Tournament of Books discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
2015 Books
>
2015 ToB Competition Discussion
Whoa, I loved looking at the pictures/info for all of those places! It's inspiring me to read read read (which I was planning on doing a lot of today anyway!)
I just finished Adam and other than sex scenes that were way more detailed than I needed, I really liked the book. I loved the characters despite their foibles, thought many parts were hilarious, and hugely admire what Schrag has accomplished. There are some nice interviews with her online, including one in New York Magazine where she talks about people being angry that she didn't punish Adam more in the end. http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/07/ariel.... Next up for me: A Brave Man, then volumes 2 and 3 of Ferrante (and MaddAddam and Some Luck for my book group). Then, I am looking forward to some palate-cleansing mysteries, 2014 books that didn't make the short list (Hello, Blazing World and Into the Go Slow), and some older stuff that I've been trying to get to (John Williams Stoner is on the top of that pile).
Now isn't it time for the brackets? Let's get this show on the road!!!
Jan wrote: "I just finished Adam and other than sex scenes that were way more detailed than I needed, I really liked the book. I loved the characters despite their foibles, thought many parts were hilarious, a..."Stoner is a love it or hate it kind of book. I fell into the latter camp but I still remember a lot about it which has to mean something I guess.
Janet, glad to hear someone else hates Stoner! I feel like everyone I know is drinking the Kool Aid with that book.
Two of the ToB commentariat (myself and Drew) have a podcast called So Many Damn Books, and our ninth episode begins our coverage of the tournament, starting with an interview with Emily St. John Mandel and a discussion of EINTY on audiobook.itun.es/i6Bn7DX
Check it out!
Thanks for posting about your podcast Christopher. Let the excitement begin.
Uhm, am I old? how do i listen to a podcast without putting itunes on my work computer?ETA: i googled and found this streaming site. http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/so-ma...
For other podcast illiterate people like me.
Edited again to add: I do not have an iphone.
jess wrote: "Uhm, am I old? how do i listen to a podcast without putting itunes on my work computer?"You can put an app on iPhone, if you have one. You can also transfer them to any MP3 player using your home computer.
I should have put up both links! Thanks Jess.
I listened to your TOB podcast yesterday, Christopher. Really good listening! I found it interesting that Emily St John Mandel thinks she will be paired with The Bone Clocks. I can see that happening at some point but to me the most obvious pairing for the first round would be Annihilation. What do you think?
Anne wrote: "I found it interesting that Emily St John Mandel thinks she will be paired with The Bone Clocks. I can see that happening at some point but to me the most obvious pairing for the first round would be Annihilation. What do you think? ..."Unless they're doing a play-in round, I don't think they necessarily match books my plot/genre similarities--do they? The pairing of disparate books is part of what makes the ToB so fun!
I think The Bone Clocks will be a 1 seed and Station Eleven will be a 2 seeds, so they won't be a first round match. Annihilation could, I think, be a 2 seed, but is more likely a 3 seed. So,
Accidentally hit "Post"....Anyway, I think Station Eleven and Annihilation could be a first round match up as two and three seeds, respectively. I would like it and I would be rooting for Annihilation, the much, much deeper and more stylishly written book.
It has certainly not been my experience that they deliberately pit "similar" books against each other, just match according to how they're seeded.13/16 down. I don't think I'll be able to read A Brief History of Seven Killings (I'm giving myself the weekend to try, but I just can't get into it at all), and I still haven't gotten my hands on Dept. of Speculation and I'm saving the Ferrante for last in case I find myself with enough time to read the entire trilogy. But tell me -- is it just me, or does anyone else sense a very troubling trend through this [disappointingly weak] field of the marginalization of women? Exceptions would be, notably, The Paying Guests, Station Eleven, Annhilation, and maybe Bone Clocks, but the rest of the books either have no women characters at all or seem to go out of their way to push them to the margins in a pretty startling way. What does everyone else think? You know, thinking about last year's books, I think the same thing may be true, but the books themselves were so strong that it didn't matter or I didn't notice, anyway, until I was thinking about this year's books. But in such a weak field, the way Wittgenstein Jr., A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall, Everything I Never Told You, and even a couple of the books I liked, like Silence Once Begun, are truly dismissive to women just jump out at me. And don't even get me started on Adam or Redeployment. I HATED Redeployment, by the way. HATED. IT. I knew I would, which is why I never read it, even after it won the... Pulitzer, was it? Or National Book Award?
