The Booker Prizes | The Strange Case of Vernon God Little | The Booker Prize Podcast: Episode 5 @TheBookerPrizes | Uploaded July 2023 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
What exactly is “a Booker novel”? Some might jump to a specific kind of high-minded, serious fiction, while others argue for a broader definition inclusive of more mainstream novels. Over the years, the pendulum has swung between the two and in 2003, DBC Pierre's darkly comic debut novel about an acerbic, foul-mouthed 15-year-old boy who goes on the run after a mass shooting at his Texas high school, was awarded the prize. 20 years after its win, we take a closer look at the novel and why it was an unexpected winner.
In this episode, Jo and James talk about:
- Their childhood reading inspirations
- A brief – and slightly spoiler-y – summary of the novel
- The reaction to its 2003 Man Booker Prize win
- The author behind the novel
- Whether Vernon God Little stands up to reading 20 years after its release
- Books to read after reading Vernon God Little
Books and authors discussed in this episode:
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Rudyard Kipling
- Charles Dickens
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Virginia Woolf
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Philip Pullman
- The Moomins books by Tove Jansson
- Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller
- Brick Lane by Monica Ali
- Schopenhauer's Telescope by Gerard Donovan
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
- True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
- The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Us by David Nicholls
- The Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn
- Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
- Philip Larkin
A full transcript of the episode is available at our website.
If you've got a problem you'd like some literary help with, email us at contactus@bookerprizefoundation.org using the subject line “The Booker Clinic”.
Follow The Booker Prize Podcast so you never miss an episode. Visit thebookerprizes.com/podcast to find out more about us, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok @thebookerprizes.
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The Booker Prizes on TikTok: tiktok.com/@thebookerprizes
The Booker Prizes on Twitter: twitter.com/TheBookerPrizes
The Booker Prizes on Facebook: facebook.com/TheBookerPrizes
The Booker Prizes on Instagram: instagram.com/thebookerprizes
The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.
Previous winners include The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, The Promise by Damon Galgut, Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Bone People by Keri Hulme and many more.
#TheBookerPrize
What exactly is “a Booker novel”? Some might jump to a specific kind of high-minded, serious fiction, while others argue for a broader definition inclusive of more mainstream novels. Over the years, the pendulum has swung between the two and in 2003, DBC Pierre's darkly comic debut novel about an acerbic, foul-mouthed 15-year-old boy who goes on the run after a mass shooting at his Texas high school, was awarded the prize. 20 years after its win, we take a closer look at the novel and why it was an unexpected winner.
In this episode, Jo and James talk about:
- Their childhood reading inspirations
- A brief – and slightly spoiler-y – summary of the novel
- The reaction to its 2003 Man Booker Prize win
- The author behind the novel
- Whether Vernon God Little stands up to reading 20 years after its release
- Books to read after reading Vernon God Little
Books and authors discussed in this episode:
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Rudyard Kipling
- Charles Dickens
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Virginia Woolf
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Philip Pullman
- The Moomins books by Tove Jansson
- Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller
- Brick Lane by Monica Ali
- Schopenhauer's Telescope by Gerard Donovan
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
- True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
- The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Us by David Nicholls
- The Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn
- Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
- Philip Larkin
A full transcript of the episode is available at our website.
If you've got a problem you'd like some literary help with, email us at contactus@bookerprizefoundation.org using the subject line “The Booker Clinic”.
Follow The Booker Prize Podcast so you never miss an episode. Visit thebookerprizes.com/podcast to find out more about us, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok @thebookerprizes.
---
The Booker Prizes on TikTok: tiktok.com/@thebookerprizes
The Booker Prizes on Twitter: twitter.com/TheBookerPrizes
The Booker Prizes on Facebook: facebook.com/TheBookerPrizes
The Booker Prizes on Instagram: instagram.com/thebookerprizes
The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.
Previous winners include The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, The Promise by Damon Galgut, Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Bone People by Keri Hulme and many more.
#TheBookerPrize
