Open Books Challenge 2025: A Cross-Genre Book

Updated December 31, 2024
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Nicked
Anderson. M. T.
Paper Book
The Strange
Ballingrud, Nathan.
Paper Book
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
From the acclaimed author of Senlin Ascends comes the first book in a wildly inventive new fantasy series where magical mysteries abound and only one team can solve them: The Hexologists. 'Bancroft is a wonder as ever! The Hexologists was a joyous...
The Ministry of Time
Bradley, Kaliane.
Paper Book
A 2024 literary highlight in the Sunday Times, BBC, Grazia, Dazed, Sunday Express, GQ, i-D, Stylist, Bookseller and Literary Friction'Outrageously brilliant' ELEANOR CATTON'Make room on your bookshelves for a new...
A short history of nearly everything
Bryson, Bill
Paper Book
The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything is the biggest-selling popular science book of the 21st century and has sold over 2 million copies. 'Possibly the best scientific primer ever published.' Economist ...
Soulless
Carriger, Gail
Paper Book
Alexia Tarabotti is labouring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette. Where to go from there? From bad to worse...
Jukebox
Chanani, Nidhi
Paper Book
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 cousin, Tannaz, who seems just as perplexed, before they both look at the Jukebox which starts...glowing?Suddenly, the girls are pulled from...
The fox wife
Choo, Yangsze
Paper Book
Longlisted for the Historical Writers' Association Gold Crown Award 'Vivid, enigmatic, enchanting' M. L. Rio 'Irresistible' Sunday Times Some people think foxes go around collecting qi, or life force, but nothing could be...
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...
Dr. No
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
The protagonist of Percival Everett's puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means 'nothing' in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for 'nothing'. He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and...
Daughters of chaos : a novel
Fawkes, Jen
Paper Book
Award-winning author Jen Fawkes's Daughters of Chaos is an epic novel about Civil War-era Nashville's "public women," a secret society spanning millennia, and the earth-shaking power of the female. "A beautiful spinning knife of a story that whirls back through the...
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.
Audiobook
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 husbands
Gramazio, Holly
Paper Book
A thrillingly original debut, THE HUSBANDS brilliantly asks how we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options. "Brilliant, hilarious, surprising and wise. I devoured it!" --Naomi Alderman,  NYT bestselling author of THE POWER. Thirty-something Lauren...
The anthropocene reviewed essays on a human-centered planet
Green, John
Paper Book
"Masterful. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a beautiful, timely book about the human condition--and a timeless reminder to pay attention to your attention." --Adam Grant, #1 bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast Re:Thinking Instant #1...
My Lady Jane: The Not Entirely True Story
Hand, Cynthia.
Paper Book
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
Hays, Katy
Paper Book
The Secret Historymeets Ninth House in this sinister, atmospheric novel . . . the discovery of a mysterious deck of tarot cards lays bare shocking secrets within a close-knit circle of researchers at New York's famed Met Cloisters museum. 'Beguiling and...
Gemina
Kaufman, Amie
Paper Book
'Wholly unique and utterly captivating.' Marie Lu Hanna is the station captain's pampered daughter; Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, little do they know that...
The djinn waits a hundred years
Khan, Shubnum
Paper Book
  'Grand and gorgeous and brave.' New York Times 'Lively, beautiful... A richly imagined coming of age treat.' Daily Mail REBECCA MEETS THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES IN THIS GORGEOUSLY ATMOSPHERIC NOVEL SET ON SOUTH AFRICA'S EASTERN COAST Endlessly playful and...
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
Amateur detective Mallory Viridian's talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six...
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
An irresistibly dark reimagining of 1930s Shanghai filled with glamour, gods and gangsters. Daughter of Calamity is an atmospheric fantasy from Rosalie M. Lin, perfect for fans of S. A. Chakraborty and Fonda Lee. 'I was utterly swept up . . . seductive, sprawling,...
Impossible
Lotz, Sarah
Paper Book
*Shortlisted for the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction* Discover the love story of the year 'The book we all need right now' SARAH PINBOROUGH 'Funny, thrilling' EMMA GANNON 'Unputdownable' JENNIFER SAINT 'Holy s***'...
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
SELECTED AS ONE OF THE OPRAH DAILY'S BEST BOOKS OF 2022'So wise, so graceful, so rich. I loved Sea of Tranquility' Naomi Alderman, author of The PowerThe award-winning author of Station Eleven returns with a story of time travel that precisely captures the reality of our current moment . . . In 1912...
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...
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
"Unlike anything I've ever read. " --V.E. Schwab"Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" --Charles StrossThe Emperor needs necromancers.The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.Tamsyn Muir's...
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...
Grandmother begins the story, a
Porter, Michelle
Paper Book
From award-winning Métis author Michelle Porter, a powerfully funny 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
Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. But now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates their real-world...
Animal vegetable criminal
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
What's to be done about a drunken elephant? A monkey caught mugging passers-by? A trespassing squirrel? Mary Roach delves into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. 'Delightful' Ed Yong, author of An Immense World Follow Mary Roach as she investigates laser...
House of Hollow
Sutherland, Krystal
Paper Book
''Stepping nimbly among the liminal spaces and eerie real-world haunts of our heroine''s cipher-sister, this haunting modern fairytale will wrap you up like a glittering fog, before going for your throat.'' Melissa Albert, author of The Hazel Wood Iris Hollow and her two older...
The last murder at the end of the world
Turton, Stuart
Paper Book
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
Don't miss out on the series that everyone can't stop talking about! 'Pure escapism - think Hunger Games meets Fifty Shades' -The Sun 'We weren't expecting to become obsessed with Rebecca Yarros's Fourth Wing, but we very much are - and we're not alone . . .' ...
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...

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