Anyway, I was just wondering about others' thoughts.
Ellen,Interesting points. I hadn't really thought of the field as a whole being particularly dismissive of women, but (a) I have only read seven and (b) your examples are pretty good points. In so many of them, unfortunately Annihilation too, the women seem primarily to be acted on by outside forces (or just generally lacking depth, Seven Storeys) rather than their own agents. Even An Untamed State, all about a strong woman, in some ways, is about her weaker relationship to men, the ways men act on her. I am not sure I am all on board with your point or my last summary of An Untamed State, but there is something to your observation.
The first in Ferrante's Neapolitan trilogy is, so far, excellent and passes the Bechtel test out of the gate, pretty much. If it keeps up like this, Ferrante will be my favorite. Could it be the first translated fiction to win?
Redeployment: What do you hate about it, Ellen? I am genuinely curious. My perspective is different, but I enjoyed the writing, the stories, and, I thought, they had depth. Thanks for being a strong dissenter!
I can only speak to the books that i've read. Dept of Spec is first person from the point of view of a woman, Bone Clocks and Annihilation pass the Bechdel test, Station Eleven has prominent women central characters. A Brave Man definitely uses women as props not characters, and I complained about it loudly in my review. I don't know if this validates your point or not, there aren't many people of color in the books I've read either.
In years past folks complained of a lack of female authors. To my eye at least half have been written by women.
Kerry wrote: "The first in Ferrante's Neapolitan trilogy is, so far, excellent and passes the Bechtel test out of the gate, pretty much. If it keeps up like this, Ferrante will be my favorite. Could it be the first translated fiction to win?"i've read 8/16 contenders. i have read the ferrante trilogy and loved it so, so much. once i finished it, i moved onto a couple of the other books on the list. everything before ferrante had been 'meh', and everything after was 'meh' too. so i have now taken a pause in my ToB reading*. i would be thrilled to have Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay win the rooster... but the idea of it actually happening is seeming unlikely to me**. i think the trilogy is important and worry about the third book being read as a standalone.
i am keen to find out the pairings. like, tapping my foot 'any time now!' keen. :)
* - to be fair, i was not thrilled with the 16 books chosen for this year's tournament, so my enthusiasm was not great to begin with. though the ferrante books were high on my TBR, and i am absolutely thrilled to have finally read them... and i now sit here super-twitchy waiting for september and the release of the 4th book in the series.
** - i want to be wrong on this in the worst way. :)
ohenrypacey, yes, those were my exceptions, although I haven't read Dept. of Speculation yet; I'm glad to hear that it won't exacerbate my uneasiness, and I presumed that the Ferrante series absolutely wouldn't sideline women and women's points of view. Kerry, to start with, I came at Redeployment with the unfortunate prejudice of being the very opposite of a fan of soldier literature. The one exception, and I can't say I liked it exactly, but it made a big impression on me, was Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. It may be at least partially my hippie left knee jerking here, but I just...can't enter into and am made deeply uncomfortable by that whole ethos. So I was predisposed to dislike it, but then that first story, with the dog, just ... I just hated it, and nothing since that one, particularly the total marginalization and sidelining and objectification of women in every word and page -- part of the whole ethos, I know --changed my mind. I don't want to offend anyone, but it just pushed all my negative buttons. I do think if that story with the dog hadn't been the first one, I wouldn't have hated it quite as much, but I still wouldn't have liked it.
