The 2006 Tournament of Books is finally underway, with two rounds having been completed. So far, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss has bettered The Time in Between by Dave Bergen and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer pummeled Veronica by Mary Gaitskill. To recap: The books that we have read: 2. The books we have not read: 0. Which validates something or another. You can read the judges reviews at the Morning News. Our takes on History of Love are here and here; our takes on Extremely Loud are here, here, and here. Their review of the History of Love round was pretty insipid. Anyway, the next round will feature Krauss vs. Foer, which is interesting because they are married - I doubt they are losing sleep over it. I’d go with Extremely Loud, but they are not asking me. That round is being judged by Jessa from Bookslut, and I predict that she will hate them both. Gambling Tip: She will pick Krauss because she hates Foer more. Tomorrow’s match up pits Never Let Me Down by Ishiguro (our comments here and here) vs. The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole by Stephanie Doyan. Gambling Tip 2: We’ve read Ishiguro’s book but not Doyan’s - and our record speaks for itself. Gamble accordingly.
April 3rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
[...] You may not have known that about me. We had a near record number of hits at the end of last week, and I wasn’t sure why. It turns out that The Morning News linked to my Gary Benchley post with the headline: Gestalt of Gary Benchley, nouveau hipster parents, and Neal Pollack. That’s right, “gestalt”. But wait, there’s more. Here’s me on the match-up of Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love vs. Jonathan Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in The Morning News’ Tournament of Books, to be judged by Jessa Krispin of Bookslut: …I predict that she will hate them both. Gambling Tip: She will pick Krauss because she hates Foer more. [...]