In celebration of National Library Week (April 7-13), we are holding a March Madness style tournament to help us determine the Adult Services Book of the Year!
To start, we selected twenty-four books in four different categories:
Staff Picks – throughout the year, library staff recommend dozens of books – we picked the six that most commonly appeared on those recommendation lists.
Best of the YPL Book Clubs – The Yorkville Library is home to six different book clubs who read a different book together every month. We asked each of our book clubs to select their favorite book of the year.
NY Times Best Sellers – The New York Times Bestseller list is a goal for every author, so we selected the six best-selling hardcover books of the year (taking out any that appeared on our previous lists)
Goodreads Choice Award Winners – Goodreads is a popular social media platform for readers. Each year they ask their millions of users to vote for the best books in dozens of different genres and categories. We selected six of the winners to participate in our tournament.
Now we are asking you to vote each week in April to help your favorite books move on in the tournament. Voting for round 1 will begin April 1, round 2 on April 8, and round 3 on April 15. Our semi-finals will be the week of April 22, and voting for the finals will take place between April 29 and May 5. A winner will be announced May 6.
Vote at the library or right here. Voting begins April 1.
Below is the tournament bracket, which will be updated after each round.
Local Division
We are down to the quarter finals. Just eight books remain!
In the local division, there are four books left. This week, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus faces off against The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Two popular books, but only one will move on to the semi-finals!
In the Best of the Book Clubs bracket, we are also down to two books!
Around the World in 80 Sandwiches by Mike Curtis moves on to a matchup against The Family Game by Catherine Steadman. It’s the Books & Cooks Book Club vs. the Psychological Thriller Book Club for a chance to go to the next round!
National Division
In the national division’s third round, we are also down to just four books.
In the Goodreads Choice Award Winners bracket, The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden takes on Happy Place by Emily Henry.
In the NYT Bestsellers bracket, the third round features an author against herself.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, the first book in a series, will face off against its own sequel, Iron Flame, also by Rebecca Yarros, the second book in the series. Which one will move forward?
