Open Books Challenge 2025: A Cross-Genre Book

Updated December 31, 2024
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Nicked
Anderson, M. T.
Paper Book
AN NPR NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous, slyly funny, and delightfully queer work of historical fantasy, based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint "[An] ...
The strange
Ballingrud, Nathan
Paper Book
A Locus Award Finalist 1931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt's gang who have stolen her mother's voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance.
The hexologists
Bancroft, Josiah
Paper Book
The first book in a wildly inventive and mesmerizing new fantasy series from acclaimed author Josiah Bancroft where magical mysteries abound and only one team can solve them: The Hexologists. "Bancroft is a magician." -- Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe<...
Adora and the distance
Bernardin, Marc
Paper Book
Adora and the Distance is a YA fantasy graphic novel following the adventures of Adora, a brave young woman of color who lives in a fantastical world with underground pirates, ghosts, and a mysterious force called 'The Distance' which threatens to destroy it all. Now only Adora can stop it. From...
The ministry of time
Bradley, Kaliane
Paper Book
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF SUMMER 2024 * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR SCIENCE FICTION * A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, VANITY FAIR, ESQUIRE, VOX, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING,...
A short history of nearly everything
Bryson, Bill.
Paper Book
One of the world's most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body takes his ultimate journey--into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. In A Walk in the Woods, Bill...
Soulless
Carriger, Gail.
Paper Book
Buffy meets Jane Austen in the first book of this wickedly funny NYT bestselling series about a young woman whose brush with the supernatural leads to a deadly investigation of London's high society. Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations....
Jukebox
Chanani, Nidhi
Paper Book
Grab some coins for the jukebox, and get ready for a colorful, time-traveling, musical tale about family and courage. A mysterious jukebox, old vinyl records, and cryptic notes on music history, are Shaheen's only clues to her father's abrupt disappearance. She looks to her...
The fox wife : a novel
Choo, Yangsze
Paper Book
Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . . Manchuria, 1908. In the last years of the dying...
Ring shout : or, Hunting Ku Kluxes in the end times
Clark, P. Dje?li?
Paper Book
Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror "A fantastical, brutal and thrilling triumph of the imagination...Clark's combination of...
Cloud cuckoo land : a novel
Doerr, Anthony
Paper Book
On the New York Times bestseller list for over 20 weeks * A New York Times Notable Book * A National Book Award Finalist * Named a Best Book of the Year by Fresh Air, Time, Entertainment Weekly, Associated Press, and many more "If you're looking for...
Gunslinger girl
Ely, Lyndsay
Paper Book
James Patterson presents a bold new heroine -- a cross between Katniss Everdeen and Annie Oakley: Serendipity Jones, the fastest sharpshooter in tomorrow's West. Seventeen-year-old Serendipity "Pity" Jones inherited two things from her mother: a pair of six shooters and...
Dr. No : a novel
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2023 PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD A sly, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing, really, from an American novelist whose star keeps rising The protagonist of Percival Everett's puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by...
Calamity
Fay, Constance
Paper Book
Winter's Orbit meets Ilona Andrews in this sexy enemies-to-lovers romance. "Constance Fay...wildly combines heart-stirring romance with a high-stakes adventure in a wonderfully deep space odyssey. This passionate story is a heady mix of suspense, romance, and intrigue, all set...
Outlander
Gabaldon, Diana.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The first book in Diana Gabaldon's acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series. One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS's The Great American Read!   Unrivaled storytelling....
The echo wife
Gailey, Sarah
Paper Book
Sarah Gailey's The Echo Wife is "a trippy domestic thriller which takes the extramarital affair trope in some intriguingly weird new directions."--Entertainment Weekly I'm embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the...
Coraline
Gaiman, Neil.
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning author Neil Gaiman's modern classic, Coraline--also an Academy Award-nominated film "Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house...." When Coraline steps through a door to find another...
The inquisitor's tale, or, The three magical children and their holy dog
Gidwitz, Adam
Paper Book
A Newbery Honor Book Winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award An exciting and hilarious medieval adventure from the bestselling author of A Tale Dark and Grimm. Beautifully illustrated throughout by Hatem Aly!  ★ A New York Times...
