Skip to footer

'Station Eleven' wins another prize: Tournament of Books champion

Every year, The Morning News hosts a March Madness-style face-off of works of fiction. This year, Emily St. John Mandel's novel emerged as the winner.

'Station Eleven' is by Emily Mandel.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Basketball? Book fans know the true March match-up happens at the Tournament of Books, where various titles go up against one another bracket-style. 

This year’s Tournament of Books recently concluded and Emily St. John Mandel’s much-praised novel “Station Eleven” was the ultimate winner. 

As we previously reported, the Tournament of Books was created by the online magazine The Morning News. The contest is intended to determine which is the best fiction book released the previous year. According to the Tournament of Books website, there are 16 judges and every weekday in March, one of the judges – who has read two of the 16 nominated books – selects which one will proceed. 

Other contenders this year included “The Bone Clocks” by David Mitchell, “The Paying Guests” by Sarah Waters, and “Redeployment” by Phil Klay.

All 16 judges plus one reader (to serve as a tie-breaker, if necessary) participate in the final match-up and “Station” won handily, winning 15 votes to the two received by Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See.” 

And what does the winning author receive? According to the Tournament of Books website, the prize is titled the Rooster and the “author will be threatened with the presentation of a live he-hen.” 

Kevin Guilfoile of The Morning News wrote on the tournament website that the only writer to accept the rooster was author Adam Johnson. Unfortunately, “I think the particular zoning laws in the arrondissement where Adam lives prohibited us from actually delivering it to him,” Guilfoile wrote.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Station Eleven' wins another prize: Tournament of Books champion
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2015/0401/Station-Eleven-wins-another-prize-Tournament-of-Books-champion
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe