How Page Pilgrim Began

The premise behind Page Pilgrim grew from an idea I had sometime in the first half of 2024. I was always a big reader as a child and through adulthood of both fiction and non-fiction, I have fluctuated through cycles of reading a lot or a little, and whilst I have now settled at the 'a lot' end of the reading spectrum (at least for a slow reader), I have found myself increasingly narrowing the range of fiction I'm willing to tackle, and more so than that to reread favourite novels again and again, like a hot chocolate or comfort blanket whilst my world beyond the page spirals into the ever more hectic.

The Search for Something New

I could always have just ploughed through my girlfriend's bedside table. I didn't go that route partly due to pride, I guess, and also the need to have more structure to thus be able to have a handle on what I could be achieving. Once I'd realised this, the answer was relatively simple.

Why the Booker Prize?

Frankly I'm a snob when it comes to books, but still within my comfort zone, so I needed to work within those constraints and broaden my literary horizons in a way that would satisfy my snobbery. The Booker Prize was the obvious route.

I'm English, hanging on by a thread to the edge of London. For those that don't know, the Booker Prize is the foremost literary prize in the UK, though of course there are plenty of others. There is also the more recent addition of the International Booker Prize, which I'm sure I'll get to later.

A Literary Challenge

The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969 to PH Newby's Something to Answer for, and with ongoing tinkering around the edges has been going strong ever since. Over the years I've probably read half a dozen of the winners, the ones that spring to mind are Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Ben Okri's The Famished Road and (read more recently) Yann Martel's The Life of Pi. All startlingly books in their own right. I wondered, what about the other fifty or so that I haven't read?

That's how it began. I began to read the winners from the beginning and have now read the first three or four. Then of course I've realised that beyond simply the winners there are both those that make the Shortlist and before that the Longlist. I haven't counted but there must be about 200 books of all types for me to read, quite a few of those extended lists I have actually read.

Sharing the Journey

So that was the idea, to read all the Booker Prize winners. It was a simple jump from there to realise that it would be good to document it, and share my journey.

More Than Just the Booker

However, I don't want to be stuck with only reading and sharing from this list, I'm a great fan of Science Fiction (my literary comfort food) and my curiosity leads me to consume a lot of non-fiction, particularly these days books about the natural environment. I will share those too, but the core of Page Pilgrim, at least for the moment, will be my journey through the Booker Prize.