I don’t know what I expected to find when I went to check out the Tournament of Books shortlist, but I was delighted by the selection of books. We’ve got award winners like Flesh by David Szalay, this year’s Booker Prize winner, big names like Angela Flournoy (The Wilderness) and Stephen Graham Jones (The Buffalo Hunter Hunter), and books that fell entirely off my radar like The Burning Heart of the World by Nancy Kricorian. For the uninitated, the Tournament pits fiction books against each other with judges choosing which book advances in the brackets. Previous winners include James by Percival Everrett, Normal People by Sally Rooney, and My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Check out the full shortlist and the books that made the play-in round themed, “the Academy, 2025–2026 edition.”