The 2018 Stacks Book Club Battle of the Books
We’re bringing a little friendly competition into The Stacks world as 2018 comes to a close. You get to vote for the winners of this year’s best book from The Stacks Book Club, plus one participant will win one of these books and a tote!
Here is how it works. You go to https://challonge.com/TheStacks2018 or click here. You create your account put your predictions in for who you think will win. Then on The Stacks Instagram Stories, you’ll vote (start 12/20) for your favorite books in head to head battles, until we crown one winner, The Stacks Book Club Book of the Year. The results of each round will be updated over on Challonge (our bracket site) and on our Instagram @thestackspod.
You have until Thursday, December 20th at 9:00am PST to put in your predictions, the person who does the best will win one book from the 19 books in the tournament and a The Stacks Tote bag. We will announce the winner of the tournament and the winner of the giveaway on Monday, December 31st once the results are in.
Some of you might be wondering how the seedings worked out for the tournament, and I’ll be honest, I did a bunch of calculations to rank the books based on a slew of factors The rankings are full of bias, and assumptions, and thats what makes it fun, since ultimately YOU decide the best book. Here is what I looked at to rank these books, and below find a more detailed description of what that means.
Podcast Downloads- Raw number of downloads that episode received according to my data (I know older episodes will be at a disadvantage as the podcast grew over time, but also newer episodes suffer because they haven’t been up as long, I’m hoping it all evens out). It is worth noting that I excluded Open City from this calculation since that episode is not out yet.
iTunes Episode Popularity- iTunes lets me see how popular each episode is. Its slight different than raw downloads, because they take into account listeners at the time of recording, but they also only include people listening through iTunes. Again,Open City was excluded from this category, see above.
Goodreads Scores- I just looked up each book on Goodreads and took that score.
Goodreads Reviews- I took the raw number of Goodreads reviews for each book.
Test of Time- The older a book is, the more credit it got, because it has withstood the test of time.
Social Media Input- I’ve asked you all to tell me your favorite book we read this year on Instagram and Twitter. Those responses are incorporated.
Traci’s Personal Ranking- Thats right, I’m influencing this competition a little. Why not?
There are 19 books in the competition, so in each of those categories the books are rated on a scale of 1-19. Each book received a score from each category, 1 being the best, 19 the worst. I then tallied all the scores and divided by 7 (in the case of Open City only 5). The lower the score, the higher the ranking.
I know that sounds like a lot, but just trust me, it makes sense. Here are the rankings based on these calculations, and their total overall raw scores, remember lower is better. Where there was a tie, I broke the tie.
1 Between the World and Me -5.142
2 Giovanni’s Room – 5.571
3 The Bluest Eye – 5.857
4 Men We Reaped – 6.428
5 Exit West – 6.714
6 Bad Blood – 7.14
7 Year of Yes – 7.714
8 The Mars Room – 9.142
9 If You Leave Me – 9.428
10 Between the World and Me -5.142
11 How Democracies Die – 9.714
12 Less – 10
13 Open City – 11
14 Reincarnation Blues – 12.428
15 Vulgar Favors – 12.571
16 How Soccer Explains the World – 12.714
17 To the Bridge – 13.428
18 New Boy – 13.428
19 Motherhood – 14.57
Voting begins Thursday December 20th, shortly after 9:00am PST for the first round, and will follow the schedule below. Remember you vote in The Stacks Instagram stories. You just click your favorite book in each round’s head to head matchup. Once the results are in, I’ll share the winners with you and we get ready for the next round. The schedule is below.
Round 1 – December 20th – Play In Games
Round 2 – December 23rd – Sweet Sixteen 16
Round 3 – December 26th – Elite 8
Round 4 – December 28th – Final 4
Round 5 – December 30th – Championship
That feels like a lot, trust me, it’ll be fun and worth it. Here is the important stuff.
Make sure you’re following The Stacks on Instagram @thestackspod.
Register for the bracket if you want to be part of the giveaway CLICK HERE
Vote in each round on our Insta Stories, starting Thursday December 20th.
Spread the word!
To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.
The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.
