yay, the Tournament of Books starts today! with a perfectly funky, funny, & earnest judgement 📚

also, a good summary of the thing overall in the match commentary:

We deliberately created a dumb competition with no stakes. It doesn’t matter who wins. Authors are not in competition with one another, and the intention has always been to lift everyone’s boat. I think the Rooster does that. But as with all meaningless competitions, it matters a little.