Ellen wrote: "is it just me, or does anyone else sense a very troubling trend through this [disappointingly weak] field of the marginalization of women? Exceptions would be, notably, The Paying Guests, Station Eleven, Annhilation, and maybe Bone Clocks, but the rest of the books either have no women characters at all or seem to go out of their way to push them to the margins in a pretty startling way. ."I agree, especially because the books that -do- have central female characters all put these characters into dangerous and demeaning situations with men--Dept of Speculation, All the Birds Singing, An Untamed State are all from female authors, but these authors have all decided to write a story with a central female character who is fully defined and fully victimized by the men in the story. It made me uneasy.
I find myself making a lot of allowances for these books as I read along--I'll think: "this is inventive" or "this is great for a first novel" or "this is different from what I've read before and differences should be championed" but I also felt there is a degree of stubborn mediocrity with this group, especially when I thought other novels from 2014 were a lot more ambitious and enjoyable.
Well, and look at Everything I Never Told You -- the main character is a girl who's DEAD, and her story is primarily told from the point of view of her brother! Talk about marginalization....Poingu, I thought you'd weigh in. I don't know how to put this, but I had less trouble with the direct violence than I did with the marginalization, and in the weirdest ways -- look at Wittgenstein Jr., which (presumably in wistful longing for the past ) presents a present-day Cambridge with no women students, and women are only introduced occasionally as objects, or A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall, which depicts an art world peopled entirely by men, with women only occasionally inserted as objects (although, I suppose I have to give the book credit for choosing a male character to truly objectify). In other words, this group of books often removes women from consideration by just -- removing them.
Again, I'm not convinced, when I look at last year's list, that the same problem wasn't also inherent (I mean, look at The Luminaries!), but the field was just so much stronger it didn't jump out at me. I think it's the very mediocrity of this list that's pushed it into my face.
I totally agree about the female character situation. Someone above mentioned Dept. of Spec as a book with a good female character, but I thought she was really weak--I couldn't feel her at all as a character. BUT on the topic of not feeling characters... Annihilation has possibly the most blank characters I've ever encountered. I don't think you can even regard it as a book with an (almost) entirely female cast because the women are not women, they are just near genderless characters. Sure, the biologist has some issues in her marriage and with her husband, but they're just so dull and, I think, plot-devicey, that they don't add to the femininity of her character at all. I know this blankness is (probably?) VanderMeer's intention, and I have enjoyed the book as a whole, but I was certainly disappointed that the all-female cast wasn't a more interesting part of the story.
Ellen,Thanks for your thoughts on Redeployment. I sort of assumed the immersion into army culture could be the turnoff. And the dog story was disturbing, especially for us dog lovers. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your point of view.
Rosie wrote: "...but I thought she was really weak--I couldn't feel her at all as a character..."totally agree with you, rosie. i had the same response to her. the book frustrated me a lot.
Ellen wrote: "Poingu, I thought you'd weigh in. I don't know how to put this, but I had less trouble with the direct violence than I did with the marginalization, and in the weirdest ways..."I get this completely. The books you list act like it's normal to have no women whatsoever around, and yet these books are from 2014, which really is unsettling.
Rosie wrote: "Annihilation has possibly the most blank characters I've ever encountered. I don't think you can even regard it as a book with an (almost) entirely female cast because the women are not women, they are just near genderless characters. "
I agree but I thought this feeling of female-yet-neuter characters was really interesting. If a scifi book is all male characters, then it feels like a throwback to the 50's when scifi books were mostly about men being men. Nowadays we get mixed gender scifi books and there is often a central female heroine going against gender type--she is really good with a bow and arrow etc. And now Annihilation comes along, which gave me this feeling of women being "the new neutral." To me that felt like a very 2014 sort of reading experience.
Yes, I had no trouble with the sense of gender neutrality in Annihilation and in fact kind of liked it.
Fwiw, I wish people would stop using the Bechdel test as the end-all-be-all. For one, books are different than film and for another, even Bechdel didn't consider it an actual test. Many sexist works "pass." It's an interesting and important frame for looking at things, but if you're not looking deeper, you're missing the point.
