I finished the first volume of Theodore Mommsen's (winner, 1902) complete history of Rome. I would give the title but there have been various titles over the years, apparently. I read the volume pertaining to Pre-Roman life. According to the intro it covers "up to the Punic Wars" but that's wrong. It covers up to about 750 BC.
The book was a combination of two of the worst qualities in historical writing. 1) Superficiality and 2) Presuming a lot of knowledge as "common." For instance, the assumption the reader not only know Latin but some Sanskrit was necessary. Topics were bizarre (the evolution of how homes were decorated, for instance), and the reliance on a year system (A.U.C.) which makes the founding of Rome year 000 (around 775 BC I think), and all dates were referred to in AUC rather than something, you know, useful.
Momsen was the author in this list who I was afraid of tackling most. I can't say how much of his godawful sentences are the result of his writing or some bloviating translator (this was first translated in 1861). There were poorer authors who have won Nobels, but not many.
This puts me with the number of authors left in the single digits. Of course, the 2016 winner will be announced in the next 6-8 weeks, but as far as I know there hasn't been a date announced yet.
2015Svetlana Alexievich 2014Patrick Modiano 2013Alice Munro 2012Mo Yan 2011Tomas Tranströmer 2010Mario Vargas Llosa 2009Herta Müller 2008Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio 2007Doris Lessing 2006Orhan Pamuk 2005Harold Pinter 2004Elfriede Jelinek 2003J.M. Coetzee 2002Imre Kertész 2001V.S. Naipaul 2000Gao Xingjian 1999Günter Grass 1998José Saramago 1997Dario Fo 1996Wislawa Szymborska 1995Seamus Heaney 1994Kenzaburo Oe 1993Toni Morrison 1992Derek Walcott 1991Nadine Gordimer 1990Octavio Paz 1989Camilo José Cela 1988Naguib Mahfouz 1987Joseph Brodsky 1986Wole Soyinka 1985Claude Simon 1984Jaroslav Seifert 1983William Golding 1982Gabriel García Márquez 1981Elias Canetti 1980Czesław Miłosz 1979Odysseus Elytis 1978Isaac Bashevis Singer 1977Vicente Aleixandre 1976Saul Bellow 1975Eugenio Montale 1974Eyvind Johnson,
Harry Martinson 1973Patrick White 1972Heinrich Böll 1971Pablo Neruda 1970Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1969Samuel Beckett 1968Yasunari Kawabata 1967Miguel Ángel Asturias 1966Samuel Agnon,
Nelly Sachs 1965 Mikhail Sholokhov 1964Jean-Paul Sartre 1963Giorgos Seferis 1962 John Steinbeck 1961Ivo Andric 1960Saint-John Perse 1959 Salvatore Quasimodo 1958Boris Pasternak 1957Albert Camus 1956 Juan Ramón Jiménez 1955Halldór Laxness 1954Ernest Hemingway 1953 Winston Churchill 1952François Mauriac 1951Pär Lagerkvist 1950 Bertrand Russell 1949William Faulkner 1948T.S. Eliot 1947André Gide 1946Hermann Hesse 1945Gabriela Mistral 1944Johannes V. Jensen 1943No prize awarded. 1/3 of the prize money for this year was allocated to the Main Fund, 2/3 to the Special Fund of the literature section.
1942No prize awarded. 1/3 of the prize money for this year was allocated to the Main Fund, 2/3 to the Special Fund of the literature section.
1941 No prize awarded. 1/3 of the prize money for this year was allocated to the Main Fund, 2/3 to the Special Fund of the literature section.
1940No prize awarded. 1/3 of the prize money for this year was allocated to the Main Fund, 2/3 to the Special Fund of the literature section.
1939Frans Eemil Sillanpää 1938 Pearl Buck 1937Roger Martin du Gard 1936Eugene O'Neill 1935 No prize awarded. 1/3 of the prize money for this year was allocated to the Main Fund, 2/3 to the Special Fund of the literature section.
1934Luigi Pirandello 1933Ivan Bunin 1932 John Galsworthy 1931Erik Axel Karlfeldt 1930Sinclair Lewis 1929 Thomas Mann 1928Sigrid Undset 1927Henri Bergson 1926 Grazia Deledda 1925George Bernard Shaw 1924Wladyslaw Reymont 1923 William Butler Yeats 1922Jacinto Benavente 1921Anatole France 1920 Knut Hamsun 1919Carl Spitteler 1918No prize awarded. The prize money for this year was allocated to the Special Fund of the literature section.
1917 Karl Gjellerup,
Henrik Pontoppidan 1916Verner von Heidenstam 1915Romain Rolland 1914No prize awarded. The prize money for this year was allocated to the Special Fund of the literature section.
1913Rabindranath Tagore 1912Gerhart Hauptmann 1911Maurice Maeterlinck 1910Paul Heyse 1909Selma Lagerlöf 1908Rudolf Eucken 1907Rudyard Kipling 1906Giosuè Carducci 1905Henryk Sienkiewicz 1904Frédéric Mistral,
José Echegaray 1903Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1902Theodor Mommsen 1901Sully Prudhomme 103/112