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME Winner of the Man Booker Prize, 2016 In his trademark absurdist style, Paul Beatty will make you laugh and cry in this outrageous - and outrageously entertaining - indictment of our time. Born in Dickens on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles, the narrator of The Sellout spent his childhood as the subject in his father's racially charged psychological studies. He is told that this work will lead to a memoir that will solve their financial woes. But when his father is killed in a drive-by shooting, he discovers there never was a memoir. All that's left is a bill for a drive-thru funeral. What's more, Dickens has literally been wiped off the map to save California from further embarrassment. Fuelled by despair, the narrator sets out to right this wrong with the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school. The results will take him from Dickens to the Supreme Court, in the trial of the century. 'Outrageous, hilarious and profound.' Simon Schama, Financial Times 'The longer you stare at Beatty's pages, the smarter you'll get.' Guardian 'The most badass first 100 pages of an American novel I've read.' New York Times

8. Bring up the bodies

by Hilary Mantel

€11.59 €13.99

Winner of the Man Booker Prize The second book in Hilary Mantel's award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, with a stunning new cover design to celebrate the publication of the much anticipated The Mirror and the Light An astounding literary accomplishment, Bring Up the Bodies is the story of this most terrifying moment of history, by one of our greatest living novelists. 'Our most brilliant English writer' Guardian Bring Up the Bodies unlocks the darkly glittering court of Henry VIII, where Thomas Cromwell is now chief minister. With Henry captivated by plain Jane Seymour and rumours of Anne Boleyn's faithlessness whispered by all, Cromwell knows what he must do to secure his position. But the bloody theatre of the queen's final days will leave no one unscathed. 'A great novel of dark and dirty passions, public and private. A truly great story' Financial Times 'In another league. This ongoing story of Henry VIII's right-hand man is the finest piece of historical fiction I have ever read' Sunday Telegraph

9. Wolf Hall

by Hilary Mantel

€11.59 €13.99

Winner of the Man Booker Prize The first book in Hilary Mantel's award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, with a new cover design to celebrate the publication of the much anticipated The Mirror and the Light From one of our finest living writers, Wolf Hall is that very rare thing: a truly great English novel. 'Every bit as good as they said it was' Observer 'Terrific' Margaret Atwood 'As soon as I opened this book I was gripped. I read it almost non-stop' The Times In Wolf Hall, one of our very best writers brings the opulent, brutal world of the Tudors to bloody, glittering life. It is the backdrop to the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell: lowborn boy, charmer, bully, master of deadly intrigue, and , finally, most powerful of Henry VIII's coutiers. 'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good' Daily Mail 'Terrifying. It is a world of marvels. But it is also a world of horrors, where screams are commonplace. A feast' Daily Telegraph

10. The gathering

by Anne Enright

€11.59 €14.50

'Witty, original, inventive...utterly compelling' Daily Mail Winner of the Man Booker Prize The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968. The Gathering is a novel about love and disappointment, about thwarted lust and limitless desire, and how our fate is written in the body, not in the stars. 'It is clearly the product of a remarkable intelligence, combined with a gift for observation and deduction' A.L. Kennedy, Guardian

11. The sea

by John Banville

€11.59 €14.50

'A masterly study of grief, memory and love recollected' Professor John Sutherland, Chair of Judges, Man Booker Prize 2005 The Sea is John Banville's Man Booker prize-winning exploration of memory, childhood and loss. When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins Myles and Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately, and what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything that was to follow.

12. Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

€14.00

Pi lives in Pondicherry, India, where his father owns the city's zoo. The family decides to emigrate to Canada, but tragedy strikes at sea. In the lifeboat are five survivors: Pi, a hyena, a zebra, a female orang-utan & a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

13. True history of the Kelly gang

by Peter Carey

€11.59 €14.50

'I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silence...' To the authorities in pursuit of him, outlaw Ned Kelly is a horse thief, bank robber and police-killer. But to his fellow ordinary Australians, Kelly is their own Robin Hood. In a dazzling act of ventriloquism, Peter Carey brings the famous bushranger wildly and passionately to life.

14. The God of small things

by Arundhati Roy

€11.59 €14.50

'They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.' This is the story of Rahel and Estha, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns of their blind grandmother's factory, and amid scenes of political turbulence in Kerala. Armed only with the innocence of youth, they fashion a childhood in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher) and their sworn enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun, incumbent grand-aunt). Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize-winning novel was the literary sensation of the 1990s: a story anchored to anguish but fuelled by wit and magic.

15. The remains of the day

by Kazuo Ishiguro

€11.59 €14.50

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available* WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past. 'A triumph . . . This wholly convincing portrait of a human life unweaving before your eyes is inventive and absorbing, by turns funny, absurd and ultimately very moving.' Sunday Times 'A dream of a book: a beguiling comedy of manners that evolves almost magically into a profound and heart-rending study of personality, class and culture.' New York TImes Book Review

16. Schindler's ark

by Thomas Keneally

€15.07 €18.85

***Winner of the Booker Prize*** 'ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST WRITERS' Spectator 'Extraordinary' Graham Greene 'Powerful' The Times 'Marvellous' Sunday Times The acclaimed bestselling classic of Holocaust literature, adapted into the award-winning film Schindler's List In the shadow of Auschwitz, as thousands faced death in Nazi-occupied Poland, an unlikely saviour emerged. Oskar Schindler was a heavy-drinking, womanising industrialist who defied and outwitted the SS to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. Based on a true story, Schindler's Ark is an astonishing tale of huge risks and great courage in the face of unspeakable evil. PRAISE FOR THOMAS KENEALLY 'A superb storyteller' Alan Sillitoe 'One of the historical novel's most expert practitioners' Guardian 'A grand talent' The Times

17. Midnight's children

by Salman Rushdie

€11.59 €14.50

'A wonderful, rich and humane novel... a classic' Guardian Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India's independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child. However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other 'midnight's children' all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem's story is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious. *WINNER OF THE BOOKER AND BEST OF THE BOOKER PRIZE* **A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BIG JUBILEE READ PICK** WITH A NEW 40TH ANNIVERSARY INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR