Which Book Prize Has the Best Backlist?

On Monday, the Pulitzer committee will announce their 2012 fiction winner. For a good chunk of my reading life, this was the prize I followed most closely. I diligently read the winners and finalists, thinking, for reasons I still don’t understand, that it was the gold standard of literary prizes (save the Nobel, which is for lifetime achievement). I am less interested in prizes, best-of lists, and the like these days, but I was looking at the recent winners of the Pulitzer fiction prize and thought that they hold up pretty darn well: Egan, Diaz, McCarthy, Eugenides, and others of the last decade or so still feel like important, liked, and widely-read picks. But how do Pulitzer honorees compare to those of the other major literary awards? This is where you come in. Below, I’ve collected the last ten winners from the top-line literary prizes. What I’d like you to do is vote, in the poll at the bottom, for which list of books you think is the best all-around. I’ll leave “best” to your own definition, though if you have a second to explain your voting in the comments, I’d be interested to hear your reasoning. In alphabetical order: The Man Booker Prize 2011: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes 2010: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson 2009: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2008: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga 2007: The Gathering by Anne Enright 2006: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai 2005: The Sea by John Banville 2004: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst 2003: Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre 2002: The Life of Pi by Yann Martel The National Book Award 2011: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward 2010: Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon 2009: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann 2008: Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen 2007: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson 2006: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers 2005: Europe Central by William T. Vollman 2004: The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck 2003: The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard 2002: Three Junes by Julia Glass The National Book Critics Circle Award  2011: Binocular Vision & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman 2010: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 2009: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2008: 2666 by Roberto Bolano 2007: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz 2006: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai 2005: The March by E.L. Doctorow 2004: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 2003: The Known World by Edward P. Jones 2002: Atonement by Ian McEwan The Orange Prize 2011: The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht 2010: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver 2009: Home by Marilynne Robinson 2008: The Road Home by Rose Tremain 2007: Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006: On Beauty by Zadie Smith 2005: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 2004: Small Island by Andrea Levy 2003: Property by Valerie Martin 2002: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett The PEN/Faulkner Award 2012: The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka 2011: The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg 2010: War Dances by Sherman Alexie 2009: Netherland by Joseph O’Neill 2008: The Great Man by Kate Christensen 2007: Everyman by Philip Roth 2006: The March by E.L. Doctorow 2005: War Trash by Ha Jin 2004: The Early Stories by John Updike 2003: The Caprices by Sabina Murray The Pulitzer Prize 2011: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding 2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz 2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2006: March by Geraldine Brooks 2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones 2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo The Tournament of Books 2012: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt 2011: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan 2010: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2009: A Mercy by Toni Morrison 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz 2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2006: The Accidental by Ali Smith 2005 (year of first award): Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell [polldaddy poll=6130124]