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.
AN 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 and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after...

Recommeded by Anne Patchett.

John of John
Stuart, Douglas.
AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK "Douglas Stuart brilliantly weaved a layered, compelling and yet so intimate a story of identity, what it means to belong, and the courage to claim your own truth." --Oprah Winfrey "One of 2026's literary triumphs." --Boston Globe...

Recommeded by Anne Patchett.

The Left and the Lucky
Vlautin, Willy
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE A JOHN MULANEY READS BOOK CLUB PICK "One of America's greatest storytellers."--Jonathan Evison Eddie Wilkens is a housepainter in his early forties. His wife has left him, and his one employee barely shows up for work....

Recommeded by Anne Patchett.

Music Against the Night
Li, Yiyun.
Figures of the past find new life in Yiyun Li's thrillingly imagined saga following two musicians as they mature, study, travel, love, grieve, and, above all, chase their ambitions. In Dublin, as the eighteenth century nears its end, a young musical virtuoso comes of age. John...

Recommeded by Anne Patchett.

Words without music : a memoir
Glass, Philip
Paper Book
The long-awaited memoir by "the most prolific and popular of all contemporary composers" (New York Times). A world-renowned composer of symphonies, operas, and film scores, Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late-twentieth-century classical...

Recommended by George Saunders.

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.

In praise of blood : the crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Rever, Judi
Paper Book
A FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE: A stunning work of investigative reporting by a Canadian journalist who has risked her own life to bring us a deeply disturbing history of the Rwandan genocide that takes the true measure of Rwandan head of state Paul Kagame. ...

Recommended by Esi Edugyan.

Nîtisânak
Nixon, Lindsay
Paper Book
Lindsay Nixon's nitisanak honours blood and chosen kin with equal care. A groundbreaking memoir spanning nations, prairie punk scenes, and queer love stories, it is woven around grief over the loss of their mother. It also explores despair and healing through community and family, and being torn...

Recommended by Billy-Ray Belcourt.

What a happy family
Dave, Saumya
Paper Book
Natasha Joshi quit her day job so she could pursue her passion: comedy. But stage fright and a series of rejections send her into a downward spiral. Suhani Joshi is the sister who always followed the rules. But when her ex-boyfriend is hired at her hospital, dark secrets threaten to surface. Their...

Recommended by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

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
INDIGO'S #1 BEST BOOK OF 2019 NATIONAL BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE MARROW THIEVES, THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER, MULTI-AWARD WINNER AND CANADA READS FINALIST "Wildly entertaining and profound and essential." --Tommy Orange, The New York Times<...

Recommended by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Sula
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years * A modern masterpiece about love and kinship, about living in an America birthed from slavery. Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison gives life to characters who struggle with what society tells them to be, and the love they...

Recommended by John Green.

Bunny
Awad, Mona
Paper Book
From the 2025 Giller-shortlisted author of We Love You, Bunny--the darkly funny, seductively strange novel that started it all Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more different from the other members of her master's program at New England's elite Warren University. A self...

Recommended by Margaret Atwood.

Kamouraska
Hébert, Anne
Paper Book
A classic of Canadian literature by the great Quebecoise writer, Kamouraskais based on a real nineteenth-century love-triangle in rural Quebec. It paints a poetic and terrifying tableau of the life of Elisabeth d'Aulnieres: her marriage to Antoine Tassy, squire of Kamouraska; his violent murder;...

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.

The remains of the day
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Paper Book
Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning masterpiece became an international bestseller on publication, was adapted into an award-winning film and has since come to be regarded as a modern classic.   The Remains of the Day is a spellbinding portrayal of a vanished way of...

Recommended by R.F. Kuang.

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
"Perfect for Emily Henry fans. [This] is the love story that proves you can go home again...It's so rich and wonderful." - Julia Quinn on The TODAY Show "A sweet novel that reminds you going back is sometimes the best path forward . . . and that planning is never as rewarding as...

Recommended by Ali Hazelwood.

The lost ticket
Sampson, Freya
Paper Book
One of Amazon's Best Books of September! Strangers on a London bus unite to help an elderly man find his missed love connection in the heartwarming new novel from the acclaimed author of The Last Chance Library. When Libby Nicholls arrives in London,...

Recommended by Ali Hazelwood.

South of the border, west of the sun
Murakami, Haruki
Paper Book
South of the Border, West of the Sun is the beguiling story of a past rekindled, and one of Haruki Murakami's most touching novels. Hajime has arrived at middle age with a loving family and an enviable career, yet he feels incomplete. When a childhood friend, now a...

Recommended by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Mr. Wilder and me
Coe, Jonathan
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE ROTTERS' CLUB AND MIDDLE ENGLAND In the heady summer of 1977, a naïve young woman called Calista sets out from Athens to venture into the wider world. On a Greek island that has been turned into a film set, she...

Recommended by Kazuo Ishiguro.

A manual for cleaning women : selected stories
Berlin, Lucia
Paper Book
One ofTheNew York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2015 One ofJezebel's Favorite Books of 2016 A Manual for Cleaning Womencompiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the...

Recommended by Colson Whitehead.


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