In the title story of a collection by this author, a woman asks the narrator if he enjoys being “All dressed up, alone at a bar… quietly into your reading” before berating him about something he did by the shore three years earlier. That story references an earlier story by this author in which an old man at a beach tells the narrator that the “most important essence of life” is the “crème de la crème.” This author wrote about a man who described a time when he listened to Wagner operas in exchange for bread. In another story by this author, a man admits to his habit of burning barns. This author of First Person Singular and The Elephant Vanishes described a man who is accused of killing his cat by his wife in a short story that later became the first chapter of a book about Toru Okada. For 10 points, name this author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. ■END■
| California (North) | Main Site | Y | 3 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 110.00 |
| California (South) | Main Site | Y | 4 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 130.75 |
| Canada | Main Site | Y | 12 | 83% | 0% | 17% | 120.40 |
| Florida | Main Site | Y | 3 | 67% | 0% | 33% | 136.50 |
| Great Lakes | Main Site | Y | 5 | 100% | 0% | 20% | 133.00 |
| Lower Mid-Atlantic | Main Site | Y | 9 | 100% | 0% | 11% | 134.78 |
| Midwest | Main Site | Y | 8 | 100% | 0% | 13% | 137.50 |
| Overflow | Main Site | Y | 4 | 100% | 0% | 25% | 134.25 |
| South Central | Main Site | Y | 2 | 50% | 0% | 50% | 123.00 |
| Southeast | Main Site | Y | 7 | 100% | 0% | 43% | 153.29 |
| UK | Main Site | Y | 12 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 140.42 |
| Upper Mid-Atlantic | Main Site | Y | 8 | 88% | 0% | 25% | 132.29 |
| Upstate NY | Main Site | Y | 4 | 100% | 0% | 25% | 137.25 |
| Player | Team | Opponent | Buzz Position | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arjun Kala | Illinois A | Indiana C | 91 | -5 |
| Michael Wu | Southampton A | Edinburgh A | 95 | 10 |
| Nick Smemoe | North Carolina A | NC State A | 101 | 10 |
| Caleb Ott | Waterloo A | Queen's | 109 | 10 |
| Ryan Fang | Stanford B | Berkeley C | 110 | 10 |
| Amir Dolansky | Toronto E | McGill A | 110 | -5 |
| Jesse Chusing | Ottawa | UBC A | 110 | 10 |
| Rayton Lin | Waterloo B | UBC B | 110 | 10 |
| Tanay Bodducherla | Berkeley B | Berkeley D | 110 | 10 |
| Swapnil Garg | Berkeley A | Stanford A | 110 | 10 |
| Raymond Chen | Toronto B | McMaster A | 110 | 10 |
| Yusuf Baig | McMaster B | Western B | 110 | 10 |
| Charlotte Bauer | McGill B | Toronto C | 110 | -5 |
| Alan Fan | Washington B | Minnesota A | 110 | 10 |
| Mary Kate Vance | Louisville A | Bruin | 110 | -5 |
| Camden Walker | WashU B | Georgia Tech D | 110 | -5 |
| Gus Vanskike | Maryland C | Catholic | 110 | 10 |
| Mitch McCullar | Penn State | Cornell B | 110 | 10 |
| Ariel Faeder | Pittsburgh | Michigan B | 111 | 10 |
| Kevin Ye | Simon Fraser | Western C | 112 | 10 |
| Thomas Tibbetts | Central Florida C | Florida C | 112 | 10 |
| David Bass | Johns Hopkins A | Columbia C | 112 | 10 |
| Mattias Ehatamm | Maryland A | Columbia B | 112 | -5 |
| Eshan Pant | NYU A | Georgetown | 112 | 10 |
| Coby Tran | Chicago C | Indiana B | 112 | 10 |
| Ben Newman | Duke | South Carolina B | 113 | 10 |
| Noah Chin | Virginia Tech A | William and Mary | 113 | 10 |
| Eric Chang | Virginia Tech B | Wake Forest | 113 | 10 |
| Aiden Dartley | Rutgers A | NYU C | 114 | -5 |
