"The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything" Bloomsbury USA

What if March Madness extended into other areas of life -- with the ultimate answers to the great questions determined by bracketing your choices? In their new book, The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything (Bloomsbury, $15.95), editors Richard Sandomir and Mark Reiter have applied this method to topics as varied as American beer, animation characters and political hot-button issues.

Sandomir and Reiter asked experts in each category to tab 32 entrants and play them off, NCAA-tournament style, while also providing round-by-round commentary. As SI.com's Adam Hofstetter notes, sports get a healthy representation. Among others, there are entries on best sports rivalries (by author Will Blythe) and best NASCAR catchphrases (by SI contributor Jeff MacGregor). To devise the category for best sports books, Sandomir and Reiter enlisted SI senior editor Dick Friedman, whose brackets are reproduced here.