I'd love to see what those who have read most/all books think will happen--which two will make the finals, which will win...I will guess All the Light and Seven Killings for the final; Seven Killings to win. I am not a fan of either book though and hope for a different outcome!
Topher wrote: "Fwiw, I wish people would stop using the Bechdel test as the end-all-be-all. For one, books are different than film and for another, even Bechdel didn't consider it an actual test. Many sexist work..."Yes! I mean, "Baby Got Back" technically passes the Bechdel test.
Zachary wrote: "Topher wrote: "Fwiw, I wish people would stop using the Bechdel test as the end-all-be-all. For one, books are different than film and for another, even Bechdel didn't consider it an actual test. M..."Oh gosh, Baby Got Back was JUST mentioned on the page I was reading in my book (The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac).
Poingu wrote: "I'd love to see what those who have read most/all books think will happen--which two will make the finals, which will win...I will guess All the Light and Seven Killings for the final; Seven Kill..."
I have 3 to go (All the Light, Brave Man & Those Who Leave) Based on earlier reviews etc. I expect All the Light to do well (likely zombie if eliminated earlier). Based on reading I expect A Brief History, Station Eleven and All the Birds Singing to advance fairly far. I am rooting for A Brief History, The Bone Clocks and Station Eleven.
My best guess for the final would be A Brief History of Seven Killings vs. An Untamed State, and (no surprise here) I'm rooting for An Untamed State.I have finally gotten my hands on not one, but TWO copies of Dept. of Speculation. Which brings me to this question:
Does anyone have a second-hand copy of the second book in the Ferrante trilogy? I'm willing to pay postage and send it back to you afterwards. Her books must have suddenly gotten cited by some very major source, because a month ago there were multiple copies languishing on both my library systems' shelves, but now that I'm ready for them, they're all out with multiple holds. It does look as if I'll be able to get the first (My Brilliant Friend) and I have the third, but if I've left them 'til the end to read the trilogy, I'm damned if I'm just going to read the first and the third. If I have to, I'll swallow my pride and buy the second RETAIL at B&N, but I'd rather not.
And hey, am I the only person who didn't know that Elena Ferrante isn't actually Elena Ferrante?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Fe...
Ellen wrote: "My best guess for the final would be A Brief History of Seven Killings vs. An Untamed State, and (no surprise here) I'm rooting for An Untamed State.I have finally gotten my hands on not one, but..."
I would be delighted with that matchup, but might have to root for Brief History.
I'd be happy to forward the second Ferrante book but won't be done with it for probably 3-4 weeks. If you think you'd like it at that time, let me know.
Thanks, Jan -- but it should be in at the library by then. I'm just going to go ahead and read the first one and hope that some miracle occurs that has the 2nd one appearing when I finish the first.
I listed out the Goodreads ratings for each ToB book back when the list was announced on Jan 6th -- was curious to see how the ratings have changed, so being that Venn diagram of books + numbers/stats geek, here are the results. Of course, any movement can not necessarily be attributed to ToB readers -- tho I am guessing we're playing a bigger role with those lesser known books that had fewer readers/rating pre-ToB.
Only 1 book increased its rating: All The Light up 0.7% to a rating of 4.26
And the rest...
A Brave Man down 11% to 3.56
Wittgenstein down 9.4% to 3.19
Silence Once Begun down 3.1% to 3.69
Adam down 2.6% to 3.42
Paying Guests down 1.4% to 3.50
Brief History down 1.2% to 4.00
Station Eleven down 1.2% to 4.03
Bone Clocks down 0.8% to 3.87
Untamed State down 0.7% to 4.14
Redeployment down 0.7% to 4.06
Those Who Leave down 0.7% to 4.26
Everything I Never down 0.5% to 3.80
Dept of Speculation down 0.5% to 3.81
Annihilation down 0.5% to 3.66
All The Birds down 0.3% to 3.66
Ed wrote: "I listed out the Goodreads ratings for each ToB book back when the list was announced on Jan 6th -- was curious to see how the ratings have changed, ... Only 1 book increased its rating..."So does the ToB broaden a book's readership beyond its natural audience, and thereby lead to lower scores? Or are we just a tough crowd? Or...?