| Avishka Fulgavkar | Florida A | Central Florida B | 114 | -5 |
| Jakob Meyers | Indiana A | Chicago E | 114 | 10 |
| Dylan Steptoe | Guelph | Carleton University | 115 | 10 |
| Kevin Wang | Georgia Tech A | Carleton College | 115 | 10 |
| Kevin Zheng | Michigan A | CWRU A | 116 | -5 |
| Tiffany Zhou | Ohio State A | Ohio State B | 116 | 10 |
| Fern Fang | VCU | Liberty B | 116 | -5 |
| Jisoo Yoo | Texas A | Texas A&M A | 116 | -5 |
| Parker McCoig | Tennessee A | Vanderbilt B | 116 | 10 |
| Albert Nyang | LSE | Imperial C | 116 | 10 |
| Kai Madgwick | Manchester | Imperial B | 116 | 10 |
| Rishi Pendyala | Cornell C | Rochester | 117 | 10 |
| Ishan Joshi | Toronto Metropolitan | Western A | 118 | 10 |
| Andrei Hui | Cambridge A | Montpellier | 119 | 10 |
| Freddie Lancett | Cardiff | Birmingham | 120 | 10 |
| Rahul Jogadhenu | UCLA B | UCSD C | 120 | 10 |
| Matthew Lam | Ohio State C | Michigan State | 120 | 10 |
| Kevin Yang | Illinois B | Northwestern D | 120 | 10 |
| Evan Gniadek | Purdue B | Notre Dame A | 120 | 10 |
| Jack Funke | Missouri B | Claremont | 123 | -5 |
| Keerthana Krishnan | Texas B | Murray State A | 123 | 10 |
| Dmitri Anh-Minh Tran | UC Santa Barbara | Arizona State | 125 | 10 |
| Nolan Dannels | UCSD A | UCLA A | 129 | 10 |
| Trey Lewis | South Carolina A | Liberty C | 129 | 10 |
| Ben Hellman | Swarthmore | John Jay | 133 | 10 |
| Logan Mathis | WashU A | Louisville B | 136 | -5 |
| Violet Page | Binghamton B | RIT | 142 | -5 |
| Henry Bauer | NYU B | Johns Hopkins B | 149 | 10 |
| March Delfin | UCSD B | UC Irvine | 149 | 10 |
| Milan Fernandez | Brock | Toronto G | 149 | 10 |
| Braden Booth | Missouri A | Iowa State | 151 | 10 |
| Omkar Marathe | Columbia B | Maryland A | 152 | 10 |
| Alvin Guo | Chicago A | Northwestern C | 152 | 10 |
| Pranav Jothi | Georgia Tech B | Tennessee B | 154 | 10 |
| Carter Pisocky | Michigan C | CWRU B | 158 | 10 |
| Lovel Hearn | Edinburgh B | Oxford A | 158 | 10 |
| Jason Lee | Rutgers B | Vassar | 158 | 10 |
| Chris Levesley | Warwick A | Oxford C | 159 | 10 |
| Meredith Wiper | CWRU A | Michigan A | 160 | 10 |
| Ted Warner | Bristol | Cambridge C | 160 | 10 |
| Zoë McGuire | Oxford B | Cambridge B | 160 | 10 |
| Matteo Fronduti | Durham | UCL | 160 | 10 |
| Caleb West | Kentucky | Alabama B | 160 | 10 |
| Aaryan Tomar | Georgia Tech D | WashU B | 160 | 10 |
| Tobias Cortes | Indiana C | Illinois A | 160 | 10 |
| Samanyu Dixit | North Carolina C | James Madison B | 161 | 10 |
| Josh Schmidt | Liberty A | NC State B | 161 | 10 |
| Zaid Asif | NYU C | Rutgers A | 161 | 0 |
| Yihong Chen | Toronto C | McGill B | 161 | 10 |
| Samuel Zheng | Toronto D | Toronto F | 161 | 0 |
| Sicheng Jiang | Toronto F | Toronto D | 161 | 0 |
| Anh Khoa Tran | Central Florida A | Florida B | 161 | 10 |
| Joshua Iyo | North Carolina B | James Madison A | 161 | 10 |
| Johanna Bryant | Liberty B | VCU | 161 | 10 |
| Vivian Fan | Claremont | Missouri B | 161 | 10 |
| Dwight Solano | Texas A&M A | Texas A | 161 | 0 |
| Jack Lewis | Bruin | Louisville A | 161 | 10 |
| Matthew Sumanen | Georgia Tech C | Sewanee | 161 | 10 |
| Beckett Gillmore | Louisville B | WashU A | 161 | 10 |
| Charlie Lowman | Imperial A | City St. George's | 161 | 10 |
| Joel Dicker | Southampton B | Warwick B | 161 | 10 |
| Kevin Peng | Cornell A | Binghamton A | 161 | 10 |
| Cade Reinberger | RIT | Binghamton B | 161 | 10 |
| Mats Miller | Chicago D | Illinois C | 161 | 10 |
| Aden Sun | Chicago B | Notre Dame B | 161 | 10 |