Photo: Event Organizers Vicky Urbelis (Longwood Public Library) & Cara Perry (Sachem Public Library)
Photo: Adult Division Battle of the Books champions the Islip Public Library ‘Thoreauly Prepared’
Nine Suffolk County public libraries recently competed in the inaugural Adult Division Battle of the Books, a countywide literary trivia competition that challenged participants’ knowledge, memory, and teamwork in a fast-paced pub-style format.
Modeled after the Advanced Division Battle of the Books, the competition featured three preliminary rounds, each centered on one of the following titles:
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Teams earned points throughout the preliminary rounds, with the top three advancing to a championship round featuring questions from all three books. At the end of the evening, Islip Public Library’s team, “Thoreauly Prepared,” claimed the title of the first Adult Division Battle of the Books champions and took home the inaugural championship trophy.
Participating libraries and team names included:
Babylon Public Library – Babylon Bilbiophlies
Brentwood Public Library – Brentwood Bookworms
Central Islip Public Library – No Shelf Control
Islip Public Library – Thoreauly Prepared
Longwood Public Library – The Lit Wits
Middle Country Public Library – MCPL Page Turners
Patchogue-Medford Public Library – The Pat-Med Spoilers
Sachem Public Library – Pages, Paintings, and Pyres
Smithtown Public Library – The Smithtown Stacks
The event celebrated a shared love of reading while fostering friendly competition and collaboration among Suffolk County libraries. Participants tested their recall of even the most obscure details from each book, creating an evening filled with excitement, laughter, and literary camaraderie.
“For our first-ever county Adult Division Battle of the Books, I think most, if not all, participants truly enjoyed themselves. They rose to the challenge of memorizing obscure and interesting facts from each book, never knowing what would be asked during every round. We received overwhelming encouragement to host this program again—hopefully with even more libraries participating in future competitions—and we’re taking participants’ thoughtful feedback into account as we plan to make future Battle events even more entertaining. A heartfelt thank-you goes to all of our volunteers, to Sachem Public Library for hosting this year’s event, and to every library team that embraced this first adult edition of this well-loved program.” – Vicky Urbelis, event organizer and Head of Adult Services of Longwood Public Library.
Organizers hope this successful debut marks the beginning of a new annual tradition, bringing together adult readers from libraries across Suffolk County to celebrate books, learning, and community through friendly competition.
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