Our 10 favourite Man Booker winners

2006: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
In rural India, a teenager and her anglophile grandfather are embroiled in cultural clashes; half a world away in America, a childhood acquaintance struggles to survive.

2003: Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
After the media and townspeople frame him as an accessory to a high-school killing spree, a smart-aleck 15-year-old goes on the lam.

2002: Life of Pi by Yann Martel
After surviving a shipwreck, a boy is adrift on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a 450-pound tiger. Appetite and adventure ensue — naturally!

2000: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Two sisters, one fiery and passionate, the other icy and contained. One day, one of them drives off a bridge. Suicide or accident?

1998: Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
After the lingering death of a former lover, two friends decide on a euthanasia pact. Meanwhile, scandalous photos surface.

1997: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Following the death of a child in India, the tragic consequences are viewed through the eyes of her two young twin cousins.

1992: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Burned beyond recognition, a man with no name is tended by a nurse, a thief and a sapper, and tells a heartbreaking tale of forbidden love.

1990: Possession by A.S. Byatt
A student and a scholar fall in love and uncover an epic secret while investigating the possible connection between two poets over 100 years ago.

1989: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Suppressed emotion simmers beneath the surface of this story about a butler dedicated to duty who tragically lets life and love pass him by.

1988: Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
A minister and an eccentric heiress combine forces in a crazy gamble to see a glass church erected in the Australian outback.