Compared to other book prizes, the Pulitzer recognizes books that invariably knock my socks off. So I thought it might be rewarding — and ambitious — to try to read them all. Ones that I’ve already read are bolded, and if I read them and reviewed them, you can follow the link to my thoughts.
>1910
1917: none
1918: His Family, Ernest Poole
1919: The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington
>1920
1920: none
1921: The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
1922: Alice Adams, Booth Tarkington
1923: One of Ours, Willa Cather
1924: The Able McLaughlins, Margaret Wilson
1925: So Big, Edna Ferber
1926: Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis
1927: Early Autumn, Louis Bromfield
1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
1929: Scarlet Sister Mary, Julia Peterkin
>1930
1930: Laughing Boy, Oliver La Farge
1931: Years of Grace, Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932: The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
1933: The Store, Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934: Lamb in His Bosom, Caroline Miller
1935: Now in November, Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936: Honey in the Horn, Harold L. Davis
1937: Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
1938: The Late George Apley, John Phillips Marquand
1939: The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
>1940
1940: The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
1941: none
1942: In This Our Life, Ellen Glasgow
1943: Dragon’s Teeth, Upton Sinclair
1944: Journey in the Dark, Martin Flavin
1945: A Bell for Adano, John Hersey
1946: none
1947: All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren
1948: Tales of the South Pacific, James A. Michener
1949: Guard of Honor, James Gould Cozzens
>1950
1950: The Way West, A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
1951: The Town, Conrad Richter
1952: The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk
1953: The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
1954: none
1955: A Fable, William Faulkner
1956: Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
1957: none
1958: A Death in the Family, James Agee
1959: The Travels of Jaime McPheeters, Robert Lewis Taylor
>1960
1960: Advise and Consent, Allen Drury
1961: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
1962: The Edge of Sadness, Edwin O’Conner
1963: The Reivers, William Faulkner
1964: none
1965: The Keepers of the House, Shirley Ann Grau
1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, Katherine Anne Porter
1967: The Fixer, Bernard Malmud
1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner, William Styron
1969: House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday
>1970
1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, Jean Stafford
1971: none
1972: Angel of Repose, William Stegner
1973: The Optimist’s Daughter, Eudora Welty
1974: none
1975: The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
1976: Humbolt’s Gift, Saul Bellow
1977: none
1978: Elbow Room, James Alan McPherson
1979: The Stories of John Cheever, John Cheever
>1980
1980: The Executioner’s Song, Norman Mailer
1981: A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
1982: Rabbit is Rich, John Updike
1983: The Color Purple, Alice Walker
1984: Ironweed, William Kennedy
1985: Foreign Affairs, Allison Lurie
1986: Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
1987: A Summons to Memphis, Peter Taylor
1988: Beloved, Toni Morrison
1989: Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler
>1990
1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos
1991: Rabbit at Rest, John Updike
1992: A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler
1994: The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
1995: The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
1996: Independence Day, Richard Ford
1997: Martin Dressler: A Tale of an American Dreamer, Steve Millhauser
1998: American Pastoral, Philip Roth
1999: The Hours, Michael Cunningham
>2000
2000: Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
2002: Empire Falls, Richard Russo
2003: Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
2004: The Known World, Edward P. Jones
2005: Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
2007: The Road, Cormac McCarthy
2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
2009: Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
>2010
2010: Tinkers, Paul Harding
2011: A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
2012: none
2013: The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson
2014: The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
2015: All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
2016: The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017: The Underground Railroad, Colin Whitehead
2018: Less, Andrew Sean Greer
2019: The Overstory, Richard Powers
>2020
2020: The Nickel Boys, Colin Whitehead
2021: The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich
a murder of crows 