I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead right now and, to my surprise, loving it. That’s not usually my experience with Pulitzer winners; more often than not, I either loathe them or theoretically admire them from a polite but happy distance. But this one has its hooks in me, enough that I went back to look at the full list of past winners to see which other winners I’d enjoyed. 

What struck me is how few Pulitzer novels I really liked. There are just a handful I still recall the characters and/or would ever want to read again. Of those, my list looks like this:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (my all-time favorite)

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

It made me curious about other readers’ lists. Which Pulitzer winners do you genuinely love?

I’d also love to hear which ones didn’t work for you at all. There’s no shame in admitting a prizewinner left you cold. (I really disliked Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and William Kennedy’s Ironweed.)