Past Man Booker Prize Winners & Finalists (1996)

2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995	1994
1993	1992	1991	1990	1989	1988	1987	1986	1985	1984
1983	1982	1981	1980	1979	1978	1977	1976	1975	1974
1973	1972	1971	1970	1969	Full List Tracking Sheet

1996
Book Cover	Book Details	Synopsis	TBS Rank
1996 Winner	Last Orders by Graham Swift Publisher: Picador ISBN: 0679766626	The author of the internationally acclaimed Waterland gives us a beautifully crafted and astonishingly moving novel that is at once a vision of a changing England and a testament to the powers of friendship, memory, and fate. Four men -- friends, most of them, for half a lifetime -- gather in a London pub. They have taken it upon themselves to carry out the "last orders" of Jack Dodds, master butcher, and carry his ashes to the sea. And as they drive to the coast in the Mercedes that Jack's adopted son Vince has borrowed from his car dealership, their errand becomes an epic journey into their collective and individual pasts. Braiding these men's voices -- and that of Jack's mysteriously absent widow -- into a choir of secret sorrow and resentment, passion and regret, Graham Swift creates a work that is at once intricate and honest, tender and profanely funny; in short, Last Orders is a triumph.	6
	Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood Publisher: Bloomsbury ISBN: 0385490445	Margaret Atwood's books have sold over three million copies in the United States alone. She has long been one of the world's most respected novelist as well as one of its most popular. Alias Grace, her latest novel and a finalist for England 's prestigious Booker Prize, has only solidified her reputation in both respects. It has adorned bestseller lists across the country while at the same time being praised by reviewers from coast to coast. From the first paragraph of this stunning novel, it is clear that Atwood's newest achievement will take its place besides her bestselling classics. In Alias Grace Margaret Atwood takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century. Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer, the wealthy Thomas Kinnear, and of Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence after a stint in Toronto 's lunatic asylum, Grace herself claims to have no memory of the murders. Dr. Simon Jordan, an up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness, is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? Is Grace female fiend? A bloodthirsty femme fatale? Or is she the victim of circumstances?	2
	Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge Publisher: Duckworth ISBN: 1575664186	The sinking of the world's greatest luxury liner, the invincible and magnificent SS Titanic , has captured people's attention ever since that tragic April night in 1912 when 1500 people lost their lives. And no one has better dramatized this memorable event than Beryl Bainbridge in her latest novel.	5
	Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane Publisher: Cape ISBN: 0099744414	Set in post-war Northern Ireland , where the unquiet ghosts of the Troubles walk alongside the warriors and changelings of Celtic legend, Seamus Deane's first novel is the transfixing story of a boy trying to uncover the secrets of the adult world. And in Reading in the Dark , every adult has a secret—of family feuds and political treachery, unexplained disappearances and unsolved murders, and of sorrow so bitter that it is passed down through generations. Deane's unnamed narrator searches for the truth amid a forest of rumors and legends: of an uncle who may have died a hero of the IRA or absconded to America; of a grandfather who may have killed one man and ordered the deaths of many more; of a child who comes back from the grave and of two others who vanish into one amid an unholy blaze of greenish light. As orchestrated by Deane, these events coalesce into a work of unforgettable power, written in ravishing prose and overflowing with tenderness, sadness, menace, and dark wit.	4
	The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay Publisher: Heinemann ISBN: 155921175x	Set in an English village where the charm of the local landscape contrasts sharply with the prejudices and vagaries of its adult inhabitants. The Orchard on Fire richly relates the coming-of-age of young April Harlency. Shortly after the Harlency family arrives in Stonebridge to run the Copper Kettle Team-room, April meets the energetic carrottop Ruby Richards, and the two girls become fast friends. Though April increasingly becomes the unwitting object of lonely Mr. Greenridge's overtures and Ruby regularly sports bruises or black eyes, courtesy of her brutish father, the girls retain the unassailable spirit of children who fully experience their lives but only half understand them. Together, they retreat from the confusion of the village and transform an abandoned railway car in an orchard into their secret hideaway, an idyllic camp of shared dreams.	3
	A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry Publisher: Faber & Faber ISBN: 140003065x	With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India . The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers — a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village — will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.	1
Judges	Carmen Callil, Jonathan Coe, Iain Jack, A.L. Kennedy, A.N. Wilson