Tournament of Books discussion

in today's discussion, john provided a list of books they are watching for 2014:

http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/201...


* Go to work and do your job. Care for your children. Pay your bills. Obey the law. Buy products. by Noah Cicero
* The Brunist Day of Wrath by Robert Coover
* Thirty Girls by Susan Minot
* The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
* Redeployment by Phil Klay
* Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
* The Heaven of Animals: Stories by David James Poissant
* The Blazing World: A Novel by Siri Hustvedt
* Mannequin Girl by Ellen Litman
* Missing You by Harlan Coben
* Orfeo by Richard Powers
* The Ballad of a Small Player: A Novel by Lawrence Osborne
* Hidden by Catherine McKenzie
* Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman
* Frog Music by Emma Donoghue
* Steal the North by Heather Brittain Bergstrom
* The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel by Justin Go
* The Giraffe's Neck: A Novel by Judith Schalansky
* Wonderland by Stacey D’Erasmo
* Delicious!: A Novel by Ruth Reichl
* Magnificent Vibration: A Novel by Rick Springfield
* Married Life by David Vogel
* Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia
* Remember Me Like This: A Novel by Bret Anthony Johnston
* A Moveable Famine by John Skoyles
* The Lobster Kings by Alexi Zentner
* The Vacationers: A Novel by Emma Straub
* We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride
* All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu
* I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You: A Novel by Courtney Maum
* The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger
* No Country: A Novel by Kalyan Ray
* Abroad by Katie Crouch
* All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner
* Losing in Gainesville by Brian Costello
* The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing by Nicholas Rombes
* A Life in Men by Gina Frangello
* Made to Break by D. Foy
* The Possibilities: A Novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings
* The Illusionists by Rosie Thomas
* Waiting for the Electricity: A Novel by Christina Nichol
* The Myth of Solid Ground: A Novel by Stephanie Kegan
* Road Ends by Mary Lawson
* An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
* The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
* Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen
* Panic in a Suitcase: A Novel by Yelena Akhtiorskaya
* Beneath the Neon Egg: A Novel by Thomas E. Kennedy
* When the World Was Young: A Novel by Elizabeth Gaffney
* Three Bargains by Tania Malik
* Before, During, After by Richard Bausch
* Henna House by Nomi Eve
* Your Face in Mine: A Novel by Jess Row
* The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar
* We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas
* An Italian Wife by Ann Hood
* Wittgenstein Jr. by Lars Iyer
* Hold the Dark by William Giraldi
* Ballroom by Alice Simpson
* The Ambassadors by George Lerner
* Wallflowers by Eliza Robertson
* The Fever by Megan Abbott
* The High Divide by Lin Enger
* The Betrayers: A Novel by David Bezmozgis
* A Brief History of Seven Killings: A Novel by Marlon James
* Quartet for the End of Time by Johanna Skibsrud
* Brood by Chase Novak
* Beautiful You: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk
* The Disappearance Boy by Neil Bartlett
* Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet
* The Happiest People in the World by Brock Clarke
* Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford
* The Scent of Pine by Lara Vapnyar
* Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball
* Friendship by Emily Gould
* Casebook by Mona Simpson
* Off Course: A Novel by Michelle Huneven
* Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole
* My Struggle: Book Two: A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard
* Lost for Words: A Novel by Edward St. Aubyn
* Dear Committee Members: A novel by Julie Schumacher
* Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman
* We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
* To Rise Again at a Decent Hour: A Novel by Joshua Ferris

i hope you all don't mind that i copied this list over to a new thread? i thought it would be cool to have it in its own space, and that we could also throw out our own recommendations, as we read through 2014.

my suggestions are:


* All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
* The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland

Thanks Jennifer. I would add On Such A Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee. I have read it and it is great.

Jennifer wrote: "in today's discussion, john provided a list of books they are watching for 2014:

http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/201...


* [book:Go to work a..."
THANK YOU!!!!

