Recommendations of Adult award winning books for high school students?

[Cuisine123]

They must have won the Man Booker, Giller, Governor General, Pulitzer or Commonwealth awards within the last 5 years.

I am looking for a book that wouldn't be very difficult to understand when it comes to the content, language, or reading level. I also don't prefer books that require a good knowledge of historical/political references in order to understand. Thanks!

[dell]

I've read a few Pulitzer winning books recently. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a good book about a father/son trying to survive after most of the world is destroyed by a major disaster. They made a movie which comes out soon with Viggo Mortenson and Charlize Theoron.
The other is Middlesex which is a coming of age story about a hermaphrodite and how hard life can be when you try to live as both a male and a female separately.
I also like The Lovely Bones which Peter Jackson is currently making as a film adaptation.

[Skip2MyLou]

Where the wild things are.

theres a movie coming out on it too.

[jerrysiz]

OMG there making the lovey bones into a movie?

worst movie ever ...

Plot

Girl gets rape and murdered

300 pages late

nothing much has changed ...

Pretty much sums up how I felt about The Road...except change "girl gets raped and murdered" to "graphically describe father and son slowly dying". Quite an accomplishment to have an entire novel where absoloutely nothing happens.

I liked Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I don't think it won the Booker, but I'm pretty sure it was shortlisted. There are so many other good ones but they don't fit into your five year limit (for example, Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee was awesome, but it's about 10 years old now, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is one of the best books I've ever read, but it's even older).

[Chookman]

Even though it hasn't won any of the awards you listed, I liked The Book Thief.

It's a multiple award winner including the 2007 Boeke Prize which uses criteria similar to the Man Booker and the content is probably at an early high school reading level. That would satisfy your requirement that it's easy to understand and read.

The story is set in Nazi Germany but it doesn't require extensive WW2 knowledge. However, the story is enhanced the more you know about the times.

I have to agree about the previous comment on The Road. I stopped reading it half way through out of boredom. I love post apocalyptic-type stories but felt this one was just not creative enough for me.

*EDIT* After a little googling, it seems that it HAS won the Commonwealth Award in 2006 so it does fit all of your criteria.

[jerrysiz]

The Book Thief.

It's a multiple award winner including the 2007 Boeke Prize which uses criteria similar to the Man Booker and the content is probably at an early high school reading level. That would satisfy your requirement that it's easy to understand and read.

The story is set in Nazi Germany but it doesn't require extensive WW2 knowledge. However, the story is enhanced the more you know about the times.

*EDIT* After a little googling, it seems that it HAS won the Commonwealth Award in 2006 so it does fit all of your criteria.

+1 for this. Great book.