Open Books Challenge 2026: Translated from its Original Language

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 of "A book that was translated from its original language."

Happy Reading!

Updated December 31, 2025
RPL Staff
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Celestial bodies : a novel
Alharthi, Jokha
Paper Book
This winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize and national bestseller is "an innovative reimagining of the family saga . . . Celestial Bodies is itself a treasure house: an intricately calibrated chaos of familial orbits and conjunctions, of the gravitational pull of...
We know you remember : a novel
Alsterdal, Tove
Paper Book
"Beautifully elegiac and intricately plotted, this is Nordic noir at its best."--People Winner of the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel * Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year * Shortlisted for the Best Swedish Book of the Year Award * One of People Magazine's Best Books of Fall...
I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki
Baek, Sehee
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling therapy memoir translated by International Booker shortlistee Anton Hur. PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you? ME: I don't know, I'm-what's the word-depressed? Do I have to go into detail? Baek...
Humankind : a hopeful history
Bregman, Rutger
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The "lively" (The New Yorker), "convincing" (Forbes), and "riveting pick-me-up we all need right now" (People) that proves humanity thrives in a crisis and that our innate kindness and...
We are green and trembling
Cabezón Cámara, Gabriela
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE Deep in the wilds of the New World, Antonio de Erauso begins to write a letter to his aunt, the prioress of the Basque convent he escaped as a young girl. Since fleeing a dead-end life as a nun, he's become Antonio and undertaken...
The good son
Ch ng, Yu-j ng
Paper Book
"Ingeniously twisted." --Entertainment Weekly, "Must List" "Will leave even the most seasoned crime fiction readers guessing." --CrimeReads "[Jeong] maintains suspense about her inhuman-seeming protagonist's fate until the bitter end." --The...
Kim Jiyoung, born 1982
Cho, Nam-ju
Paper Book
Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person. In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A thirtysomething-year-old "millennial everywoman," she has recently left her white-collar desk job--in order to care for her newborn...
Beyond the door of no return
Diop, David
Paper Book
A Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature | Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award One of The Atlantic's 10 Best Books of 2023 A Financial Times Best Book of 2023 | Named a best book of the year by...
Chirri & Chirra, in the night
Doi, Kaya
Paper Book
Chirri and Chirra frolic in the moonlight in the latest whimsical adventure of this much-beloved picture-book series from Japan.With the light of their trusty bicycles and a glorious full moon illuminating the darkness, Chirri and Chirra go on a nighttime adventure, accompanied by their new...
Hope : the autobiography
Francis, Pope
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Pope Francis originally intended this exceptional memoir to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope moved him to make this precious legacy available sooner. Now, the book stands as his testament; the spiritual,...
Red queen
Gómez-Jurado, Juan
Paper Book
"Pacing of the breakneck variety. Short chapters, funny asides, lethally potent descriptions: They all contribute to a frenetic page-turning momentum... you'll have great fun reading it." --The New York Times Book Review The #1 International bestseller is now...
Stalingrad /
Grossman, VasiliÄ­
Paper Book
Now in English for the first time, the prequel to Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, the War and Peace of the twentieth Century. In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini meet in Salzburg where they agree on a renewed assault on the Soviet Union. Launched in the summer, the...
A river in darkness : one man's escape from North Korea
Ishikawa, Masaji
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller and Amazon Charts Most Read and Most Sold book. A Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Memoir & Autobiography. The harrowing true story of one man's life in--and subsequent escape from--North Korea, one of the world's most brutal...
The Kamogawa food detectives
Kashiwai, Hisashi
Paper Book
The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series, for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. What's the one dish you'd do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto...
Before the coffee gets cold : a novel
Kawaguchi, Toshikazu
Paper Book
*NOW AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER* *AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER* The first book in the five million-copy bestselling magical realism series If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet? ...
The life-changing magic of tidying up : the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing
Kond , Marie
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The book that sparked a revolution and inspired the hit Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo: the original guide to decluttering your home once and for all. ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE--CNN<...
Baron Wenckheim's homecoming
Krasznahorkai, László
Paper Book
