Get your library cards out, kids! The Morning News has announced the shortlist for it’s annual Tournament of Books. The ToB is March Madness for book nerds, and is has been uncanny in its ability to predict the year’s Pulitzer Prize winner. Judges provide a thorough analysis of two books and declare a winner, moving them on to the next round. Commentators offer up, well, commentary. Then of course, there’s the grand prize:
“Finally, one book wins The Rooster, the Champion Book of the Year, and we award/threaten its author with the presentation of a live rooster, the official Tournament of Books mascot, named after our favorite character in contemporary literature, David Sedaris’s brother.”
This year’s smart money is on The Art of Fielding. Having read exactly two books on the list thus far, I’m rooting for The Sisters Brothers although up against The Art of Fielding and Jeffrey Eugenides, I doubt it stands a chance. Here’s the list, and of course, a printable pdf of the bracket:
- Nathacha Appanah, The Last Brother
- Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
- Teju Cole, Open City
- Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods
- Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers
- Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot
- Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding
- Alan Hollinghurst, Stranger’s Child
- Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
- Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife
- Michael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table
- Ann Patchett, State of Wonder
- Donald Ray Pollock, Devil All the Time
- Karen Russell, Swamplandia
- Kate Zambreno, Green Girl
