FLC Staff Picks Blog

March Madness 2021: Battle of the Books!

This year, we're trying something new. March Madness: Battle of the Books is a competition to determine the campus community's favorite book of 2020. We have selected the top 16 circulating items from 2020 in the library's Browsing collection and put them up in head-to-head matchups. Let us know which books you think are better in each matchup. Feel free to judge a book by its cover if you haven't read either titles! Voting is open to any member of the Bridgewater College community, whether they are faculty, staff, students, or alumni.

Each matchup will last one week, and the winning titles will progress to the next rounds. By the end of the month, there'll only be one book left standing! 

All 16 titles are below, in order of ranking. Some titles are no longer in the collection, but you are welcome to request them through Interlibrary Loan if you would like to read them.

note: Follow the title links to get a full description or to the "place a hold". We'll pull it for you!

Seasons of the Storm by Elle Cosimano

ISBN: 9780062854247

(#1 Seed) One cold, crisp night, Jack Sommers was faced with a choice--live forever according to the ancient, magical rules of Gaia, or die. Jack chose to live, and in exchange, he became a Winter--an immortal physical embodiment of the season on Earth. Every year, he must hunt the Season who comes before him. Summer kills Spring. Autumn kills Summer. Winter kills Autumn. And Spring kills Winter.

 

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

ISBN: 9780735219090

(#2 Seed) In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a heartbreaking coming of age story and a surprising murder investigation. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens's debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi

ISBN: 9781250170996

(#3 Seed) After battling the impossible, Zélie and Amari have finally succeeded in bringing magic back to the land of Orïsha. But the ritual was more powerful than they could've imagined, reigniting the powers of not only the maji, but of nobles with magic ancestry, too. Now, Zélie struggles to unite the maji in an Orïsha where the enemy is just as powerful as they are

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

ISBN: 9780399590597

(#4 Seed) Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her--but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he's ever known.

The Other Mrs by Mary Kubica

ISBN: 9780778369110

(#5 Seed) Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved their family from bustling Chicago to small-town Maine when their neighbor Morgan Baines is found dead in her home. The murder rocks their tiny coastal island, but no one is more shaken than Sadie. But it's not just Morgan's death that has Sadie on edge. And as the eyes of suspicion turn toward the new family in town, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery of what really happened that dark and deadly night.

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

ISBN: 9781501154850

(#6 Seed) Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village's all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook's mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility but also danger. Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook's differences are impossible to ignore.

The Rise of Magicks by Nora Roberts

ISBN: 9781250123039

(#7 Seed) After the sickness known as the Doom destroyed civilization, magick has become commonplace, and Fallon Swift has spent her young years learning its ways. Fallon cannot live in peace until she frees those who have been preyed upon by the government or the fanatical Purity Warriors, endlessly hunted or locked up in laboratories, brutalized for years on end. She is determined to save even those who have been complicit with this evil out of fear or weakness—if, indeed, they can be saved.

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

ISBN: 9781250237279

(#8 Seed) In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son, Xavier, who's headed to college in the fall. All is well until the Whitmans—a family with new money and a secretly troubled teenage daughter—raze the house and trees next door to build themselves a showplace. 

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

ISBN: 9780062882769

(#9 Seed) Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people. In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance—and Papi's secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

Mobituaries by Mo Rocca

ISBN: 9781501197628

(#10 Seed) Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries—reading about the remarkable lives of global leaders, Hollywood heavyweights, and innovators who changed the world. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. Mobituaries is an insightful and unconventional account of the people who made life worth living for the rest of us, one that asks us to think about who gets remembered.

Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen

ISBN: 9781524733452

(#11 Seed) It's the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every disease or cause, there's a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally), and be seen. But when a prominent high-society dowager suddenly vanishes during a swank gala, and is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt.

Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

ISBN: 9780062862853

(#12 Seed) From the day she is discovered unconscious in a New England cemetery at the turn of the twentieth century--nothing but a bowling ball, a candlepin, and fifteen pounds of gold on her person--Bertha Truitt is an enigma to everyone in Salford, Massachusetts. She has no past to speak of, or at least none she is willing to reveal, and her mysterious origin scandalizes and intrigues the townspeople, as does her choice to marry and start a family with Leviticus Sprague, the doctor who revived her.

American Pop by Snowden Wright

ISBN: 9780062697745

(#13 Seed) The story of a family. The story of an empire. The story of a nation. Moving from Mississippi to Paris to New York and back again, a saga of family, ambition, passion, and tragedy that brings to life one unforgettable Southern dynasty--the Forsters, founders of the world's first major soft-drink company--against the backdrop of more than a century of American cultural history.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

ISBN: 9781250313072

(#14 Seed) Galaxy "Alex" Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

ISBN: 9780399562488

(#15 Seed) Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve, hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt's new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.

Call down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

ISBN: 9781338188325

(# 16 Seed) The dreamers walk among us... and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming—they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives—they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ready to vote? Head over to https://libguides.bridgewater.edu/mm now! 

Curious how we constructed the matchups? The matchups are based upon seeding, so the top seeded book (the highest circulating Browsing title of 2020), Seasons of the Storm, is up against the 16th-seeded title, Call Down the Hawk (by local author, Maggie Stiefvater). The 2nd-seeded book, Where the Crawdads Sing, is up against the 15th-seeded title, The Giver of Stars, and so on. The brackets are constructed so that higher seeds will go on against lower seeds if they get to the following round.