Tournament of Books discussion

Space to discuss the 2026 TOB contender The Director by Daniel Kehlmann.

this book is 99p on kindle today for anyone in the UK

Just finished this one. I didn’t love it, I think because it was too depressing and I didn’t find any characters to connect with.

Agree, it also went on forever.

Agreed. I liked it, but didn't love it as a whole. The thing that I did love, though, was the imagery. I "saw" the scenes in the book the same I would imagine a movie from that time period would look. I agree it was depressing, but the book took an unflinching look at a terrible time period and how people survived and even prospered under the Reich and even after WWII.

Oh, I loved this one. I felt the author did an excellent job of showing the slippery slope of moral compromise.

I did this on audio and wish I'd done it in print since I was a little confused between the characters. I liked it, but I think I would have appreciated it more in print.

Bretnie wrote: "I did this on audio and wish I'd done it in print since I was a little confused between the characters. I liked it, but I think I would have appreciated it more in print."

I can see how this one might be tough in audio.

still my fave but I understand why people would get impatient with it. there are scenes that happen that don’t make any sense, plopped into what in many ways feels like a biographical novel. It feels like a meditation more than like a novel. The first scene feels like it was written for a different novel, and I loved it more than the rest of the novel.

I loved the first scene too! It was a masterful depiction of what it might be like to be inside a mind suffering from dementia. It was such an eye-opening reading experience.

Yes! That first scene drew me in and then that was that.

♑︎♑︎♑︎ wrote: "The first scene feels like it was written for a different novel, and I loved it more than the rest of the novel."

Sorry to learn that - I loved the first scene but stalled out a few chapters later. Was going to try to pick it up again to see if more of that magic was in there....

Gwendolyn wrote: "I loved the first scene too! It was a masterful depiction of what it might be like to be inside a mind suffering from dementia. It was such an eye-opening reading experience."

I still want to know why learning lines is like riding a horse, ha.

Tim, I found the first few chapters, those in Hollywood, to be really disorienting. I think Kehlmann is trying to mirror Pabst's confusion and language difficulty and social awkardness, and his pride, all of which led to his disastrous decision to go back to Europe. After those chapters, I either began to understand the language of the book, or things became more concrete. But strangeness and disorientation continue and they are deliberate, part of the paranoia and crumbling social structures Pabst and his family are subjected to. It was a hard book to follow. People show up several chapters later that I needed to think, hmm, do I know this guy?...and the physics of some scenes is entirely wacky, where people going upstairs arrive in a different order than is physically possible or rooms get surreally more vast than before. Yeah. I needed to put all these things in a category of “I don’t know what’s going on, and it’s uncomfortable, and I’m just going to trust that this feeling of discomfort is Kehlmann’s purpose for writing this way.” But it’s a big ask.

Lark that's a really good observation. I'd be tempted to re-read it with that in mind (in print this time), but too many other books calling!

Each chapter kind of felt like a new type of story being told, whether it was that semi-contemporary first chapter from a character with dementia, or the chapter where the son (Jakob?) is seeing things with an artist's eye, or the meeting with Louise Brooks that was so focused on her own successes and life in which Pabst was just a footnote...

dang i really did like this one

I’m willing to give Kehlmann all the grace in the world because he wrote Tyll, which is usually my “best book published in the 21st Century” (now and then supplanted by Laurus)

I just finished this one and posted my review. Really interesting book. I liked that it was kind of all over the place. Each chapter was a new view into people in Pabst’s film world which was inside Nazi Germany.

♑︎♑︎♑︎ wrote: "Yeah. I needed to put all these things in a category of “I don’t know what’s going on, and it’s uncomfortable, and I’m just going to trust that this feeling of discomfort is Kehlmann’s purpose for writing this way.” But it’s a big ask.."

That's what I love about this book - for me it was a perfect way to convey the surreality of living in a Germany in the grip of Nazism. Youtube has a video of the St. Vitus' dance from Pabst's film Paracelsus and this scene was like the embodiment of that eerie weirdness. The dancers look like unwilling puppets, no longer in control of their bodies and barely hanging on to their minds.

But what really elevated it into the stratosphere for me was that in the midst of all this, he creates scenes of almost wacky comedy, like the family that is caretaking the Pabst castle.

♑︎♑︎♑︎ wrote: "Tim, I found the first few chapters, those in Hollywood, to be really disorienting. I think Kehlmann is trying to mirror Pabst's confusion and language difficulty and social awkardness, and his pri..."

I had another international flight, so I took =The Director= with me and gave it another shot. So glad I did! I ended up finding it completely absorbing.

It is (unfortunately) a timely book....

I really appreciated the disorienting moments when reality seemed to warp and waver before snapping back. (Those scenes made me think of Terry Gilliam.)

And I came to the book (this second time) fresh off a long argument about politics in art and artists, so I was primed for the message.

Anyhow, thanks for the encouragement to give it another go.

Nadine in California wrote: "scenes of almost wacky comedy, like the family that is caretaking the Pabst castle...."

He did a great job of balancing the absurd and the menacing - not just that (horrible) Jerzabek family, but that (horrible) author, Karrasch.

Nadine in California wrote: "Youtube has a video of the St. Vitus' dance from Pabst's film Paracelsus.."

Thanks for the tip!

Also: Pandora's Box.

Tim, that makes me happy! Some books are meant to be read on long flights. It’s how I finally read The Magic Mountain. It was too long to finish on the plane itself but fortunately I landed with this book in a country where books in English were scarce and it ended up being one of my all-time favorites.

I’m watching late-career bad Gregory Peck movies, who knows why, (so bad they are fun, maybe) and what do you know, at the 1:50 mark in “The Omen” there is a scene with a paternoster elevator in it! I was excited!

Kehlmann wrote a guest essay in the NY Times today about stars speaking out against oppressive regimes with the Oscars tonight. I'm not hopeful for our sorry lot of cya stars. Maybe Sean Penn is he wins or even shows up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/op...

I expect this book to be the best book I read this year. I loved how the first scene is continued to end the book, how the events of the book did feel like scenes from a movie, veering into the German expressionism that Pabst loved so much, the character studies of how people survive under a fascist regime, from Pabst complying, but as little as he thinks he can get away with, to his wife's struggles and his son's embrace of the social order.

The scene in the Paris bar is the most amazing thing.

Jason wrote: "Kehlmann wrote a guest essay in the NY Times today about stars speaking out against oppressive regimes with the Oscars tonight. I'm not hopeful for our sorry lot of cya stars. Maybe Sean Penn is he..."

That was a good read- I didn't watch last night but now I'm wondering if anyone rose to the occasion in this way.

Javi Bardem said "Free Palestine and end wars!"

That was about it!

Alison wrote: "veering into the German expressionism that Pabst loved so much..."

Thank you so much, Alison, for writing this part, in particular! Because even though this novel was one of my best and most beloved reads of 2025, and even though I’ve thought deeply about the novel since then, and thought I understood it, I was still dumb to the fundamental REASON why some scenes become so surreal, and so irrational. Of course! Now I need to read it again!

Alison wrote: "I expect this book to be the best book I read this year. I loved how the first scene is continued to end the book, how the events of the book did feel like scenes from a movie, veering into the Ger..."

Very disappointing that it didn't move on. (Not sure if I communicated that in my comments....) I will be surprised if it has the strength to zombie, though.

I don't think people picked it to Zombie because people considered it a strong contender with out the zombie.

Audra wrote: "I don't think people picked it to Zombie because people considered it a strong contender with out the zombie."

No! Surely, each and every one of us has learned that painful lesson by now -- you have to protect your favorites.

The Director was the last book I read for this tournament, far after zombie voting. I voted for The Wilderness, which I don't regret.

I feel deflated by the quick elimination of The Director.

♑︎♑︎♑︎ wrote: "I feel deflated by the quick elimination of The Director."

The only book left that I'm invested in is The Wilderness.

Alison wrote: "Audra wrote: "I don't think people picked it to Zombie because people considered it a strong contender with out the zombie."

No! Surely, each and every one of us has learned that painful lesson by..."

Oh yea I voted for Endling to zombie because it's one of my fave books of the year.

Audra wrote: "Alison wrote: "Audra wrote: "I don't think people picked it to Zombie because people considered it a strong contender with out the zombie."

No! Surely, each and every one of us has learned that pa..."

