On Monday, the Pulitzer committee will announce their 2012 fiction winner. For a good chunk of my reading life, this was the prize I followed most closely. I diligently read the winners and finalists, thinking, for reasons I still don’t understand, that it was the gold standard of literary prizes (save the Nobel, which is for lifetime achievement).

I am less interested in prizes, best-of lists, and the like these days, but I was looking at the recent winners of the Pulitzer fiction prize and thought that they hold up pretty darn well: Egan, Diaz, McCarthy, Eugenides, and others of the last decade or so still feel like important, liked, and widely-read picks. But how do Pulitzer honorees compare to those of the other major literary awards?

This is where you come in. Below, I’ve collected the last ten winners from the top-line literary prizes. What I’d like you to do is vote, in the poll at the bottom, for which list of books you think is the best all-around. I’ll leave “best” to your own definition, though if you have a second to explain your voting in the comments, I’d be interested to hear your reasoning.

In alphabetical order:

The Man Booker Prize

2011: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

2010: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

2009: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

2008: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

2007: The Gathering by Anne Enright

2006: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

2005: The Sea by John Banville

2004: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

2003: Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre

2002: The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The National Book Award

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2011: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

2010: Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

2009: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

2008: Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen

2007: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

2006: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

2005: Europe Central by William T. Vollman

2004: The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck

2003: The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

2002: Three Junes by Julia Glass

The National Book Critics Circle Award

2011: Binocular Vision & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman

2010: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

2009: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

2008: 2666 by Roberto Bolano

2007: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2006: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

2005: The March by E.L. Doctorow

2004: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2003: The Known World by Edward P. Jones

2002: Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Orange Prize

2011: The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

2010: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

2009: Home by Marilynne Robinson

2008: The Road Home by Rose Tremain

2007: Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2006: On Beauty by Zadie Smith

2005: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

2004: Small Island by Andrea Levy

2003: Property by Valerie Martin

2002: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

The PEN/Faulkner Award

2012: The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

2011: The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg

2010: War Dances by Sherman Alexie

2009: Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

2008: The Great Man by Kate Christensen

2007: Everyman by Philip Roth

2006: The March by E.L. Doctorow

2005: War Trash by Ha Jin

2004: The Early Stories by John Updike

2003: The Caprices by Sabina Murray

The Pulitzer Prize

2011: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding

2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2006: March by Geraldine Brooks

2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones

2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo

The Tournament of Books

2012: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

2011: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

2010: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

2009: A Mercy by Toni Morrison

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2006: The Accidental by Ali Smith

2005 (year of first award): Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

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