Some of the managers in a league I'm in were talking about how great of a book The Stand is, by Stephen King. I must confess that I had never heard of it. They convinced me to buy it. I did. It's 1213 pages. I haven't read it yet. Anyway, it made me wonder about more good books that I haven't read yet, so let me introduce you to THE MAY MADNESS BOOK TOURNAMENT! I will take nominations in four categories, CLASSICS, FICTION, NON-FICTION and SPORTS. 

If you care to participate, please nominate in the following manner: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (classic). This does not mean that I want everyone to nominate Treasure Island, it just means that I want you to name the book title, author and category. I might have never heard of your book and not know where to place it. After a reasonable amount of time I will tally the nominations and the top four books from each category will enter a 16 book tournament. I will pair off the books and we will vote on which book advances to the next round. Eventually, I will crown a champion and we'll all have a very satisfactory feeling inside. Maybe.

But Midge, you gomer, you might say, why are you doing your MAY MADNESS BOOK TOURNAMENT at a baseball simulation web site? Because, I might say, the What are you reading? thread is 24 pages long and you people are a lot cooler than the folks over at Goodreads.

Feel free to nominate more than one book. Let the nominations begin!

Oh, and by the way, if this spills over into June I reserve the right to continue calling this the MAY MADNESS BOOK TOURNAMENT!

One Shot at Forever.....for anarchist, hippie, educators who love baseball and people who love baseball....and even for people who aren't anarchist, hippie educators

Would that be under the sports category? We don't have an anarchist category.

Good idea, midge!  I'll limit myself to 5 nominees in each category or I'll be here all night:

Classics:

The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Fiction:

Blindness by Jose Saramago
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
Gates of Eden by Ethan Coen
A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis

Non Fiction:

Selected Essays of Gore Vidal by Gore Vidal
The Dimensions of the Present Moment by Miroslav Holub
Killings by Calvin Trillin
The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell by Bertrand Russell
Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer

Sports:

The Bill James Historical Abstract by Bill James
The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
Once More Around the Park by Roger Angell
The Game by Ken Dryden

Classic: Brave New World by Aldo Huxley
Fiction: Dune(the original 4) by Frank Herbert
Non Fiction: 1776 by David McCullough
Sports: Ball Four by Jim Bouton

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE(ABRIDGED EDITION)----EDWARD GIBBON---CLASSIC HISTORY

THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG---- EDWARD ABBEY--- THE 1ST ECO-ENVIROMENTAL TERRORIST NOVEL?

THE MILAGRO-BEANFIELD WAR----JOHN NICHOLS--- FICTION

THE FLASHMAN SERIES ---GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER-- GREAT, GREAT ANTI-HERO HISTORICAL FICTION

THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA---ROBERT CRICHTON--- WWII NOVEL SET IN ITALY

SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION---KEN KESEY---- FICTION SET IN THE PACIFIC NW

Beyond a Boundary  by CLR James  -  Sports

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas - Fiction (Classic)

The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin - (Science) Fiction

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein --Non-Fiction

The Case for Working With Your Hands by Matthew Crawford  - Non-Fiction

Death of a Nation by David Noble - Non-Fiction

The Condition of Man by Lewis Mumford - Non-Fiction (Classic)

Politics by Aristotle -  THE Classic

Posted by bronxcheer on 5/17/2015 5:28:00 AM (view original):
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE(ABRIDGED EDITION)----EDWARD GIBBON---CLASSIC HISTORY

THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG---- EDWARD ABBEY--- THE 1ST ECO-ENVIROMENTAL TERRORIST NOVEL?

THE MILAGRO-BEANFIELD WAR----JOHN NICHOLS--- FICTION

THE FLASHMAN SERIES ---GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER-- GREAT, GREAT ANTI-HERO HISTORICAL FICTION

THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA---ROBERT CRICHTON--- WWII NOVEL SET IN ITALY

SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION---KEN KESEY---- FICTION SET IN THE PACIFIC NW

Love the decline and fall....great freaking read.

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson and The IMpending Crisis by I forget are my two favorite Civil War Books (non-fiction)

The Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin is my favorite fiction series

The Critical Failures series by Robert Bevan is also awesome for guys who are familiar with D&D

Animal Farm, Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye are my favorite "classics"

Sports Fiction: The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg  The best sports book you've never read. This is Greenberg's To Kill a Mockingbird. Christy Mathewson, the NY Giants, and a young New York jeweler.

Fiction: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Non-Fiction: as a history teacher, it's impossible to pick one. Current favorite Why Nation's Fail by Daron Acemoglu (MIT) and James Robinson (Harvard)

Classics: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

CLASSICS

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (Loeb translation)
Plato's The Republic (Bloom translation)


FICTION

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (not-so-private joke for Italyprof)
The Stand by Stephen King
1984 by George Orwell
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien


NON-FICTION

The Oxford English Dictionary (Unabridged)
The Second World War by Winston Churchill
The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant
The Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson


SPORTS

October 1964 by David Halberstam
On A Clear Day They Could See Seventh Place by George Robinson and Charles Salzberg
Paper Lion by George Plimpton
Ball Four by Jim Bouton