Welcome to the summer bracket

If your responses after we announced this year’s Tournament of Books shortlist are any indication, a lot of the titles you hoped might show up from the long list made it into the Tournament.

But not all of them, right? What about the ones that were left behind? Don’t they deserve their time in the sun? We believe they do—after all, they landed a spot in the long list for a reason—and this summer that’s going to happen as part of a new bracket-based discussion we’re organizing.

This time around you choose the books, you decide which titles advance in each round, and—most importantly—your discussions could sway the outcome of every match.

(And before we go any further, thank you to Tim in the Tournament of Books Discord for suggesting we revisit the long list for our summer discussions!)

Here’s how it’s going to work:

• Discussion matches begin on June 23 July 7 and will proceed, one at a time, in standard tournament fashion, where two books will be discussed and one book will advance to the next round. At each match, you’ll have 1) a poll where you can vote for which book you want to advance—sure, OK, makes sense—and 2) an open forum, ready for you and your fellow book lovers to discuss/stan/lambaste that match’s titles. This is where things get interesting.

• Over a two-day window, everyone has a chance to make the case for why they think their preferred read should advance—and the comment that receives the most upvotes in favor of one of the books will have those upvotes awarded to that title’s poll tally. That means that even if one book is leading in the poll, a single comment that attracts enough upvotes may very well swing the match the other way.

• The day after each match culminates we’ll announce which book will advance, and we’ll be ready to begin the next match!

• We’ll have a Zombie Round and everything—stay tuned for that, and probably other things.

And now, here’s our opening round discussion schedule and brackets. (The schedule may shift for later rounds—and yes, there will be Zombies!) You can also find a spreadsheet of all our summer competitors here.

Opening Round

Monday, July 7
The City and Its Uncertain Walls
v. The Safekeep

Wednesday, July 9
The Ministry of Time
v. Absolution

Monday, July 14
Creation Lake
v. You Dreamed of Empires

Wednesday, July 16
Real Americans
v. Wandering Stars

Monday, July 21
Playground
v. I Cheerfully Refuse

Wednesday, July 23
This Strange Eventful History
v. Long Island Compromise

Monday, July 28
Intermezzo
v. Good Material

Wednesday, July 30
My Friends
v. The Husbands