Ed - super fascinating. I think, if we are the culprits, it has more to do with reading something because it was "assigned" rather than something we out and out chose for ourselves.
Christopher wrote: "Ed - super fascinating. I think, if we are the culprits, it has more to do with reading something because it was "assigned" rather than something we out and out chose for ourselves."I was trying to figure out why there was such a negative trend and that makes sense, Christopher.
Ed, thanks so much for posting these stats. Not only did the ratings almost all go down but they also are all very middling scores to begin with. Now I'm wondering about the range--whether these books are polarizing with a lot of 1's and 5's, or the scores reflect people thinking the books were average (3) reads.
Thanks for posting Ed. I know I am a tough rater. I read 80 books last year and only gave one a 5 rating, that in retrospect was probably too high. I do think I have become more finicky on what I choose to read, so TOB does have a bit of an "assigned reading" feel. I am in the minority in not caring for the Ferrante novels. I tell myself that I don't have to read all 16 books, but I like the accomplishment aspect of reading all. Last year I read 13 books to complete the shortlist. This year I only needed 6 plus the 2 to complete the trilogy. However, this year has felt like more of a slog in completing the reading. I think last year had more unexpected fun reads (A Tale For the Time Being, People in the Trees) and this year has felt more like homework. I have taken a couple TOB reading breaks this time around.
I'd be interested to know if there waa a similar downtrend in the stats last year, with what I would consider a much (MUCH) stronger field of books.
Ellen wrote, "Kerry, to start with, I came at Redeployment with the unfortunate prejudice of being the very opposite of a fan of soldier literature. The one exception, and I can't say I liked it exactly, but it made a big impression on me, was Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. It may be at least partially my hippie left knee jerking here, but I just...can't enter into and am made deeply uncomfortable by that whole ethos. So I was predisposed to dislike it, but then that first story, with the dog, just ... I just hated it, and nothing since that one, particularly the total marginalization and sidelining and objectification of women in every word and page -- part of the whole ethos, I know --changed my mind. I don't want to offend anyone, but it just pushed all my negative buttons. I do think if that story with the dog hadn't been the first one, I wouldn't have hated it quite as much, but I still wouldn't have liked it."You have expressed my reasons for not reading Redeployment very well, Ellen. I will read the two stories recommended here and call it good. And thanks for warning me off the dog story!
I'm headed for a personal best with my reading this year - I've read 12 of the books. Since I'm not reading Redeployment, that means I have three to go! (And they're all under 300 pages!) I am going to read the first book of the Ferrante trilogy rather than the last although if by some miracle I have time, I will read all three.
Yes, it's certainly true that while I found the field weak, it was much easier to read everything with so many of the books clocking in at under 200 pp. I read Dept. of Speculation in less than 2 hours yesterday! I actually have plenty of time now to read all three Ferrante books, were I to actually get a copy of the second one, AND A Brief History of Seven Killings, which I keep putting aside. I also have a book club book to read and a copy of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing hanging around on the kitchen table. But that shouldn't prevent me from reading A Brief History... I think it will be ME that prevents me from reading A Brief History...so it won't be that I wasn't able to finish the whole list, it will be that I CHOSE not to finish the whole list, like you, Drew.
I think it would be interesting sometime to have a discussion on the hows and whys of deciding on what rating to give a book. I hate that there are only 5 stars. 1-10 would be better, but 1-100 would be better still.For my own part I rate partially on how the book stands up as a work of art, how technically well done it is and how well the story was written, and then i add my own emotional response to the book (was it a favorite of mine, despite shortcomings, or did I hate it despite it being a wonderful piece of writing).
and since each of us rates with an equally arcane set of criteria, using the goodreads ratings is an interesting, but ultimately futile way of judging a book.