The husbands : a novel
Gramazio, Holly
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA'S APRIL BOOK CLUB PICK * The Husbands delights in asking: how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options? ("A bottomless champagne flute of a novel --The Washington Post)
The Anthropocene reviewed : essays on a human-centered planet
Green, John
Paper Book
Goodreads Choice winner for Nonfiction 2021 and instant #1 bestseller! A deeply moving collection of personal essays from John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down. "The perfect book for right now." -People <...
My Lady Jane
Hand, Cynthia 1978-
Paper Book
Now a streaming series on Prime Video! This comical, fantastical, romantical, New York Times bestselling, (not) entirely true story of Lady Jane Grey is "an uproarious historical fantasy that's not to be missed" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In My Lady Jane, ...
Things in the basement
Hatke, Ben
Paper Book
From New York Times bestselling author Ben Hatke comes Things in the Basement, a young readers graphic novel about Milo, a young boy who discovers a portal to a secret world in his basement. It was supposed to just be a normal basement--some storage boxes, dust, you...
The Cloisters : a novel
Hays, Katy
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick "For fans of The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Secret History...The perfect mystery." --Jenna Bush Hager, Today In this...
Displacement
Hughes, Kiku
Paper Book
A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in Displacement, a historical graphic novel from Kiku Hughes. Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the...
The fervor : a novel
Katsu, Alma
Paper Book
In an internment camp in Idaho in 1944, American-born Meiko Briggs and her daughter Aiko dream of their home in Seattle and the safe return of Meiko's husband who is away with the Air Force. A sickness starts to spread amongst those in the camp and though it starts as a minor cold it triggers...
Gemina
Kaufman, Amie
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller Brace yourself for GEMINA--the highly anticipated sequel to the book critics called "out-of-this-world awesome"--featuring journal illustrations by bestselling author Marie Lu!   Moving to a space station at the edge of...
The Djinn waits a hundred years
Khan, Shubnum
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE "Rich and swoony...an ambitious delight, with rich characters and some exceptionally lovely writing...This is the start of a major career." -- The New York Times Book Review AN INDIE NEXT PICK A LIBRARY...
The legend of Auntie Po
Khor, Shing Yin
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST Part historical fiction, part fable, and 100 percent adventure. Thirteen-year-old Mei reimagines the myths of Paul Bunyan as starring a Chinese heroine while she works in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885. Aware of the racial tumult...
The spare man
Kowal, Mary Robinette
Paper Book
Hugo, Locus, and Nebula-Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal blends her no-nonsense approach to life in space with her talent for creating glittering high-society in this stylish SF mystery, The Spare Man. A 2023 Hugo Award Finalist!A 2022 Locus...
Station Eternity
Lafferty, Mur
Paper Book
From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But being surrounded by death also makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient...
Lone women : a novel
LaValle, Victor
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Blue skies, empty land--and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an "absorbing, powerful" (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of...
Disfigured : on fairy tales, disability, and making space
Leduc, Amanda
Paper Book
A CBC BOOKS BEST NONFICTION OF 2020 AN ENTROPY MAGAZINE BEST NONFICTION 2020/21 A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BOOK OF THE DAY (07/23/2022) Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty? If every disabled...
Daughter of calamity
Lin, Rosalie M.
Paper Book
Genres collide in this dark and atmospheric reimagining of 1930s Shanghai for fans of Nghi Vo and S. A. Chakraborty. Jingwen spends her nights as a showgirl at the Paramount, one of the most lavish clubs in Shanghai, competing ruthlessly to charm wealthy patrons. To cap off...
The impossible us
Lotz, Sarah
Paper Book
One of The New York Times best Fantasy novels of 2022! "An utterly delightful epistolary romance....The Impossible Us is that rare 'I laughed, I cried' book."--The New York Times Nick: Failed writer. Failed husband. Dog owner. Bee:...
Prophet
Macdonald, Helen
Paper Book
NOSTALGIA HAS NEVER BEEN MORE DEADLY "A crackling, shape-shifting romp with big ideas and a bigger heart . . . A delight." -- C Pam Zhang From the extraordinary minds of award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author of H Is for Hawk Helen...
