Tournament of Books, just keeping up

Missed the last few days of the Tournament of Books. Following the opener, the rest of the opening round shook out as follows:
Firmin by Sam Savage over Emily Barton's Brookland-notes here.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road over Peter Orner's The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo.
Props for that, the Road was a hell of a book, even if not quite the equal of Suttree or Blood Meridian. Notes are here.
The much praised One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson gets the nod over Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. I haven't read either of them, but Atkinsons previous literary thriller was quite good. Notes are here.
Lastly, Richard Ford's Lay of the Land vs English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee. Again, read neither. Notes are here.
Lastly, Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali triumphs over Colson Whitehead's Apex Hides the Hurt.
I've read all the novels from these two, and I really like Colson Whitehead. Then again Dan Chaon judged this round and I'm not going to go against him. He wrote this so he can say whatever he wants. That's the rule. Here's his notes.
That's a lot to go through, but then I'm not much for keeping up these days.

Posted by Dave