I would like the .5 to use with ratings. For me, there can be a wide range of books that get my 3 rating. A 5 has to be a book that hits everything for me, plot, characters, prose. Wow moments that make me stop lift my eyes from the page and think. If I reread a paragraph or section because of a feeling of awe or amazement I'm probably going to give a 5. When I finished The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell I immediately returned to one of the last chapters and reread the whole thing smiling the entire time. Some of this year's TOB books are 4s for me, but not 5s. I'd like a 10 point scale as well.
My five star ratings are very contextual. I try to rate a book according to how well the book succeeds ins what it set out to do--if it fulfills its promise to me as a reader, or not. So I gave 5 stars to The Martian by Andy Weir because in the universe of "hard scifi" it is a great example of the genre.
But I gave 4 stars to Crime and Punishment because in the universe of Dostoevsky novels it isn't as good as The Karamazov Brothers.
I use shelves to remind myself of my favorite books of all time etc. and to really differentiate the five star books from the FIVE STAR BOOKS.
This all makes sense only in my own head, of course.
Those darn stars are the bane of my existence! (That means I have a pretty cushy life, right?) I often think I'm handing out too many 4 and 5 star ratings but, OTOH, I choose the books I read pretty carefully. I generally won't read anything with less than a 3.5 rating on Goodreads unless it's been strongly recommended by someone whose reading tastes are similar to mine. That's one of the fun things for me with the TOB - I have a reading list that includes some titles I would have read anyway and several titles I've never heard of. Sometimes there's a real gem in those unfamiliar titles (Long Division!). None so far this year - the books I've really liked were already on my TBR list.
Well, from a different perspective, I've really enjoyed just about every book I've read so far for the tournament. I thought I was done reading for the TOB last week, but I keep getting pulled back in. Even the 2 books I'm rooting against (All the Birds and An Untamed State) had some wonderful moments for me and I'm glad I read them I have to root against something right?. I almost skipped The Paying Guests based on feedback here, but I'm finding it a real pleasure to listen to so far. I don't find this to be a weak field of books and think there will be some tough rounds ahead in the tourney.
the rating system is an interesting beast, and i always love how people use it for their own purposes. earlier today, in the GR feedback group, someone proposed that there be categories within the rating system. the small amount of discussion on the idea has been... interesting. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...i would love the scale to be broader, ½-stars at the very least would go a long way. i am pretty sure GR PTB said that would never happen. heh. but i use library thing as well, and i really appreciate having the ½-star option there. rating out of 10 would work well, as would the rating scale of 100. i sometimes participate in a newspaper book club, and they ask for a rating out of 100. i love that. (here's the one they ran for Sweetland (a book i hope is in contention in 2016, since it was just published in the US, though was out in canada last year): http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/...
I tend to agree with several other posts about this year's books lacking any good surprises. I really liked The People in the Trees and A Tale for the Time Being last year (and enjoyed some that I was dreading, like How to Get Rich). This year, it seems that several books were hyped or tied to big names, making it even more difficult to be wowed unsuspectingly.
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Tournament of Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Beijing Coma (other topics)A Tale for the Time Being (other topics)
Independent People (other topics)
Half Blood Blues (other topics)
The Accidental (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Thomas King (other topics)Elena Ferrante (other topics)
Gary Shteyngart (other topics)
Rumer Godden (other topics)
Erich Kästner (other topics)
As always, the ToB made me pick up a couple books which I ordinarily wouldn't have, and I'm glad for it. Even if I didn't enjoy some of the books, I'm better for having tried new things.
I don't think this was the strongest list that the ToB has ever come up with, but it seems like the list with the most potential to have incredible discussions about a number of topics. Very excited for that.
Even money for the win? Two books that didn't blow me away at all. All the Light We Cannot See and An Untamed State.