Here's The Million's round up of the most anticipated books of (the first half of) 2014. It's a lot. http://www.themillions.com/2014/01/mo...

thanks for adding that, topher!! i was just about to link that in too!!

oh, you're welcome guys! i love hearing about great reads and if they are TOB contenders...EVEN BETTER!!

you know, i read Wonderland recently and i was not such a fan. it just didn't work for me. seeing it on john's list this morning actually irritated me, and then that made me laugh: having TOBXI angst a year ahead of things. i feel as though i understand what d'erasmo was trying to do (and i have liked some of her other stuff), but this new one just...blargh! it felt very clunky and disjointed. it sort of reminded me of A Visit from the Goon Squad (sort of!), of which i was also not a fan. the admission of this may just blow any credibility i may have as a reader. haha!!

Jennifer thanks for doing this and for what it's worth, I really did not enjoy Goon Squad.

Currently reading The Enchanted and was already thinking about it for TOBXI. Glad to see it made the list.

I'm about halfway through and loving it. I was immediately taken by the concept since I've done prison minstry in the past. Prison is like an alternative universe, one most of society isn't directly exposed to. The rich language and unusual characters are very compelling.

that sounds amazing, angie!!

oh, your're welcome, kate! and hey, YAY!! i am glad for your company where 'goon' is concerned. we are a reading minority. :)

I left a comment on the TOB site, but a book I would add to the list (my favorite so far this year) is Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offil. Absolutely fantastic, short vignettes on a marriage, quirky and funny, but really insightful, too.

Thanks for doing this, I was dreading searching for all the them! You did the hard work!

no problem, margaret. i just needed to finish my giant mug of tea first, before tackling the links. it just makes things so much easier for everyone, to scope out the books and add them to TBRs.

Wow, thanks Jennifer for setting this up and especially all the links! The whole fun this post-March Madness is trying to see how many books I can "guess" will make it ToB. This year I am not feeling so far behind as other years. The only books on my radar thus far had been 'Dept of Speculation' and 'On Such a Full Sea' -- but don't think either is on that long list, ha!

Enjoy this forum/group of folks very much -- chalk me up to one of those too intimidated by the actual ToB discussion/comment thread to do anything but lurk during the competition. Happy reading and hope we can keep things going here throughout 2014!

oh, you're welcome, ed! i am glad it will be useful for you to figure out your reading!!

i requested offil's book this morning - it came up yesterday in 3 different GR groups i belong to, so i took it as a sign from the book gods! :)

oh - i thought of another potential book for 2015 TOBXI:
* Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab by Shani Mootoo

it is a canadian book - and i am not clear if it will be released in the US this year (or, ever). but it would be a really good tournament book and would make for interesting decisions and discussions, i think!!

Thank you, Jennifer and Topher. Looking forward to some fine reading in 2014.

I've read two of the books on the 2014 watch list. The Divorce Papers, which I found just okay, and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour which I really enjoyed. Has anyone here read Orfeo? I'm curious about that title along with The Enchanted.

Beth wrote: "I've read two of the books on the 2014 watch list. The Divorce Papers, which I found just okay, and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour which I really enjoyed. Has anyone here read Orfeo? I'm curiou..."

I have Orfeo on reserve at the library. Once it comes in I'll be happy to let you know what I think. I too want to read The Enchanted.

I'm curious - how do you all decide what you think is a contender for the TOB? Is there a difference to you between a really great read and a tournament contender?

For example, is a book like Sue Monk Kidd's The Invention of Wings too mainstream to be a contender? What about Jennifer McMahon's The Winter People that is so fabulously creepy that my dog freaked out every time I sat down to read it (I'm serious!) I have a lot of books on my 2014 list that aren't on John's list, which is why I'm curious about this.

One of the things I look for, besides exellent writing, is whether I've read anything like it before. Something literary and original makes my contender list.

Sherri, I've pretty much realized if I follow the "buzz" books of the year, I'll end up having read about a handful of ToB books before they announce the short list.

I comb the "best of" lists as the year ends (Amazon's best books of the month is good for that along the way). But it seems like the ToB recipe mix is: the Booker and National Book Award winner, a handful of the best-of/buzzed about books, controversial and/or divisive book, lately the YA book of the year, non-novel fiction(graphic novel, short stories, etc.)... and near a handful of books that I never heard of and/or not on my radar.

