The 2023 Tournament of Books
Is Now Live

We’ve launched a new website this year! Please join us over at tournamentofbooks.com for the 2023 Tournament of Books presented by Field Notes.

To get all the latest updates, sign up for the Rooster Newsletter and join our Discord. You can still find all of our previous Tournaments, including the 2022 ToB, in the column to the right.

And please, help ensure the future of the ToB by becoming a Sustaining Member. It’s no exaggeration to say the Tournament happens because our Members make it happen. (Here are the details about why.)

Follow the Tournament of Books on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

If you’re new to the Tournament of Books, here’s how it works: Over the course of 18 matches—one each weekday—two works of fiction go head to head, with one of our judges deciding which book moves forward in the brackets, according to whatever criteria matters to them. Along the way, the judges reveal their biases and interests, any connections they have to the participating authors, and, most importantly, an elaborate explanation of how they decided between the two books.

From the eight opening round matches to the four quarterfinal matches through the two semifinal matches—and the potentially Tournament-disrupting “Zombie Round”—our original field of 18 competitors is whittled down to two finalists that will enter our championship match. There our entire judging panel weighs in, each judge picking their favorite of the two final books, and the book that receives the most votes takes home the Rooster.

Take a crash course in ToB lore with “A Brief History of the Tournament of Books.”