I've written about The Morning News Tournament of Books in the past. It runs in March, concurrent with the NCAA Basketball Tournament, with a similar format of brackets, seeds, etc. Sixteen or more books (it even has a "play-in" round) are narrowed from a Long List of the most important books released in the past year. Each head-to-head contest is officiated by a different judge selected from a pool that includes writers from various backgrounds (TV, movies, print), critics, book industry gurus and an occasional musician. This year they've even added a Reader Judge, a psychiatrist from Mass General Hospital, through an on-line application process. You can come into the store and fill out a bracket (well, pick the winner) for the 2016 Tournament and win a gift card for Wellesley Books. I love this Tournament because for a book to win, it has to survive multiple rounds and satisfy a variety of readers' tastes. Previous winners have included books we've read or discussed at length in our meetings like A Visit from the Goon Squad, The Sisters Brothers, Cloud Atlas, and The Road to name a few. The Tsar of Love and Techno is in this year's tournament and today survived its opening round match up against The Book of Aron. The commentary for today's match up features a direct comparison between Tsar and The Orphan Master's Son (also a ToB champion and the first book we read in our Book Group) which, for me, came quickly back to mind when I saw this heartbreaking video of a University of Virginia student detained after a recent sponsored trip to North Korea.
