• So Many Damn Books: Tournament of Books 2020 Primer

    This Week on the So Many Damn Books Podcast

    It’s nearly that time of year again: TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS TIME! Drew and Christopher (re-)introduce the game for any listeners who haven’t encountered it previously and, in honor of the 16th-annual tournament, give a few historical tidbits about their own engagement with the games. Plus, brewskis.

    Your first TOB?

    Drew: 2010
    Christopher: 2011 or 2012

    How the show got started:

    You’ve probably heard it before, but the guys first met in the comments of the ToB and then at the afterparty for the 10-year party in 2014, dreamed up the idea for SMDB.

    The Super Rooster

    After this year, there’ll be sixteen winning books—and the guys have heard a rumor about what’s coming next: a Super Rooster, to crown the best book of the first 16 years.

    *

    The 2020 ToB Shortlist:

    All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg
    The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
    Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
    Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
    Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
    The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
    Overthrow by Caleb Crain
    Saudade by Suneeta Peres da Costa
    Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
    Optic Nerve by Maria Gainza
    Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
    Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer
    Normal People by Sally Rooney
    We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
    Oval by Elvia Wilk
    Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
    Golden State by Ben H. Winters
    On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

    *

    Recommendations:

    Drew: The Imago Sequence and Occultation and The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All — by Laird Barron

    Christopher: @PaperbackParadise + a OneStory subscription


    So Many Damn Books
    So Many Damn Books
    A blessing, a curse, a podcast. est. 2014. Christopher (@cdhermelin) invites folks to the Damn Library to talk about reading, literature, publishing, and trying to make it through their never-dwindling stack of things to read. All with a themed drink in hand. Recorded at the Damn Library in Brooklyn, NY.





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