Summer Challenge 2026: Recommended By An Author You Admire

Looking for help completing your Summer Challenge Bingo Card? Here are some books recommended by well-known authors.

Updated June 27, 2026
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Greater Victoria Public Library
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Kin : A Novel
Jones, Tayari.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR  OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage--Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit...

Recommeded by Anne Patchett.

John of John
Stuart, Douglas.
Paper Book
AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Oprah Daily, and Vogue "Douglas Stuart brilliantly weaved a layered, compelling and yet so intimate a story...

Recommeded by Anne Patchett.

My brilliant friend. Book one, childhood, adolescence
Ferrante, Elena.
Paper Book
#1 BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times-bestselling "enduring masterpiece" about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples (The Atlantic). Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the...

Recommended by Esi Edugyan.

Such a fun age : a novel
Reid, Kiley
Paper Book
A Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post * Chicago Tribune * NPR * Vogue * Elle * Real Simple * InStyle * Good Housekeeping * Parade * Slate...

Recommended by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The only good Indians : a novel
Jones, Stephen Graham
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a "masterpiece" (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition. This is a remarkable horror story that "will give you nightmares-...

Recommended by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Empire of wild
Dimaline, Cherie
Paper Book
"Deftly written, gripping and informative. Empire of Wild is a rip-roaring read!"--Margaret Atwood, From Instagram "Empire of Wild is doing everything I love in a contemporary novel and more. It is tough, funny, beautiful, honest and propulsive--all the while telling a...

Recommended by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Sula
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
Toni Morrison's first novel,The Bluest Eye(1970), was acclaimed as the work of an important talent, written--as John Leonard said inThe New York Times--in a prose "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry." Sulahas the same power, the same...

Recommended by John Green.

Bunny
Awad, Mona
Paper Book
"Jon Swift + Witches of Eastwick + Kelly 'Get In Trouble' Link + Mean Girls + Creative Writing Degree Hell! No punches pulled, no hilarities dodged, no meme unmangled! O Bunny you are sooo genius!" --Margaret Atwood, via Twitter "A wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel."...

Recommended by Margaret Atwood.

The history of a difficult child
Sibhat, Mihret
Paper Book
"An endearing coming-of-age story. . . . Sharp and witty. . . . A wily and operatic novel. . . . Propulsive." --The Washington Post "The History of a Difficult Child is an extraordinary novel." --Maaza Mengiste, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Shadow King...

Recommended by Rebecca Yarros.

The adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi : a novel
Chakraborty, S. A.
Paper Book
"A thrilling, transportative adventure that is everything promised--Chakraborty's storytelling is fantasy at its best." -- R.F. Kuang, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and The Poppy War "An exhilarating, propulsive adventure, stitched from the threads of real history, Amina's...

Recommended by Rebecca Yarros.

Yellowface : a novel
Kuang, R. F.
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK "Hard to put down, harder to forget." -- Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences... Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who...

Recommended by Rebecca Yarros.

Piranesi
Clarke, Susanna
Paper Book
The award-winning, New York Times bestselling fantasy sensation that Madeline Miller called, "a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling," Piranesi is an intoxicating, hypnotic novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality from the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.<...

Recommended by R.F. Kuang.

Exhalation
Chiang, Ted
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * Nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories--two published for the very first time--all from the mind of the incomparable author of Stories of Your Life and Others ...

Recommended by R.F. Kuang.

Georgie, all along
Clayborn, Kate
Paper Book

Recommended by Ali Hazelwood.

A manual for cleaning women : selected stories
Berlin, Lucia
Paper Book
One of The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Global bestseller. A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley,...

Recommended by Colson Whitehead.


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