The NYT recaps the first–ever Tournament of Books, a fiction face-off sponsored by Powell’s bookstore and The Morning News website. LA litblogger Mark Sarvas is one of the judges. Round Two — T.C. Boyle’s The Inner Circle vs. Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America — heats up today.

Round after round, novels from 2004 are pitted against each other until only one of the original 16 is standing. The champion will be announced on Feb. 28. At that point its author may receive a live rooster, which has a cryptic connection to the brother of the writer David Sedaris.

Rosecrans Baldwin, a co–editor of The Morning News, and Kevin Guilfoile, one of its writers, said on its Web site that top seeds went “to books that were much hyped before or after publication,” lower seeds to books that appeared on many best–of lists. The rest of the slots (almost half) went to novels that the magazine’s editors and writers said they felt “passionate about.” Each match has a single judge except the final one, which is judged collectively.

The process is arbitrary, but then so is any literary contest. “Arbitrariness is inherent in book awards,” the creators say on their Web site.

Read more (NYT registration required).