And the winner of Book Madness is…

April 10, 2013
Click the image to find this title in the catalog!

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien!  In a tight race against Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, LOTR claimed the UW-Madison Libraries 2013 Book Madness tournament title with 51.7% of the votes!  Here’s how the match-up shook out:

  • The Lord of the Rings: 451 votes, 51.7%
  • Pride and Prejudice: 421 votes, 48.3%

Book Madness by the numbers

Book Madness garnered huge participation from both the UW-Madison community and book lovers across the country and the world:

  • Over 4,500 ballots were cast throughout the Tournament
  • Ballots were received from 24 countries, including Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Honduras, Indonesia, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, the US, and the United Arab Emirates.
  • Ballot stuffing was detected for over 500 ballots. For shame! (Yes, these votes were deleted!)

In addition to the final match, several brackets featured nail-biter pairings that came down to just a handful (or less!) of votes, and voting across the board was remarkably high:

  • Tightest race: In the Final Four, LOTR beat To Kill a Mockingbird by just 1 vote out of 745 cast. That’s 50.07% to 49.93%.
  • Most votes cast in a race other than the final: 919 votes for the First Round match-up between LOTR (474 votes) and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (445 votes)
  • Most lopsided win: The first round match-up in the Romance bracket, in which Pride and Prejudice (762 votes) won over Twilight (69 votes)

This first Book Madness Tournament was so popular that planning for the 2014 tournament is already underway.  The Libraries’ external relations office has also decided to create a new run of Bucky READ posters featuring Bucky reading his copy of The Lord of the Rings!  E-mail bucky@library.wisc.edu if you’re interested in ordering these special-edition Book Madness Bucky READ posters.

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