The folks at The Morning News have announced the 16 books selected for the second year of their Tournament of Books, and it's an interesting list. The tournament, which debuted last year, pits 16 books loved and recommended by TMN staffers and others against one another, with a different book blogger weighing in each week on a particular pairing. As the field narrows, in a format much like the familiar NCAA basketball tournament bracket, the tournament is left with a final 8, then four, then two. Last year's final pitted Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Mitchell's book won the "Rooster" award, named for David Sedaris' brother, Paul "The Rooster" Sedaris.

The brackets and judges will be announced later this month, according to TMN. As for the books, here they are:

The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss
The Time in Between, by David Bergen
Veronica, by Mary Gaitskill
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Greatest Man in Cedar Hole, by Stephanie Doyon
Home Land, by Sam Lipsyte
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
The King of Kings County, by Whitney Terrell
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
The Accidental, by Ali Smith
On Beauty, by Zadie Smith
Beasts of No Nation, by Uzodinma Iweala
Garner, by Kristin Allio
Saturday, by Ian McEwan
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer

I've read Saturday (which , with ELAIC is a readers' pick in the pool), Home Land, and No Country for Old Men, and was underwhelmed by the first two and liked the third more than most critics. It's a difficult list to handicap. Never Let Me Go, The Accidental, Saturday and The Historian all have received plenty of awards and plaudits, which either makes them frontrunners for consistency's sake or dark horses because the folks at TMN surely want their award to be unique as opposed to another shout into the void. Stay tuned.