- The Morning News
- The Tournament of Books Rooster: the only March trophy that matters
One of the great things about the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is that it’s inspired lots of other tournaments for people who, like me, don’t give a shit about college basketball. (I blame this on having attended Northwestern.) Now we too can have the joy of drawing up brackets and picking out our favorite, no, wait, our favorite favorite thing from 64 63 other similar things, and then seeing our hopes crushed multiple times.
The 17 original books, as the organizers explained in their announcement of this year’s contest, are not necessarily the best books of 2013—because there are so many definitions of what makes a book the “best”—but the most representative. And so this year’s tournament includes big books from big New York publishers, small books from small indie presses, books by writers who have appeared on Oprah, books by authors no one has ever heard of, books in translation, books that are considered “young adult,” and the Booker Prize winner.
Who hasn’t ever felt like that?
