"It started as a lark then became some type of thing."

December 27, 2018 12:34 PM

The Tournament of Books shortlist has been announced (see also the longlist). In related news, Largehearted Boy continues to track 'Best of 2018' Book Lists. And Emily Temple at LitHub has produced a meta-analysis of 52 lists from 37 sources in an attempt to create "the last best-books-of-2018 list you’ll ever have to read."

Two-thirds of the Tournament of Books competitors made it onto Emily Temple's meta-list, yielding the ordering below:

• 19 lists: Tommy Orange, There There
• 14 lists: Richard Powers, The Overstory
• 11 lists: Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
• 10 lists: Esi Edugyan, Washington Black
• 8 lists: Michael Ondaatje, Warlight
• 5 lists: Elaine Castillo, America Is Not the Heart
• 4 lists: Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister the Serial Killer
• 4 lists: Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Call Me Zebra
• 4 lists: Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
• 3 lists: Jesse Ball, Census
• 3 lists: Anna Burns, Milkman
• 3 lists: Uzodinma Iweala, Speak No Evil
• Keith Gessen, A Terrible Country
• Nicola Griffith, So Lucky
• Lydia Kiesling, The Golden State
• Tom Rachman, The Italian Teacher
• Heidi Sopinka, The Dictionary of Animal Languages
• Nafkote Tamirat, The Parking Lot Attendant

The Tournament of Books previously: "Reading one book is like eating one potato chip" and "The Rooster Returns."

posted by Wobbuffet (8 comments total)

Also, over on Fanfare, tofu_crouton has set up a "2019 Tournament of Books" club based on this organizing discussion in Fanfare Talk.
posted by Wobbuffet at 12:34 PM on December 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

I always find my favorite books of the year from the underrated ToB books. Unfortunately my library doesn't have most of them this time around. Le sigh.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:27 PM on December 27, 2018

That Largehearted Boy metalist is amazing.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 5:48 PM on December 27, 2018

I finished Tommy Orange's There There a few weeks ago, and I keep thinking about it. I haven't read much of the shortlist, but I could see Orange powering right through the brackets.
posted by gladly at 8:07 AM on December 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Some of my Goodreads friends really disliked There There. I think it's likely that it can hit a judge in the tournament who feels the same way and bumps it.

Of course, as one of the more popular books it's also most likely to be a zombie pick.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:34 AM on December 28, 2018

Three ToB competitors are on Obama's 2018 round-up: There There, Washington Black, and Warlight. His zombie pick remains unclear.
posted by Wobbuffet at 10:23 AM on December 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

Today, u/pokiria at r/Fantasy did for SFF what Emily Temple did for general fiction: Best of the Best: Science Fiction and Fantasy in 2018.
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:40 PM on December 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thanks, Washington Black is now on my next list - can't wait to read it.
posted by blue shadows at 5:40 PM on December 29, 2018