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 |
| Raymond Chen | Toronto B | McMaster A | 110 | 10 |
| Yusuf Baig | McMaster B | Western B | 110 | 10 |
| Charlotte Bauer | McGill B | Toronto C | 110 | -5 |
| Amir Dolansky | Toronto E | McGill A | 110 | -5 |
| Jesse Chusing | Ottawa | UBC A | 110 | 10 |
| Rayton Lin | Waterloo B | UBC B | 110 | 10 |
| Gus Vanskike | Maryland C | Catholic | 110 | 10 |
| Mitch McCullar | Penn State | Cornell B | 110 | 10 |
| Tanay Bodducherla | Berkeley B | Berkeley D | 110 | 10 |
| Swapnil Garg | Berkeley A | Stanford A | 110 | 10 |
| 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 |
| Ariel Faeder | Pittsburgh | Michigan B | 111 | 10 |
| Kevin Ye | Simon Fraser | Western 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 |
| Thomas Tibbetts | Central Florida C | Florida C | 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 |
| Albert Nyang | LSE | Imperial C | 116 | 10 |
| Kai Madgwick | Manchester | Imperial B | 116 | 10 |
| 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 |
| Rishi Pendyala | Cornell C | Rochester | 117 | 10 |
| Ishan Joshi | Toronto Metropolitan | Western A | 118 | 10 |
| Andrei Hui | Cambridge A | Montpellier | 119 | 10 |
| Rahul Jogadhenu | UCLA B | UCSD C | 120 | 10 |
| Kevin Yang | Illinois B | Northwestern D | 120 | 10 |
| Evan Gniadek | Purdue B | Notre Dame A | 120 | 10 |
| Matthew Lam | Ohio State C | Michigan State | 120 | 10 |
| Freddie Lancett | Cardiff | Birmingham | 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 |
| March Delfin | UCSD B | UC Irvine | 149 | 10 |
| Milan Fernandez | Brock | Toronto G | 149 | 10 |
| Henry Bauer | NYU B | Johns Hopkins B | 149 | 10 |
| Braden Booth | Missouri A | Iowa State | 151 | 10 |
| Alvin Guo | Chicago A | Northwestern C | 152 | 10 |
| Omkar Marathe | Columbia B | Maryland A | 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 |
| Zoë McGuire | Oxford B | Cambridge B | 160 | 10 |
| Matteo Fronduti | Durham | UCL | 160 | 10 |
| Tobias Cortes | Indiana C | Illinois A | 160 | 10 |
| Caleb West | Kentucky | Alabama B | 160 | 10 |
| Aaryan Tomar | Georgia Tech D | WashU B | 160 | 10 |
| Ted Warner | Bristol | Cambridge C | 160 | 10 |
| Yihong Chen | Toronto C | McGill B | 161 | 10 |
| Samuel Zheng | Toronto D | Toronto F | 161 | 0 |
| Sicheng Jiang | Toronto F | Toronto D | 161 | 0 |
| Samanyu Dixit | North Carolina C | James Madison B | 161 | 10 |
| Josh Schmidt | Liberty A | NC State B | 161 | 10 |
| Aden Sun | Chicago B | Notre Dame B | 161 | 10 |
| Charlie Lowman | Imperial A | City St. George's | 161 | 10 |
| Joel Dicker | Southampton B | Warwick B | 161 | 10 |
| Zaid Asif | NYU C | Rutgers A | 161 | 0 |
| Kevin Peng | Cornell A | Binghamton A | 161 | 10 |
| Cade Reinberger | RIT | Binghamton B | 161 | 10 |
| 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 |
| Mats Miller | Chicago D | Illinois C | 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 |