Sea of Tranquility
Mandel, Emily St. John
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years...
Hooked
McIntire, Emily
Paper Book
From BookTok sensation Emily McIntire comes a dark and delicious fractured fairy tale reimagining of Peter Pan. He wants revenge, but he wants her more... James has always had one agenda- destroy his enemy, Peter Michaels. When Peter's twenty-year-old daughter Wendy shows up in...
A botanical daughter
Medlock, Noah
Paper Book
Mexican Gothic meets The Lie Tree by way of Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley in this delightfully witty horror debut. A captivating tale of two Victorian gentlemen hiding their relationship away in a botanical garden who embark on a Frankenstein-style experiment with...
Why fish don't exist : a story of loss, love, and the hidden order of life
Miller, Lulu
Paper Book
A Best Book of 2020: The Washington Post * NPR * Chicago Tribune * Smithsonian A "remarkable" (Los Angeles Times), "seductive" (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radiolab,...
Gideon the Ninth
Muir, Tamsyn
Paper Book
Gideon the Ninth is the first book in the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Locked Tomb Series, and one of the Best Books of 2019 according to NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, BookPage, Shelf Awareness, BookRiot, and Bustle!...
Blind spots
Mullen, Thomas
Paper Book
"The pace is fast, the body count significant, the loopholes minor. All this tech-enabled police procedural lacks is a Lennie Briscoe zinger at the beginning. Two guns--I mean thumbs--up." -Wall Street Journal A riveting crime novel with a speculative edge about the...
A light most hateful
Piper, Hailey
Paper Book
Mona Awad's Bunny meets Stranger Things when a summer storm sweeps through a sleepy town, unleashing a monstrous power that threatens to bend reality, from the Bram Stoker award winning author of Queen of Teeth. Three years after running away from home,...
Magic, lies, and deadly pies : a novel
Popp, Misha
Paper Book
The first time Daisy Ellery killed a man with a pie, it was an accident. Now, it's her calling. Daisy bakes sweet vengeance into her pastries, which she and her dog Zoe deliver to the men who've done dirty deeds to the town's women. But then Daisy is informed by Frank, the crusty diner owner, that...
A grandmother begins the story
Porter, Michelle
Paper Book
From award-winning Métis author Michelle Porter, a powerfully funning and moving story told not just by five generations of Métis women, but also by the land, the bison that surround them, and two utterly captivating dogs. Carter is a young mother on a quest to...
The dead romantics
Poston, Ashley
Paper Book
Florence Day is the ghostwriter for a prolific romance author. When her new editor won't give her an extension, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive: she must return home for the first time in a decade to help bury her beloved...
Killers of a certain age
Raybourn, Deanna
Paper Book
They've spent their lives as assassins in a clandestine international organization, but at 60 years old, four women find they can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this book by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie...
Fuzz : when nature breaks the law
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are...
House of Hollow
Sutherland, Krystal
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller! An Instant Indie Bestseller! A dark, twisty modern fairytale where three sisters discover they are not exactly all that they seem and evil things really do go bump in the night. Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are...
The last murder at the end of the world : a novel
Turton, Stuart
Paper Book
"A gripping tale that reads like a Sherlock Holmes novel set in a broken future...Turton is an exciting writer with a knack for strange tales that push the envelope, and this strange story of murder, survival, and the importance of memory might be his best work yet." --Gabino Iglesias for NPR ...
The road to Roswell : a novel
Willis, Connie
Paper Book
A delightful novel about alien invasions, conspiracies, and the incredibly silly things people are willing to believe--some of which may actually be true--from the Nebula and Hugo award-winning author of Blackout and All Clear "An absolute blast with abundant...
White horse
Wurth, Erika T.
Paper Book
"This ghost story is a perfect example of new wave horror that will also satisfy fans of classic Stephen King." --Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic Erika T. Wurth's White Horse is a gritty, vibrant debut novel...
Fourth wing
Yarros, Rebecca
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times bestseller * TV series in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society * Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 * Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 * Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 * NPR "Books We Love" 2023 * Audible Best Books of...
Interior Chinatown
Yu, Charles
Paper Book
NOW A HULU ORIGINAL SERIES * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * "A shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood" (Vanity Fair) and a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.