I tend to think there are authors that are too mainstream. For me, Khaled Hosseini comes to mind.. I think Sue Monk Kidd may fall in the same category. Though 'The Help' did make ... tho that seems to be the exception as would be the case with any genre work (i.e. horror, mystery) unless it had some serious buzz. But again, who knows! ;-)

I like both these answers. As Ed says, the TOB does not do a lot of genre fiction and steers away from garden variety mainstream best sellers. If you want to keep track of literary fiction buzz, the New York Times is a good source, and The Millions is a nice book site -- even BuzzFeed has books coverage now. Also Twitter!!! Twitter in general has become my favorite source of book (and other) news/insights -- are you guys using it that way too? A ton of authors (Roxane Gay, Mat Johnson, Ayelet Waldman & Joyce Carol Oates are fascinating) and critics (including other of this year's TOB judges) are active on Twitter, and it is a fun way to see who's excited about what books. GuardianBooks on Twitter has good coverage of UK lit. The only problem is that I'm spending so much more time reading *about* books that I have less time to actually read. :-)

Jan wrote: "The only problem is that I'm spending so much more time reading *about* books that I have less time to actually read. :-) "

RIGHT?? oh, man! :)

whenever i consider a book for the TOB, i always think about whether a novel will allow for interesting discussion/examination. there are lots of "nice" books out there - those that are perfectly fine and very good. but what do they offer in the context of the tournament? i always feel like there needs to be a bit of an edginess to TOB books, or that TOB books tackle big and/or important topics (or sweeping stories, like 'wolf hall' or 'the signature of all things').

of course, i also thought that The Flamethrowers and The Woman Upstairs were perfect TOBX novels. haha!! :)

i would agree with jan in mentioning 'the millions' - i find them a great resource and love their 'most anticipated' lists each year.

jan, i am glad you mentioned Ayelet Waldman - i really enjoy her and love how open and passionate she seems on twitter. i am looking forward to reading her new book!

Jan, can you suggest some good twitterers to follow for book recs? I don't really use the app but would totally love to hear authors and critics offer their thoughts on what's out there.

And all, this may seem stupid (I'm new to this group) but what is the TOB? Who chooses the books? When does the list come out? And then what happens here? Thanks for any info.

Sarah wrote: "Jan, can you suggest some good twitterers to follow for book recs? I don't really use the app but would totally love to hear authors and critics offer their thoughts on what's out there. ..."

Sarah, this is a community focused around the Tournament of Books (TOB) sponsored by The Morning News. You might follow some of the links at http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/ to get a feel for what TOB is. As to Twitter, I would suggest using the Twitter search function to see if any of your favorites are there. If you follow them and see who they follow (and retweet) and who follows them, you can grow your own personal list. Have fun!

Jennifer wrote: "Jan wrote: "The only problem is that I'm spending so much more time reading *about* books that I have less time to actually read. :-) "

RIGHT?? oh, man! :)

whenever i consider a book for the TOB..."

Both those books would have been wonderful! I was really surprised they were MIA. And ditto re Ayelet. She is amazingly "out there" on Twitter and I love her for it. Excited to read her newest.

I just finished The Enchanted and I thought it was excellent. It's hard to say I liked it because it was disturbing....which I was completely unprepared for. I hadn't really read anything about it, it just seemed totally different than what I had been reading and I wanted a change. It was totally different and I wasn't expecting it to be so very dark. I liked it a lot though and could imagine all sorts of TOB discussions about it!

I am eager to hear more reports of any possible contenders that people read. Please post if you read one. Especially if you think it can win! I'm about to start the Dept. of Speculation.

I also really appreciate the other recommendations from previous years or for good twitter follows.

I thought this was a great year for TOB. Loved the Goldfinch, A Tale, and am loving The People in the Trees and The Son. I'm looking forward to The Luminaries.

i have a friend who has very highly recommend The Origin of the Brunists by Robert Coover - which is the book before the one on the recommendation/keep your eyes out for, on the 2015 list (post #1 - The Brunist Day of Wrath). i have it here now so hope to get to both books this year because i feel weird not going in order. this particular friend very rarely raves about a book as he has done with coover.

has anyone in this group read cover already?

