Announcing the 2023 Close Reads Literary Bracket!

(help decide the final eight entries!)

It’s the day you’ve been waiting for since last March! Well, sort of. Almost. Next week we will officially launch the complete 2023 Close Reads Literature Bracket and this year the theme is . . . Adaptation.

You will be deciding which cinematic adaptation of a piece of literature should be crowned champion. We have compiled a list of the most renowned movie and television adaptations every made and pitted them against each other, March Madness style. And it feels like this tournament could be a real barn burner. Most years, these brackets are at least somewhat easy to predict . . . this one, not so much.

But first we need your help choosing the final eight matchups. This is the play-in round, if you will. The final bracket will be open to everyone, but if you’re a Close Reads HQ subscriber you get to help us choose the final eight bracket entries by voting on the matchups you see below.

So peruse the options and vote however you see fit. Don’t overthink it this year. Haven’t seen one of these adaptations? Oh well; vote with some other criteria in mind. Reputation. Rotten Tomatoes scores. Your mom’s taste in movies. Watch some YouTube scenes and see what you think. Just have fun with it.

(Next week, I’ll explain a bit more about how we chose the various films/series—and why we chose to leave off certain options).

Okay, here are our play-in round matchups: