Play Book Tag discussion

While a lot of extra votes were cast in this round, I want to report that neither race was impacted by the additional votes. The authors that won, would have won if everyone only cast a single vote.

The bolded author is the winner.

In the Kingsolver vs. Hoffman race, it wasn't even close (with or without extra votes).

The Austen vs. Ishiguro race was very tight without the extra votes, but Austen still won. With the extra votes, Austen won by a lot.

Barbara Kingsolver vs.
Alice Hoffman

Jane Austen vs.
Kazuo Ishiguro

Stay tuned for the final round!

Barbara Kingsolver vs. Jane Austen

Wouldn't you know, the one author in the semi-finals I had not read during the entire challenge, because it would have been a reread and I had just reread 3 of her works in 2020 and 2021, was Jane Austen? I will be fitting a reread in to get those reading points at the end. I do have a lot of driving coming up over Thanksgiving and need an audiobook of something I have read before.

Both worthy finalists. I am also very pleased at Ishiguro's showing. Truly one of my favorite authors.

Theresa, I know you’ll enjoy your unplanned Austen reread. When the game was first announced, she was the first author that came to mind. I thought she might win, but for some reason I didn’t “guess” her. I even said I didn’t want to reread her. (Sorry Jane.) I quickly changed my mind and I was happy I did. Mansfield Park was different than I remembered and I got something new from the book. I also enjoyed my Austen related modern books. The Jane Austen Project, and Death Comes to Pemberley.

Anita, I’m happy with both results, and it’s very nice to know that the extra votes weren’t needed to cement either win.

Hoffman was my last remaining guess for the win, but this year my love for Barbara Kingsolver only grew. So I knew I would be happy either way. I will also be happy with either Kingsolver or Austen for the final win.

NancyJ wrote: "Theresa, I know you’ll enjoy your unplanned Austen reread. When the game was first announced, she was the first author that came to mind. I thought she might win, but for some reason I didn’t “gues..."

I debated voting for Jane Austin as the winner but I didn't. Wish I had.

This will be a hard choice. I really like both of them.

I forgot to vote... But I loved all the B category books. Seriously I had very few authors for the other genres. But in my narrow style, the B's totally had it for me. I think I ultimately picked Amor Towles as either the winner or top two. I probably did go with Backman for the winner.

I have absolutely no memory of who I voted for originally as the final winner/s. It's so hard to compare such different authors.

I am pretty happy one of my top picks is still there! Not my top one, but one of the top 4 I chose.

Amy wrote: "I forgot to vote... But I loved all the B category books. Seriously I had very few authors for the other genres. But in my narrow style, the B's totally had it for me. I think I ultimately picked A..."

I didn't make any guesses at the beginning of the year and since the first time I finally read him was for points here I had no idea how well he writes.