Tournament of Books discussion

Final list of 8 will be posted tomorrow, and as soon as we've confirmed our judges we will also post the bracket.

Timeline:
Zombie voting open until May 31
Judges reading for

round 1: May (decisions due May 31)
round 2: June (decisions due June 30)
zombie round: July (decisions due July 31)
final round: August (decisions due Aug 31)

Tournament decisions from all judges due Aug 31
Decisions posted (1 per day) starting sometime in September (TBA)

Our shortlist… (drumroll)

North Woods
The End of Drum-Time
The Bandit Queens
Trespasses
Wellness
Let Us Descend
Lone Women
Birnam Wood

that's a good damn shortlist

Right?

Here's the link for Zombie voting, which will be open for 2 full months to give as much time as possible for reading!

https://forms.gle/9PXts92XsPXoKDEZA

Folks who signed up to be judges, look for an email from Emily, your co-organizer, to confirm your spot in our bracket. Once we've heard back from everyone, we will publish the bracket here.

Those who signed up to judge should have received an email from me with the tentative bracket. If you did not receive this email, please let me know. Thanks!

One more thing -- the registration link for judges is still open, if you would like to be an alternate judge: https://forms.gle/bqhjXdwG9ExR53Gx6

So exciting, thanks Chrissy and Emily!

This looks great. Thank you, Chrissy and Emily!

This makes me miss the TOB a little less. Thank you!

Wow, thanks for your work!

Are judges still needed? I’ve done it both of the last two years (and enjoyed the experience), so I’d happily let others do it, but I’ll step up if you’ll otherwise be short.

Adam wrote: "Are judges still needed?"

We have made tentative judging assignments for all of the brackets (we'll share those when they're finalized), but we'd love you to register as an alternate in case someone isn't able to judge. Thanks!

This looks great! Off to start reading...

Thanks for leading this, Chrissy and Emily. Excellent list of books!

Thanks so much for working on this!

I am super excited to read Bandit Queens. And I hadn’t looked into Trespasses before, but I have been wanting to lean more about that situation in Ireland so that’s perfect!

The sentence/paragraph-level writing in Let Us Descend was phenomenal. I thought the story got lost in it (or took a backseat to it) a bit, but I might try it again in print for this, since I read most of it on audio the first time.

I’m not sure I’ll read Lone Women again, but we’ll see how intense my TBR is later in the summer.

I’ll be starting Wellness soon and will work on a plan for the rest.

Happy reading to all of us who “can’t leave well enough alone.” ;)

Off to library to place a bunch of holds!

An amazing list. I've read three and three are already on my TBR list, which I was just curating last night. Woo hoo! Remind me when the actual ToF is taking place?

First post lays out the timeline. We don’t have a firm date yet for the matches to start being posted, but once reading/judging gets underway we will probably poll the members to see whether we prefer sooner or later as a group.

I loved Wellness and liked Lone women but am excitedI was assigned 2 booksI hadn't heard about. planning to get on 'Trespasses' asap

So I am reading along in the brand new hardcopy of Trespasses that I just bought last week, and I get to the bottom of page 54, and then… comes page 23. My copy of the book has pages 23 through 54 in there twice and is totally missing pages 55 through 86. I don’t think I have ever had this happen before.

Can anybody private message me with a brief summary of what happens on pages 55 to 86?

Phyllis wrote: "So I am reading along in the brand new hardcopy of Trespasses that I just bought last week, and I get to the bottom of page 54, and then… comes page 23. My copy of the book has pages 23 thr..."

Oh NOOOOOOOOO. #refund

Ready!

Chrissy wrote: "Our shortlist… (drumroll) .."

I'm excited to say I have actually read or listened to all of these. Here’s a few random thoughts, and I’ve reordered the list to reflect how much I loved them.

North Woods. 5 stars. Rich, complex, and fun. Along with The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, this is one of my top reads for 2023. I read the print version and want to listen to the audio soon, something I rarely do.

Wellness. 5 big fat stars for this big fat novel that nails how we live and love today. I loved it.

Birnam Wood. 5 stars. Anyone who’s read The Luminaries knows Catton is a master of plot-centric, multi-POV storytelling built around complex characters and big ideas. This one took me a few chapters to get into it, but then I was hooked.

The Bandit Queens. 5 stars. Great feminist audiobook fun set in an Indian village; made me snort-laugh my coffee.

Lone Women. 4.5 stars rounding up. I liked the mashup of historical fiction, dysfunctional families, horror, and Westerns, with an overlay of sly humor and a sharp understanding of race and class in America.

Let Us Descend. 4 stars, Beautiful writing of course, in a harsh story of survival, heavy on the spiritual elements, ultimately hopeful.

Trespasses. 4 stars. A young woman gets involved with infidelity and adultery during The Troubles. You know things aren't going to end well, but I'm a sucker or Irish fiction.