SAME. The only two shortlist books I loved were Endling and The Director. (I also liked The Wilderness a lot.) This TOB year has been a bummer for me. I have never DNF'ed so many shortlist books, and now ... this.

I had debated between giving my Zombie vote to Endling or The Director and, in the end, I thought Endling might need it more. Sigh.

I mean, we get like 7 days to read 18 books and decide which one we wanna keep - I really just picked Buffalo Hunter Hunter because it literally was the only one I could read before the deadline.

Well I did vote for The Director, and it seemed to matter as much as my biennial vote in a deeply red state.

I will say that one of the organizers stepping into the comments yesterday to ask "why did you guys like this bad book" was not a great look (and this is usually a mod that i like)

Risa wrote: "Audra wrote: "Alison wrote: "Audra wrote: "I don't think people picked it to Zombie because people considered it a strong contender with out the zombie."

No! Surely, each and every one of us has l..."

Welp Endling is still alive

Honestly I’m just going to give it up and say that I’m really excited for next year’s TOB. The number of literary titans who have published or are publishing a book in 2026 is absurd.

I don't blame you. And there were so many good books in 2025 or rahter books I'd rather be dicussing. I'm a semi completist this year so I'll stick around for the ride but it's not exactly enjoyable.

♑︎♑︎♑︎ wrote: "Honestly I’m just going to give it up and say that I’m really excited for next year’s TOB. The number of literary titans who have published or are publishing a book in 2026 is absurd."

mebbe we should start a thread about that. I mean, I have this one "Evil Genius" book out from last month, after all

That’s very kind of you to notice Kyle but yeah I started to list the 2026 roster in a thread in Newest Literary Fiction a while ago, because I just could not believe how many top tier writers are publishing books this year, and then some other NLF people added to my list, and it does seem that 2026 is an astonishingly packed year for literary fiction, including new books from:

Ann Patchett
Lauren Groff
Tayari Jones
George Saunders
Elizabeth Strout
David Guterson
Allegra Goodman
Mario Vargas Llosa (posthumous)
Yann Martel
Xochitl Gonzalez
Amitav Ghosh
Colm Toibin
Colson Whitehead
Jeanette Winterson
Toni Morrison (posthumously)
Mark Haddon
Louise Erdrich
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Deborah Levy
Ali Smith
Patrick Gale
Douglas Stuart
Fiona Mozley
Andrew Sean Greer
Julian Barnes
Maggie O'Farrell
Gwendoline Riley
Francis Spufford
Ian McGuire
John Lanchester
Emily St. John Mandel
Valeria Luiselli
Isabel Waidner
Edwidge Danticat
Will Self
Sophie Ward
Claire Fuller
Lionel Shriver
Megha Majumda
T.C. Boyle
Claire Vaye Watkins
Nami Mun
Karen Tei Yamashita
Alvaro Enrigue
Philipp Meyer
Kawai Strong Washburn...

♑︎♑︎♑︎ wrote: "Honestly I’m just going to give it up and say that I’m really excited for next year’s TOB. The number of literary titans who have published or are publishing a book in 2026 is absurd."

No guarantee we will get them on the shortlist. Look at what was missed this year.

I, despite the general consensus, liked =Flesh= quite a bit - but all the other books I cared about are out. (And many of them never got in.)

That is a truly wild list. I thought the Enrigue was phenomenal, excited to check out many of those, especially the Patchett, Spufford, and long-awaited return of Philipp Meyer.

I think Meyer's still nebulous - his book has been scheduled for "sometime next year" since like 2020

Would love to be wrong, though.

Kyle wrote: "I have this one "Evil Genius" book out from last month, after all..."

I've got mine (but waiting for the Tournament dust to settle before diving in).

Kyle wrote: "I will say that one of the organizers stepping into the comments yesterday to ask "why did you guys like this bad book" was not a great look (and this is usually a mod that i like)"

Yeah, I'm going to stop commenting there. It's really made me feel like this year was a dud.

♑︎♑︎♑︎ wrote: "Honestly I’m just going to give it up and say that I’m really excited for next year’s TOB. The number of literary titans who have published or are publishing a book in 2026 is absurd."

RIP my book budget, which is always theoretical and easily blown by as new books keep being published and bookstores exist to browse in.