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.

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.

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.

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
Other
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
Ebook
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
The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel from the acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more different from the other members of her master's program...

Recommended by Margaret Atwood.

Kamouraska
Hebert, Anne
Paper Book
Translated into seven languages, Kamouraska won the Paris book prize and was made into a landmark feature film by Claude Jutra. A classic of Canadian literature by the great Québecoise writer, Kamouraska is based on a real nineteenth-century love-triangle in rural Quebec. It paints a poetic and...

Recommended by Margaret Atwood.

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
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 she says she...

Recommended by Rebecca Yarros.

The remains of the day
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Ebook
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. nbsp; The Remains of the Day is a spellbinding portrayal of a vanished way...

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
Ebook
"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...

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
A moving, thoughtful story of long-lost love and second chances Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to...

Recommended by Kazuo Ishiguro.

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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