The End of Drum-Time 3.5 rounding up. This was a slow, complicated story of Christian imperialism. There were so many characters, I had trouble tracking things on audio. Nice writing, though.

I loved them all, but did DNF Bandit Queens, and feel like a curmudgeon about it. I'll try again on audio, maybe that will be the key for me. I read End of Drum Time and loved it - such an unusual setting and it came so alive for me. I can see that it would be much harder to follow on audio though.

Phyllis wrote: "Can anybody private message me with a brief summary of what happens on pages 55 to 86?"
I've got a library copy of the hardback and will start reading it soon, once I get to pg 55 I can let you know!

Thank you, Chrissy.

All judges are on board, and our bracket is set! I'll put a screenshot of it in the next post, but also the live link that will be updated once the tournament results start posting.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/...

Here it is!

Thanks! And are we thinking this will be sometime in September?

That’s the plan, assuming we stay on schedule.

Very excited about this. I've read half the books and am very curious to see which two books I'll be judging. Luckily, the ones I read are worth a reread and I'm excited about the four I haven't read.

Round 1 judges already have their assignments, a bit early. Round 2 judges will get theirs as soon as we know, but by May 31 at the latest. Zombie round judges will get their assignments by June 30, and all judges will find out the final 2 books by July 31.

Among the 5 I have left (below), are there any that would be good to read by audiobook? I have credits and just finished my last one!

North Woods
Let Us Descend
Lone Women
Wellness
The End of Drum-Time

Chrissy wrote: "Among the 5 I have left (below), are there any that would be good to read by audiobook? I have credits and just finished my last one!

North Woods
Let Us Descend
Lone Women
Wellness
The End of Drum..."

I really enjoyed the audio for Wellness (aside from the way the narrator sometimes spoke female characters. It’s the same person who narrated The Nix…He does the humor so well.

Posting this here and in the ToB Goodreads group, in case folks are no longer reading posts over there:

Everyone: I just ran into J. Robert Lennon today when I was out walking in our beautiful little Ithaca downtown, and I told him how much the Commentariat loved "Subdivision". He was deeply moved (I'm serious!), and asked that I share with everyone how special it is to him that we read the novel and appreciated it.

Chrissy wrote: "Among the 5 I have left (below), are there any that would be good to read by audiobook? I have credits and just finished my last one!

North Woods
Let Us Descend
Lone Women
Wellness
The End of Drum..."

I did both North Woods and Lone Women on audio and appreciated both as audiobooks!

Risa wrote: "Posting this here and in the ToB Goodreads group, in case folks are no longer reading posts over there:

Everyone: I just ran into J. Robert Lennon today when I was out walking in our beautiful lit..."

Aw, thanks for sharing that with him! :)

Chrissy wrote: "Among the 5 I have left (below), are there any that would be good to read by audiobook? I have credits and just finished my last one!

North Woods
Let Us Descend
Lone Women
Wellness
The End of Drum..."

Great question!

I plan to read The End of Drum-Time on audio, and Wellness mostly on audio (but with a print copy backup).

Lone Women worked pretty well on audio.

I read Let Us Descend on audio, but I think it would be the best experience in print. It is very rich in language, and a slower read in print would likely be the ideal option for that one.

I loved the audiobook of 'Welness.'

I went with Wellness, I liked the narrator in the sample best!

Risa wrote: "Posting this here and in the ToB Goodreads group, in case folks are no longer reading posts over there:

Everyone: I just ran into J. Robert Lennon today when I was out walking in our beautiful lit..."

Hell yeah! I'm about to start Hard Girls, looking forward to it.

Aaack! Subdivision lives rent-free in my head! So exciting!! Thank you, Risa!

Risa wrote: "Posting this here and in the ToB Goodreads group, in case folks are no longer reading posts over there:

Everyone: I just ran into J. Robert Lennon today when I was out walking in our beautiful lit..."

That's awesome! I'm knee-deep in Hard Girls right now and I find it jarring how jarring it isn't compared to Subdivision. BUT...I'm heartened to see that it is the first in a series??
https://www.goodreads.com/series/3876...

For what it's worth, I listened to North Woods and loved it. Had several "driveway moments" where I parked but couldn't get out bc it was just so good.

I just finished 'Birnam Wood' -- ended up with complicated feelings and will be interested in how things shake out. An interesting matchup with 'Wellness' for sure.

So I’ve now read 4 of the books… just by chance one book of each of the pairs in the first round.
So far have felt strongly either up or down on all 4 of them.
Can’t wait to see what others have to say about these books!

Reminder that there are two weeks left to get in your zombie vote! The link to vote is in message 4 of this thread.

I've started my final book from the list, and hope to finish it by the end of the week but work has been extra stressful and my reading has suffered.

We've gotten 22 zombie poll responses so far, but I hope for a few more by May 31!

One day left for Zombie voting!