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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Chains : seeds of America
Anderson, Laurie Halse
Paper Book
From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling first novel in the historical middle grade The Seeds of America trilogy that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual. As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old...
Hour of the witch : a novel
Bohjalian, Chris
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the acclaimed author of The Flight Attendant: "Historical fiction at its best.... The book is a thriller in structure, and a real page-turner, the ending both unexpected and satisfying" (Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the...
Caleb's crossing
Brooks, Geraldine
CD
The judge hunter
Buckley, Christopher
Paper Book
The latest comic novel from Christopher Buckley, a hapless Englishman embarks on a dangerous mission to the New World in pursuit of two judges who helped murder a king. London, 1664. Twenty years after the English revolution, the monarchy has been restored and Charles II sits on the...
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...
The fort
Cornwell, Bernard
Paper Book
Summer 1779: a British force of fewer than 1,000 Scottish infantry were sent to build a garrison in the state of Maine. But Massachusetts was determined to expel the British, and they sent a fleet to 'captivate, kill and destroy' the enemy. Told from both sides of the battle, this story features...
Written in my own heart's blood : a novel
Gabaldon, Diana.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The eighth book in Diana Gabaldon's acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series--season 8 coming in March 2026! "Features all the passion and swashbuckling that fans of this historical fantasy series have come to...
The ruin of all witches : life and death in the New World
Gaskill, Malcolm
Paper Book
A gripping story of a family tragedy brought about by witch-hunting in Puritan New England that combines history, anthropology, sociology, politics, theology and psychology. "The best and most enjoyable kind of history writing. Malcolm Gaskill goes to meet the past on its own terms...
The vaster wilds
Groff, Lauren
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, TIME, ESQUIRE, VOGUE, LA TIMES, SLATE, HARPER'S BAZAAR and others "Part historical, part...
The scarlet letter : a romance
Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Paper Book
Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter Pearl is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him...
Someone knows my name
Hill, Lawrence
Paper Book
Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom--and of the knowledge she needs to get home. Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the Revolutionary War....
Magic lessons
Hoffman, Alice
Paper Book
In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic.<...
The physick book of Deliverance Dane
Howe, Katherine
Paper Book
The heretic's daughter
Kent, Kathleen
Paper Book
Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to...
Scarlet widow
Masterton, Graham
Paper Book
They said the killings were the word of Satan. But Beatrice Scarlet, the apothecary's daughter, detects the hands of men... New Hampshire, 1756: The god-fearing farmers of Sutton are suffering divine punishment for unknown sins. Crops fail, cows die and fish are poisoned by their...
A mercy
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
A powerful tragedy distilled into a small masterpiece by the Nobel Prize--winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader in 1680s United States, when the slave trade is still in its infancy. Reluctantly he takes a small...
Killing the witches : the horror of Salem, Massachusetts
O'Reilly, Bill
Paper Book
The instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller! Killing the Witches revisits one of the most frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What...
Mayflower : a story of courage, community, and war
Philbrick, Nathaniel.
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 a novel of old New York
Spufford, Francis
Paper Book

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