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By Paul Gagne, Guest Blogger
The folks over at The Morning News have been running the
Tournament of Books concurrently with NCAA March Madness for eight years now, and
it has helped to sustain a higher level of book discussion on the web.
If your favorite title gets eliminated before we reach the final four, don’t give up hope. There is also a Zombie round, in which a book knocked out in an early round comes back from the dead.
NPR explains
the rules of the Tournament nicely, although if you think about the process of
choosing the "best" book, what really makes one better than the other? This is not a
heart-stopping contest decided by a buzzer-beater, and there won’t be any
clutch fourth quarter free throw opportunities. There aren’t even points, after all. Judges
bring biases to the table, and at least once, have admitted to not finishing
both books they were assigned to evaluate. But like great basketball teams, books can have heart,
they can finish strong, and on any given day, an underdog book can make a name
for itself and inspire us all.