Oh, the Slate book review podcast is reviewing Dept. of Speculation in May.

Michele, thanks for the heads up on the Slate podcast. I really enjoyed the one on The Good Lord Bird and look forward to hearing what they have to say about Department of Speculation.

Finished Dept. Of Speculation a week ago. I found it to be incredibly melancholy and funny at the same time. It's short but well written and slightly unconventional. I'd highly recommend it, TOB or not.

Finished Missing You this morning. I added it too my TBR list after seeing it here. I'm not much of a cop mystery/thriller fan, but this was a bit more complex than many I've read in this genre, yet there were just too many concepts in this tale I couldn't buy into.

Although an entertaining and fast read, I can't see it as part of the tournament. Too mainstream.

I am starting Boy, Snow, Bird and I am looking forward to it! I just finished Prayers for the Stolen and I could imagine it in the TOB but I'm never certain. It was short and fast and haunting in that TOB way that sticks with you in your mind. I will say I love how my quest to guess TOB books pushes me to read in and out of my norm all year long ;).

Thanks everyone for the updates. I love to hear from the TOB fans. I'm reading Dept. of Speculation. I'm liking it. I'm still loving The People in the Trees and The Son.

Katie wrote: "I am starting Boy, Snow, Bird and I am looking forward to it! I just finished Prayers for the Stolen and I could imagine it in the TOB but I'm never certain. It was short and fast and haunting in..."

I hope you'll share with us your thought on Boy, Snow, Bird. It's on my TBR list, but I'm focusing on group and challenge reads currently. I'll probably get to it later this year.

I also plan to read Prayers for the Stolen in the next couple of months. Thanks for mentioning it here.

Two books I have started that really grabbed me from the beginning: ALL THE BIRDS SINGING by Evie Wyld and WIVES OF LOS ALAMOS by TaraShea Nesbit, which is in the same first person plural style as BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC by Julie Otsaka.

I also found All the Birds, Singing to be a great read.

Just finished The Enchanted and can't stop thinking about it. Looking forward to upcoming discussions. Unfortunately, am now reading How to Talk so Teens will Listen and Listen so Teens will Talk.....

I am reading Roxane Gay's An Untamed State and listening to the audiobook of The Enchanted. I cannot breathe...but in a good way.

so i read The Enchanted yesterday guys...it was fine, but i was not blown away. i think my expectations got too high based on all the praise happening here for it. so that was too bad. i i found it all interesting - the setting, premise, characters, but it was all a bit too detached, which i suspect is the opposite feeling to what denfeld was hoping to get from a reader, eh?

Hm I don't know that I was emotionally attached in any way to the characters but the setting and descriptions of life I was easily caught up in. I wasn't attached in a traditional way at least but was gripped by the whole story. It did probably help that I went in knowing nothing and expecting a book called enchanted with pretty ponies on the front to be vastly different than the book I read.

I finished Boy, Snow, Bird and liked it but didn't love it. There was a point about half way I couldn't put it down and felt like there was amazing momentum but for me it didn't completely materialize and following the mid point were sections that it seemed to get a little weak. It was short and fast though and worth the read, maybe one for me I had higher expectations than reality allowed :)

Jennifer wrote: "so i read The Enchanted yesterday guys...it was fine, but i was not blown away. i think my expectations got too high based on all the praise happening here for it. so that was too b..."

I hate when that happens. For me I was immediately drawn into the atmosphere of the prison, but I think this was dramatically enhanced by my own personal experience with prison ministry. I know that prisons are truly like an alternate universe, with so many people/stories filling such a small space.

I'm not sure I would say I was connected to the characters exactly, my life not having the trauma of most in the story, but I did empathize and felt very attuned to bear witness as the tale unfolded

Like Angie, I think my perception of The Enchanted was influenced by my experience volunteering with a prison ministry. I know so many of the men there have been traumatized both before and during their incarceration. I hope PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) has helped reduce the kind of sexual abuse depicted in the book. I loved the way that none of the characters were named except the death-row inmates, increasing the effect of the world inside being a separate reality, maybe the "real" reality.

