Tomorrow is the big day! I have finished 12 of the 17, which isn't so bad. I also spent some time today filling out my brackets, mostly to enter into Kerry's ToB pool over at his blog, Hungry like the Woolf.
It's always so tricky, the brackets. I used to do brackets for who I thought *would* win, but that was sort of boring. Now, I have a weird hybrid method. I always pick who I *want* to win in the first round; then, I try to be more pragmatic about who *would* win in later match-ups. Ultimately, this is probably the worst strategy, but I'm sticking with it.
Did you vote for a Zombie? I chose Long Division. I'd have to say that at this point, Long Division and A Tale for the Time Being are probably my favorites. I'm hoping to read The Son before it's first round match up on March 13. Then, I'll see which books advance into the further rounds. Of the remaining books that I have yet to read, I'm most interested in The Luminaries.
I think the best news so far is that of all the first round match-ups, I have read at least one of the books. However, there also means there are only a few where I've read both of the first round books.
I'm excited for tomorrow!
Jenny
YAY! ToB time! Okay. I have read 11 of the books, with 3 more in progress. I hope to finally finish Life After Life tonight which, I have *got* to believe will win tomorrow's play-in round.
ReplyDeleteIf I finish LAL tonight *and* if it wins the play-in tomorrow, I will have also read at least one of each of the books in the first round.
I always peter out halfway through filling out brackets... I mostly agree with yours except I don't see E&P being the Zombie vote. There was so much vitriol last year about a YA book making it so far that I just think people will rise up against that. Having said that, I chose it for my Zombie pick :). I really loved that book and I don't care if it was YA or not.
Having said that... I do think people who love that book really love it and have a tenderness for it... that *would*, in fact, cause it to be the Zombie book. And I think people don't pick other "favorites" if they don't think they'll need the vote (although people last year definitely said, "Crap! I didn't think I'd need to vote for [favorite book] cause I didn't think it would need it.") I'm waffling. Sooo... sure -- I'm just going to go with all of your picks. Heh. (I didn't go for a contest or anything... just funsies.)
All right. Going to finish LAL right now. And I am now *two* months behind with book write-ups here. Gah! The Tournament has been *dominating* my reading life lately. (Also... I have been working on a quilt! Yay!)
You know... I forgot that last year's finalists were both Zombie picks, which your prediction also calls for this year.
ReplyDeleteI went back to re-read the commentary preceding that and it was, in fact, the first time that had happened.
Another interesting note from that commentary is John Warner raving about The Dinner when he first read it and then: "My instant ardor having cooled, I can see all kinds of 'flaws' in The Dinner, and if a year from now I am asked to compare it to another really good and interesting book, I could easily see passing it over."
Soooo... it will be interesting to see what he says about it in the Tournament a year later!