Open Books Challenge 2026: About or Set During a Natural Disaster

The Open Books Reading Challenge is a year-long reading challenge for people interested in pushing the boundaries of their reading. For full details of the program, please check-out our page at: https://www.rplmn.org/books-more/discover-more/open-books-reading-challenge

These are some ideas that fit the 2026 category "About or set during a natural disaster."

Happy Reading!

Updated December 31, 2025
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The year of the flood
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, the preservation of all species, the tending of the Earth, and the cultivation of bees and organic crops on flat rooftops - has long predicted the Waterless Flood. Now it has occured,...
Things that happened before the earthquake
Barzini, Chiara
Paper Book
Welcome to LA? Nineties' Hollywood gets an Italian makeover in this poignant and ruefully funny coming-of-age novel featuring a teenage girl who's on shaky ground--in more ways than one. Mere weeks after the 1992 riots that laid waste to Los Angeles, Eugenia, a typical Italian...
Flood
Baxter, Stephen.
Paper Book
Next year. Sea levels begin to rise. The change is far more rapid than any climate change predictions; metres a year. Within two years London, only 15 metres above the sea, is drowned. New York follows, the Pope gives his last address from the Vatican, Mecca disappears beneath the waves. ...
The tin roof blowdown
Burke, James Lee
Paper Book
A powerful evocation of the days after Katrina ripped through the heart of Louisiana - it's poignant, elegiac and shot through with a burning rage
All the water in the world : a novel
Caffall, Eiren
Paper Book
In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York's Museum of Natural History in a flooded future. "Gripping...tense, de­­­lightful and rich with resonance." --Scientific American "Captivating...The...
What storm, what thunder
Chancy, Myriam J. A.
Paper Book
American Book Award Winner Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist A NPR, Boston Globe, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Library Journal Best Book of the Year "Stunning." --Margaret Atwood At the end of a...
The last train to Key West
Cleeton, Chanel
Paper Book
Instant New York Times bestseller One of Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020 "The perfect riveting summer read!"-BookBub In 1935 three women are forever changed when one of the most powerful hurricanes in history barrels...
Speak to me of home : a novel
Cummins, Jeanine
Paper Book
What does it mean to call a place home? From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeanine Cummins comes a deeply felt multigenerational family story On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but...
Naked came the Florida man
Dorsey, Tim
Paper Book
"Can it still be hurricane season? Must be, because here come Serge A. Storms and his perpetually stoned bro, Coleman, in Tim Dorsey's gonzo crime caper." -The New York Times Book Review The "compulsively irreverent and shockingly funny" (Boston Globe) Tim Dorsey returns...
Notorious sorcerer
Evans, Davinia
Paper Book
"Vibrant, explosive, deliciously dangerous, and impossibly fun." --Tasha Suri "A brilliant alchemical recipe!" --Olivia Atwater "I loved getting lost in this dazzling debut." --Shannon Chakraborty
Random sh*t flying through the air
Ford, Jackson
Paper Book
"The stakes couldn't be higher ... The suspense, the danger, and the rocket-fueled pace are all turned up to 11."―Kirkus   "Furious, frenetic, fun, and "f**k you" -- Robert Brockway on The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind ...
Camino winds
Grisham, John
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The perfect crime scene . . . in the type of wild but smart caper that Grisham's readers love."--Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing     Just as Bruce Cable's Bay Books is preparing for the return of...
The volcano challenge
Grylls, Bear
Paper Book
The seventh in the exciting new 12-book collectible series for young readers from survival expert and Chief Scout BEAR GRYLLS
Lights, camera, bones
Haines, Carolyn
Paper Book
The latest novel in the series that Kirkus Reviews characterizes as "Stephanie Plum meets the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" featuring sassy Southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney. Delaney Detective Agency gets a taste of the spotlight when they are called to a case...
The displacements
Holsinger, Bruce W.
Paper Book
"Hypnotic." - New York Times "Cinematic." - USA Today "I gripped the covers of this book as though it might be blown from my hands. . .powerful." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post "A full-throttle page turner."- Miranda Cowley Heller, #1...
House of bone and rain : a barrio noir
Iglesias, Gabino
Paper Book
In this "stunningly visceral" (New York Times Book Review) novel, a group of young men seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered in a Puerto Rican slum; STAND BY ME with a haunted, obsidian-dark heart.    A Barnes & Noble Best Horror Book...
Outrun the moon
Lee, Stacey
Paper Book
From the author of the critically acclaimed Under a Painted Sky, an unforgettable story of determination set against a backdrop of devastating tragedy. Perfect for fans of Code Name Verity. Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Young Adult Winner of...
The valley and the flood
Mahoney, Rebecca
Paper Book
"A tense and beautiful tale about the monsters we make and the memories that haunt us." --Kate Alice Marshall, author of I Am Still Alive and Rules for Vanishing Rose Colter is almost home, but she can't go back there yet. When her car breaks down in the Nevada...
