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
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
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...
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...
On the calculation of volume. 1
Balle, Solvej
Paper Book
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2024 A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2024 SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE Tara Selter, the heroine of On the Calculation of Volume, has involuntarily stepped off...
The diving bell and the butterfly :
Bauby, Jean-Dominique,
Paper Book
A triumphant memoir by the former editor-in-chief of French Elle that reveals an indomitable spirit and celebrates the liberating power of consciousness. In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young children, a 44-year-old...
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
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...
The remembered soldier
Daanje, Anjet
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2025--THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2025--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 2025 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR--CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOKS OF 2025 --THE NEW YORK TIMES...
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...
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,...
Your second life begins when you realize you only have one
Giordano, Raphaëlle
Paper Book
THE #1 FRENCH BESTSELLER MORE THAN 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE The feel-good #1 bestselling French novel about a woman whose mission to cure her "routine-itis" leads her to lasting joy and true fulfillment, for fans of The Alchemist and Hector and the...
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...
Will and testament : a novel
Hjorth, Vigdis
Paper Book
Longlisted for the National Book Award Four siblings, two summer houses, one terrible secret--the "prickly, persuasive" bestseller from one of Norway's most celebrated novelists, perfect for readers of Rachel Cusk and Karl Ove Knausgaard (New Yorker) ...
Ahiahia the orphan
Illuitok, Levi
Paper Book
After his parents are brutally murdered, Ahiahia is raised by his grandmother in a camp surrounded by enemies. His grandmother knows that eventually the camp will turn on Ahiahia, just as it did his parents, so she chants a protection chant over the clothing that she lovingly sews for him, over the...
The moon tonight : our moon's journey around earth
Jung, Chang-hoon
Paper Book
"Exquisite." -- New York Times Follow our moon as it waxes and wanes across the night sky in this informative and stunning nonfiction picture book by an astronomer and award-winning illustrator. Everyone on Earth can look up and marvel at our...
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<...
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...
Night train to Lisbon
Mercier, Pascal
Paper Book
A huge international best seller, this ambitious novel plumbs the depths of our shared humanity to offer up a breathtaking insight into life, love, and literature itself. A major hit in Germany that went on to become one of Europe's biggest literary blockbusters in the last five years, Night...
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....
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 fran?ise
Nm?irovsky, Irn?e
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
NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025 NPR BEST BOOK OF 2025 BOOKLIST BEST BOOK OF 2025 A mega best-seller in Sweden, with rights sold to over a dozen countries and a TV adaptation underway, Annika Norlin's debut novel The Colony is the biggest Swedish literary...
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...
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...
Frankenstein in Baghdad : a novel
Sa?da?wi?, Ah?mad
Paper Book
International Booker Prize finalist Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction "Brave and ingenious." --The New York Times "Gripping, darkly humorous . . . profound." --Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for...
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. ...
Home
Simler, Isabelle
Paper Book
ALSC Notable Children's Books List - Middle Readers (2025) A 2025 Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book "Unites STEM learning with literary excellence . . . an essential purchase." -- School Library Journal (STARRED REVIEW) ...
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,...
Scattered all over the earth
Tawada, Yōko
Paper Book
Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as "the land of sushi." Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian):...
A country for dying : a novel
Taïa, Abdellah
Paper Book
An exquisite novel of North Africans in Paris by "one of the most original and necessary voices in world literature" WINNER OF THE 2021 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE Paris, Summer 2010. Zahira is 40 years old, Moroccan, a prostitute, traumatized by her father's...
The neighborhood : a novel
Vargas Llosa, Mario
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE A thrilling tale of desire and Peruvian corruption swirls around a scandalous exposé that leads to murder From the Nobel Laureate comes a politically charged detective novel weaving through the underbelly of Peruvian...
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. ...
The picture bride
Yi, KÅ­m-i
Paper Book
Winner of the Nautilus Award for Historical Fiction "Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories. The Picture Bride is the ultimate story of the power of friendship--a must read...
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.

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.