Niles Tournament of Books

    March Madness has hit Niles Public Library, only it’s not basketball we’re excited about, but books. Reader’s Advisory staff at the library has selected, seeded, bracketed, and pitted books against each other in a reading contest that will elevate one book out of a field of 12 as the tournament champion.   

    It all started when library staffers together compiled a list of the best reads among books published last year.  We do this every year, and usually post the results on this blog and in the fiction section of the library. This year, inspired by the online Morning News Tournament of Books (http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/how-it-works.php), we decided to hold a contest to uncover the best of the best. Twelve of us volunteered to judge. We paired the top 12 books into brackets and assigned one judge to determine the winner of each bracket. Each bracket's winner continues to further judgment. Losers are eliminated, but have a chance to be revived as a Zombie.

 Here are the books being evaluated this year:

Arcadia    Lauren Groff
The Orchardist     Amanda Choplin
Yellow Birds     Kevin Powers
The Casual Vacancy     J. K. Rowling
Lightning Rods     Helen DeWitt
Beginner's Goodbye     Anne Tyler
A Killing in the Hills     Julia Keller
The Round House     Louise Erdich
Friends Like Us     Lauren Fox
Gone Girl     Gillian Flynn
The Chaperone     Laura Moriarty
The Flight of Gemma Hardy     Margot Livesey 

Check back tomorrow to see the results of the first bracket pairing

Arcadia vs The Orchardist by judge Beverly.