At Book Beat we've always kept a shelf of Nobel Prize winners that would grow and evolve as our reading group took on many of the books by this *elite group of writers. The Nobel is perhaps the ultimate prize for any writer, even though it won't guarantee reliable or interesting writing. But there are many truly gifted writers on the list who have created books of rare quality and we've included some of our favorites. You can also find few acceptance speeches which are often published soon after they're given. 

In this article from The Guardian -- the acceptance speech is given it's due. A sample of the article is recorded below.

“All writers belong to the class of non-orators,” Thomas Mann warned his audience at the outset, accepting the Nobel prize for literature in 1929 in a self-described state of “festive intoxication”. In a paradox the 2017 laureate, Kazuo Ishiguro must be keenly aware of as he undergoes this week’s induction process, the Nobel honours authors for their books but asks them to appear in person (though some, such as Bob Dylan last year, refuse) and morph into celebrity performers expert in the very different art of rhetoric.

 

The contrast was starkly exemplified 20 years after Mann by William Faulkner, whose brief speech (calling for writers to return to the anguish of “the old verities ... of the heart”) was little understood even by anglophone listeners when delivered – he had a heavy southern accent and zero microphone technique – but once it appeared as a text was hailed as an inspirational classic.