Set in contemporary times, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming tells the story of a Prince Myshkin-like figure, Baron Béla Wenckheim, who returns at the end of his life to his provincial Hungarian hometown. Having escaped from his many casino debts in Buenos Aires, where he was living in exile, he longs to...
Lily the thief
Kukkonen, Janne
Paper Book
In Janne Kukkonen's swashbuckling fantasy graphic novel Lily the Thief, a young girl tries to make a name for herself in a secret and perilous society of thieves. Lily is a young novice who dreams of being a master thief. That's not easy when the Guildmaster of Thieves...
The three-body problem
Liu, Cixin.
Paper Book
The inspiration for the Netflix series 3 Body Problem! WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL Over 1 million copies sold in North America "A mind-bending epic."--The New York Times * "War of the Worlds for...
Novelist as a vocation
Murakami, Haruki
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * An insightful look into the mind of a master storyteller--and a unique look at the craft of writing from the beloved and best-selling author of 1Q84, Norwegian Wood, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running....
Heart Lamp: Winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize
Mushtaq, Banu
Paper Book
Winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize Winner of a PEN Translates Award A monumental first collection in English from Banu Mushtaq: lawyer, activist, champion of Muslim women, and winner of India's highest literary honors. In the twelve...
Your steps on the stairs : a novel
Muñoz Molina, Antonio
Paper Book
A Best Book of the Year by NPR and Times Literary SupplementA Notable Book of the Year by the Washington Post A Best Thriller of the Month by the New York Times A Best Thriller of the Year by Publishers WeeklyLonglisted for the PEN Translation...
The cat who saved books : a novel
Natsukawa, So?suke
Paper Book
AN INDIE NEXT PICK! From the #1 bestselling author in Japan comes a celebration of books, cats, and the people who love them, infused with the heartwarming spirit of The Guest Cat and The Travelling Cat Chronicles. Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the...
Suite francaise
Nemirovsky, Irene
Paper Book
By the early l940s, when Ukrainian-born Irène Némirovsky began working on what would become Suite Française—the first two parts of a planned five-part novel—she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and...
The colony
Norlin, Annika
Blitzed : drugs in the Third Reich
Ohler, Norman
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER A fast-paced narrative that discovers a surprising perspective on World War II: Nazi Germany's all-consuming reliance on drugs The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral...
My name is Red
Pamuk, Orhan
Paper Book
From one of the most important and acclaimed writers at work today, a thrilling new novel--part murder mystery, part love story--set amid the perils of religious repression in sixteenth-century Istanbul. When the Sultan commissions a great book to celebrate his royal self and his...
Snowglobe
Park, Soyoung
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The groundbreaking Korean phenomenon that Entertainment Weekly called "The Hunger Games meets Squid Game"--now in English for the first time! A COSMOPOLITAN BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR * A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST...
The last wish
Sapkowski, Andrzej.
Paper Book
Geralt the Witcher--revered and hated--holds the line against the monsters plaguing humanity in this collection of adventures, the first chapter in Andrzej Sapkowski's groundbreaking epic fantasy series that inspired the hit Netflix show and the blockbuster video games. ...
The café with no name
Seethaler, Robert
Paper Book
A NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BEST-SELLER A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE A vibrant tale of love, companionship, and renewal set against the transformations of 1960s Vienna. "How I loved this book! Filled with truth after truth, poignantly rendered and given to us with tender...
Home
Simler, Isabelle
Paper Book
Sad tiger
Sinno, Neige
The perfect nanny
Slimani, Lel?a
Paper Book
*Soon to be an HBO series starring Nicole Kidman and Maya Erskine* She has the keys to their apartment. She knows everything. She has embedded herself so deeply in their lives that it now seems impossible to remove her. One of the 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR of...
The door
Szabó, Magda
Paper Book
One of The New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2015" An NYRB Classics Original The Door is an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. Magda is a writer, educated, married to an academic, public-spirited,...
Grandma's roof garden
Wei, Tang
Paper Book
Granny may be old, but she's certainly not feeble - or idle! She's built a splendid vegetable garden from scratch on the rooftop of her Chengdu apartment building. She collects thrown-away produce to feed her animals or make compost for the garden. ...
Mother River
Xue, Can
The Bodyguard Unit: Edith Garrud, Women's Suffrage, and Jujitsu
Xavier, Clement
Paper Book
Who were the jujitsuffragettes? In the early twentieth century, women in England demanded the right to vote--and faced violent retaliation. Rather than back down, the suffragist group Women's Social and Political Union formed its own security unit. Edith Garrud, a pioneering self-defense...
Six four
Yokoyama, Hideo
Paper Book
Named one of the best books of 2017 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Literary Hub. Winner of the Best Japanese Crime Fiction of the Year Award. One of Vulture's 10 Best Thriller Books of 2017.
We : a novel
Zami͡atin, Evgeniĭ Ivanovich
Ebook

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