Tournament of Champions Winner

Posted on Tuesday, September 1, 2026

To celebrate 25 years of One Read, we asked our incredible community to vote in a tournament, pitting previous years’ titles against each other over several rounds to determine our champion. The last round of voting required the hard decision between two reader favorites: “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot and “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. A huge thanks goes to the hundreds who voted.

We are so pleased to announce the One Read Tournament of Champions winner, by a razor-thin margin, is “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee!

Please join us for a book discussion of “To Kill a Mockingbird” on Wednesday, September 30 from 6-7 p.m. in the Friends Room of the Columbia Public Library.

The winner of the One Read Book Shelf (a complete collection of all 25 One Read books) will be contacted soon.

One Read is generously underwritten by the Friends of the Columbia Public Library and made possible by organizations in our community. We thank all of our partners on the task force for their support.