Angie wrote: "I'm not sure I would say I was connected to the characters exactly, my life not having the trauma of most in the story, but I did empathize and felt very attuned to bear witness as the tale unfolded..."

it is frustrating when expectations get too high - i really do try to keep that from happening, but sometimes it's really hard.

you know - i was very drawn to the setting too, and had tons of empathy for all of the characters (i worked for a time in a criminal court and most of the cases were with young offenders)...but i was left feeling really flat about it all. i felt as though denfeld was really trying to get people to open their hearts and thoughts to those for whom this is a real situation, but i didn't feel she went deep enough to create a stronger emotional attachment. (save for the white-haired boy) as well - and this may sound really dumb - i thought the magical realism element was going to be stronger.

anyway -- it's not that i disliked the book, i will recommend it to some people, i just didn't love it. :/

Drew wrote: "Like Angie, I think my perception of The Enchanted was influenced by my experience volunteering with a prison ministry. I know so many of the men there have been traumatized both before and during..."

It's interesting to note that you've had a similar experience Drew, although my experience was in a woman's prison. There most of the trauma that happened in the inmates life was before incarceration. A number of the women I dealt with felt that prison had offered a structure that they had never had in their lives and allowed them to get a handle on the young turbulent lives (most dealing with addictions)they had experienced before prison.

Thanks again to everyone for their checkins about possible contenders. I finished the Dept. of Speculation. I thought it was very good. Short and dense. Dense in a good way. And I thought the style was original, at least in my experience. I can't see it winning TOB because it's not flashy enough, but I could be wrong. I could definitely see it as one of the 16 contenders.

I finished Thirty Girls this week and just realized it is on John's list of possible contenders. It could see it being this year's "The Dinner," kind of a love-it or hate-it book, although Minot is a much better writer than Koch. On the other hand, it would give us two years in a row of Western/white writers doing African stories, and after skipping Americanah, Ghana Must Go, and We Need New Names last year in favor of Tuner of Silences, I would hope they might avoid it on that basis alone.

If any of you read Thirty Girls, I'd love to hear what you thought. I wanted to like it and parts of it were well done, but it bothered me enough overall that I decided to vent on Amazon. I gave it two stars. Here's what I posted:

Lovely writing, marred by Eurocentric arrogance and narcissism

This book is a jarring juxtaposition of two stories. One, based on Minot’s reporting from Africa during the 1990’s, gives voice to Esther, an African girl who, along with her school mates, is kidnapped by Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. She eventually escapes and makes her way to a rehab center and home, but is naturally quite traumatized. Minot narrates her story in the first person.

Minot gives far more attention to Jane, a shallow, self-obsessed, entitled New York divorcee who hears about the kidnapped girls, and with little writing experience and even less research, takes off for Africa to “do something." Jane hooks up with an enclave of other well-to-do Westerners and they go swanning around the war zone, having an African adventure. Jane is the sort of self-centered, 38 year-old twit who starts sleeping with the nearest guy, a 23 year-old, and when he dumps her, asks herself deep questions like, “Who am I?”

I don’t mind unlikeable characters, but I like to believe the author sees through them. In Thirty Girls, and in a few interviews I’ve read with the author, there’s little sense of that. Instead, Minot presents Jane’s suffering as on a par with Esther’s. Esther and Africa become props for Jane, in all her cringe-worthy narcissism, to have an adventure and feel more alive. When Jane and Esther’s paths finally cross, the author adds insult to injury by letting Jane be the great white savior – the catalyst for Esther’s healing. By that point, I felt morally compromised for just reading this book.

Minot writes lovely prose, and she effectively describes Esther’s experiences and strength. But Jane was a bore, and it was sad overall to see such moral obtuseness and insensitivity.

Jan wrote: "I finished Thirty Girls this week and just realized it is on John's list of possible contenders. It could see it being this year's "The Dinner," kind of a love-it or hate-it book, although Minot is..."

Jan, I started this book last night. I chose not to read your review because I want to make my own impressions, but I've seen some reviews slamming this book because it wasn't what the reader thought it would be. Having spent 2 summers in West Africa during college, I think the "American in Africa" experience is one that's worth writing/reading about from all perspectives. I'll look forward to reading your review as soon as I finish the book.