Open Books Challenge 2026: Set in America Between 1600-1800

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 "Set in America between 1600-1800, to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence."

Happy Reading!

Updated December 31, 2025
RPL Staff
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King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father
Brooke Barbier
Paper Book
A rollicking portrait of the paradoxical patriot, whose measured pragmatism helped make American independence a reality. Americans are surprisingly more familiar with his famous signature than with the man himself. In this spirited account of John Hancock's life, Brooke...
Caleb's crossing
Brooks, Geraldine.
Paper Book
The new novel from Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks, author of the Richard and Judy bestseller 'March', 'Year of Wonders' and 'People of the Book'.
Alexander Hamilton
Chernow, Ron.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller, and the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton! Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn...
American demagogue : the Great Awakening and the rise and fall of populism
Dickey, Jeff
Paper Book
A New York Times bestselling historian examines how demagoguery and the populism it inspires--for good and ill--is embedded in the very soul of our nation. In November 1739, the American colonies felt an earthquake. It arrived not in the form of a natural...
Never caught : the Washingtons' relentless pursuit of their runaway slave, Ona Judge
Dunbar, Erica Armstrong
Paper Book
Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction "A fascinating and moving account of a courageous and resourceful woman. Beautifully written and utilizing previously untapped sources it sheds new light both on the father of our country and on the intersections of slavery and...
The scarlet letter
DeMaiolo, James F.
Paper Book
Leslie Fiedler pronounced it the first American tragedy. F.O. Mathiessen considered it the "Puritan Faust." Until now, it appeared that Nathaniel Hawthorne's haunting drama of judgement, alienation, and redemption would be forever confined to the page. Now comes the stage version to do it justice....
The book of Negroes
Hill, Lawrence
Paper Book
Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle--a string of slaves-- Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and...
The age of Phillis
Jeffers, Honore e Fanonne
Ebook
"An arresting and meticulously researched collection of poems" about the life of Phillis Wheatley, the first black woman to publish a book in America ( Ms. Magazine).   In 1773, a young African American woman named Phillis Wheatley published a book of...
Pocahontas and the English boys caught between cultures in early Virginia
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl
Ebook
A mercy
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The acclaimed Nobel Prize winner reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter--a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that...
Barkskins : a novel
Proulx, Annie.
Paper Book
Now a mini-series on National Geographic! A Washington Post Best Book of the Year & a New York Times Notable Book From the Pulitzer Prize-­­winning author of The Shipping News and "Brokeback Mountain" comes the New York Times bestselling epic about...
Golden Hill
Spufford, Francis
Paper Book
'Best book of the century.' Richard Osman 'Just wonderful.' Jan Morris 'A marvel.' Zadie Smith 'Every bit as superb as everyone says.' Sarah Perry Winner of the Costa First Novel Award Winner of the RSL Ondaatje Prize

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