Turn Style - Photos of Writers In Strange Places

Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut

It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. So, what are unique pictures of your favorite authors worth?

Flavorwire.com has assembled a collection of interesting photographs that capture some of our greatest writers in odd circumstances and poses.

Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov, Maya Angelou, and more.

Click here to find more images like the pic on the left of lit giants Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut.

Turn Style articles highlight compelling images and other amusing content related to art and fashion.

"The Sisters Brothers" Wins Tourney of Books

By Paul Gagne, Guest Blogger

The 2012 Tournament of Books concluded yesterday with a championship matchup between Teju Cole’s debut novel Open City and Patrick deWitt’s work The Sisters Brothers. It was a dream matchup – for me at least, as I had read both books – and in the end, deWitt’s modern western novel outgunned all other competitors. 

As I wrote in my initial review of Open City, surprisingly little happens in the novel. Still, its thoughtfulness and quiet power will stay with me more than any other book in the tournament. That The Sisters Brothers, a western set in 1850s northern California, prevailed in the opinion of ten out of sixteen judges, owes to three things chiefly – Eli, the winning main character in Sisters, the amount of sheer incident in Sisters versus the lack of same in Open City, and a worry that Teju Cole is aping the style of W.G. Sebald, whose work I have not read (though Austerlitz has been on my to-be-read radar for quite some time).

The Sisters Brothers is a fine diversion, featuring short-short-short chapters (sixty in total in under 400 pages) that are ideally suited for modern attention spans, while Open City introduces us to a novelist whose debut work demonstrates, at least in part, what it means to have consciousness, and ultimately, to be human.

I’m sorry, but this matchup is a no contest for me in favor of Open City. Unfortunately, a majority of the judges didn’t agree.

As for this year’s Tournament of Books, it introduced me to several books I wouldn’t have read otherwise, including both titles in the championship match. And heck, it got me to read 6 books in 6 weeks (giving a big boost to my goodreads.com challenge goal!), which I haven’t done since I commuted via the subway back in my Boston days.

Speaking of goodreads, add me as a “friend” on the site, and perhaps we can keep each other informed about great things to read, as well as get ready for next year’s Tournament of Books. 

Tournament of Books Moves to Second Round

By Paul Gagne, Guest Blogger

ToB Official Bracket

The Tournament of Books is kicking off its second round this week, and the literary scrapping is starting to heat up. As I mentioned in my prior ToB post, this event brings March Madness to literature, matching up contemporary works of fiction in head-to-head competition, bracketology-style.

I’ve been participating in the ToB for 4 years now, and each time I am struck anew at just how much the judges make the tournament. As there are no set rules for choosing winners in each literary matchup, it’s up to each judge to choose her own criteria in determining which book moves forward. Most of the time, this is satisfying. Other times, it's incredibly frustrating.

Let’s look at a couple of the matches that have been decided already, and then I’ll give my pick for Monday’s final first-round match, with my rationale.

From the judgments that have been made thus far, what I find most interesting is that both Bethanne Kelly Patrick, the editor of my new favorite website, Bookriot.com, and author Haven Kimmel, seem to have chosen their winners based on a belief in the future of literature and the output of their respective chosen winners.

The Tiger’s Wife vs. The Stranger’s Child (Judge - Bethanne Kelly Patrick)

This matchup is one in which I read both titles prior to the Tournament. The judge selected Tiger's Wife as the winner, and I would have made the same decision, but for different reasons. I wanted to love Hollinghurst's Stranger's Child, as I have been passionate about several other titles by him over the years, but it was a letdown, and I knew it would be by about three-quarters of the way through. I also had high expectations for The Tiger’s Wife, and for the most part, those were met.

Especially effective for me were the linking of family and national myth-creation to the story of grandfather and granddaughter in war-torn Serbia. And while I enjoyed the Obreht more than the Hollinghurst, I felt no lasting emotional connection to either, although Obreht had me momentarily near the end, when the grandfather eats dinner in a hotel where he had honeymooned years earlier. The scene is perfect, quiet and powerful, as the grandfather dines with the deathless man as a military siege nears the hotel.

Bracketology for Readers - Tourney of Books

Click the chart to to view an enlarged version.

By Paul Gagne, Guest Blogger

Have you filled out your bracket yet? Not that bracket. This one.

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.

In the Tournament, sixteen books are seeded from 1-4, with perceived powerhouse authors such as Haruki Murakami and Booker Prize-winner Julian Barnes receiving #1 seeds. Judges are assigned to each pair of books, with the winning book moving on to the next round, and so on until the final, which is decided by the opinions of all the judges, plus a tiebreaker.

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.