Every year, dozens of excellent books that are nominated for major book awards every year, but don’t quite make it over the finish line. Just because a book didn’t win doesn’t mean it isn’t worth your time. Celebrate these also-rans and runners-up, and check off a Book Bingo square, with books that were nominated, longlisted or shortlisted for a major award.
In literary fiction, Jen Beagin delivers a delightfully off-kilter romantic comedy set in a Hudson Valley increasingly transformed by transplants from New York City with Big Swiss (Finalist, Lambda Literary Awards, Lesbian Fiction, 2023) while Joseph O’Neill follows a Pittsburgh grant writer who forays into the world of international soccer in Godwin (Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award, Fiction, 2024) and Susan Choi illuminates dark passages both fictional and real in the tale of a troubled American family that suffer an insuperable loss during a year abroad in Flashlight (Shortlist, Booker Prize, 2025).
In genre fiction, Bonnie Chung’s debut short story collection Cursed Bunny (Finalist, National Book Awards, Translated Literature, 2024) captivates with dark fairy tales and stark revenge fables that merges horror with science fiction, while S.A. Cosby’s latest crime novel features a twisted cat-and-mouse game between a twisted White religious killer and the first Black sheriff of a small Virginia community in All the Sinners Bleed (Finalist, Edgar Award, Best Novel, 2024) and Vajra Chandrasekera follows two entwined souls through an endless cycle of reincarnation and destruction in the slipstream novel Rakesfall (Finalist, Nebula Awards, Best Novel, 2024).
In nonfiction, Jonathan Rosen chronicles his thorny relationship with his childhood friend who made headlines in 1998 for murdering his fiancée during a paranoid episode in The Best Minds (Finalist, Pulitzer Prize, Memoir or Autobiography, 2024); Caroline Fraser pens a provocative, eerily lyrical study of the heyday of American serial killers, and their ties to the Pacific Northwest, with Murderland (Finalist, Edgar Award, Best Fact Crime, 2025; Jing Tsu explores how Chinese, the oldest living language, had to modernize and adapt with Kingdom of Characters (Finalist, Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 2023); local author Anna Zivarts argues that the US needs to remedy its serious problem with transportation and planning systems that would benefit all citizens in When Driving Is Not an Option (Finalist, Washington State Book Award, General Nonfiction/Biography, 2025); and Deborah Taffa seeks to understand the Native American and Spanish bloodlines at her core in Whiskey Tender (Finalist National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2024).
Are you a poetry fan? Consider the mordant wit and incisive vision of Diane Seuss’s Modern Poetry (Finalist, National Book Award, Poetry 2024); Danez Smith’s Bluff (Finalist, Pulitzer Prize, Poetry, 2025) powerful self-indictment of art and the artist in an age of social and political collapse; or Fady Joudah’s […] (Finalist, National Book Awards, Poetry, 2024), an urgent and essential collection of poems illuminating the visionary presence of Palestinians. If it’s graphic novels you’re after, check out Leela Corman’s Victory Parade (Finalist, Eisner Awards, Best Graphic Album, 2025), a tragicomic tale of two Jewish women holding down the Brooklyn home front during WWII.
Explore these and others with the Honorable Mention booklist!
For more ideas for books to meet your Summer Book Bingo challenge, follow our Shelf Talk BookBingoNW2026 series or check the hashtag #BookBingoNW2026 on social media. Book Bingo is presented in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures and the King County Library System.
~posted by Frank