The World's Fair

The Morning News is a fantastic literary and cultural site, chock full of writer-type work, interviews, artwork, commentary, and the like. (We link to them on the lower left of this page. G' head, take a look. I'll wait.) They also run an excellent daily set of news links, almsot always with something unusual and intriguing. (Today, e.g., they give a link to a story on the size of New York condoms.)

Anyway, they've just announced one of their notably fascinating projects, the third annual Tournament of Books. A bevy of high-profile judges, side commentary on the challenges from astute observers, and millions tuning in to see who will slip through to that vaunted Final Four....

Last year's winner: The Accidental, by Ali Smith

Go check it out. Here are the contenders that will be matched up in a March-Madness-for-the-literati-set kind of bracket system.

1. Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2. One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson
3. Arthur and George, Julian Barnes
4. Brookland, Emily Barton
5. English, August, Upamanyu Chatterjee
6. The Lay of the Land, Richard Ford
7. Pride of Baghdad, Niko Henrichon, Brian K. Vaughan
8. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
9. The Emperor's Children, Claire Messud
10. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Peter Orner
11. The Echo Maker, Richard Powers
12. Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon
13. Firmin, Sam Savage
14. Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart
15. Alentejo Blue, Monica Ali
16. Apex Hides the Hurt, Colson Whitehead

I'll leave the TMN page for all the book links.

Good to see Richard Powers on the list -- as one of the World's Fair Advisory Board Nominees* -- though I wonder how he'll fair in the paint against other heavies like McCarthy and Ford. They've got a lot of tournament experience, and they're well-coached. Plus although Powers is in the same league, obviously, just seems that the older guys always get the calls in their favor, the clock stopped when they need an extra in-bound, and the blind eye from the ref on the stutter step that shoulda been traveling. I'm gonna go with Vitale too, and say Whitehead does well here, and Pynchon doesn't. I haven't scouted Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, but that could be a book to keep an eye on in the early rounds.

*Karl Iagnemma, another Advisory Board nominee, was a judge in TMN's tournament last year.