Floodpath : a novel
Martin, Emily
Paper Book
The epic fantasy adventure begun in Sunshield races to its thrilling conclusion in this imaginative finale in which the fate of four extraordinary young people--and their nations--will be decided. When their hopes for ending Moquoia's brutal system of bondage are...
Elmer and the flood
McKee, David.
Paper Book
Rain or no rain, Elmer is going for a walk. After being cooped up in a cave with his herd, he longs for a bit of fresh air and some peace and quiet. But peace and quiet is going to have to wait - when Elmer goes outside, he discovers the rain has caused a flood. Can brave Elmer work out a way to...
Hurricane season
Melchor, Fernanda
Paper Book
The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse--by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals--propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each...
Ashfall
Mullin, Mike.
Paper Book
Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don't realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano, so large that the caldera can only be seen by plane or satellite. And by some scientific measurements, it could be overdue for an eruption. For Alex,...
A better man
Penny, Louise
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times Bestselling AuthorA Chief Inspector Gamache NovelChief Inspector Armand Gamache is back as head of the homicide department, just as flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil, a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter....
Zane and the hurricane : a story of Katrina
Philbrick, W. R.
Paper Book
Newbery Honor author Rodman Philbrick presents a gripping yet poignant novel about a 12-year-old boy and his dog who become trapped in New Orleans during the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. Zane Dupree is a charismatic 12-year-old boy of mixed race visiting a relative in New Orleans...
Disappearing Earth
Phillips, Julia
Paper Book
One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year National Book Award Finalist Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions...
The Academy
Poyer, David
Paper Book
With high ethical stakes and a suspenseful past-and-present narrative, The Academy is David Poyer's capstone novel in the Dan Lenson series. In his final tour of duty after a remarkable career at sea, Dan Lenson is appointed Superintendent of the US Naval Academy at...
The Phoenix Crown
Quinn, Kate
Paper Book
An unforgettable story about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles... San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very...
Ninth Ward
Rhodes, Jewell Parker.
Paper Book
From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes comes a heartbreaking and uplifting tale of survival in the face of Hurricane Katrina. Twelve-year-old Lanesha lives in a tight-knit community in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. She doesn't have a fancy...
Tall Water
Sindu, S. J./ Dion Mbd (COR)
Paper Book
From Stonewall Honor-winning writer SJ Sindu, author of Shakti, and celebrated illustrator Dion MBD comes a powerful coming-of-age teen graphic novel that follows one girl's journey to Sri Lanka to reconnect with her long-lost mother during the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004....
Rushing waters
Steel, Danielle
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Danielle Steel fearlessly tackles a catastrophe and its aftermath with characters who are joined together by accident, then share their vulnerabilities, regrets, losses, and hopes.   Hurricane Ophelia is bearing down on New York City. And...
My volcano
Stintzi, John Elizabeth
Paper Book
My Volcano is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a menagerie of characters, as they each undergo personal eruptions, while the Earth itself is constantly shifting. Parable, myth, science-fiction, eco-horror, My Volcano is a radical work of literary art, emerging as a subversive,...
Things from the Flood
Stalenhag, Simon.
Paper Book
From the author of the imaginative and "awe-inspiring" (New York Journal of Books) The Electric State--now a Netflix film--comes the haunting sequel to his remarkable Tales from the Loop. Welcome back to the Loop. In 1954, the...
Dead in the Water Welcome Back to Scumble River Series, Book 1
Swanson, Denise
Ebook
A psychologist contends with a twister, her missing husband, and murder in this first entry in a newly revamped small-town cozy mystery series from a New York Times -bestselling author. "Swanson throws [her characters] into danger from the first chapter to...
Half broke horses : a true-life novel
Walls, Jeannette.
Paper Book
From the author of The Glass Castle and Hang the Moon--"Walls vividly depicts her astonishing, resilient grandmother with a lightness of touch that is plainspoken yet heartfelt" (Chicago Tribune). Half Broke Horses has transfixed readers everywhere. "Those...
One deadly eye
White, Randy Wayne
Paper Book
*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* From New York Times bestselling author Randy Wayne White, after the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida's Gulf Coast in a century, Doc Ford must stop a gang of thieves--and worse--during the twelve hours of chaos that follow the passing...
Krakatoa : the day the world exploded, 27 August 1883
Winchester, Simon.
Paper Book
Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman, examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa, which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far...

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