AMERICAN ROADS LESS WELL EXPLORED; A 2026 CHALLENGE - PLANNING THREAD

COVER PICTURE



The Amazon river is the lifeblood of much of the continent.

LIST OF MONTHLY CHALLENGES

JANUARY - CHILEAN AUTHORS
FEBRUARY - ANGLO CARIBBEAN AUTHORS
MARCH - MEXICAN AUTHORS
APRIL - HISPANIC NORTH AMERICANS
MAY - BRAZILIAN AUTHORS
JUNE - NON-FICTION ABOUT THE AMERICAS
JULY - CUBAN AUTHORS
AUGUST - FRANCO CARIBBEAN AUTHORS
SEPTEMBER - COLOMBIAN AUTHORS
OCTOBER - FIRST NATION NORTH AMERICANS
NOVEMBER - ARGENTINIAN AUTHORS
DECEMBER - OTHER PARTS OF THE CONTINENT

JANUARY 2026

CHILE



Chilean Ideas

The bottom geographically is at the top in the challenge.
Chile is a nation of beauty, wilderness, a challenging political, economic and social past which has proven a great breeding ground for writing.

Ten reading options for January.

1. Marjorie Agosin - known for I Lived on Butterfly Hill (2014)
2. Isabelle Allende - known for The House of the Spirits (1982)
3. Roberto Bolano - known for The Savage Detectives (1998)
4. Nona Fernandez - known for Space Invaders (2013)
5. Benjamin Labatut - known for The Maniac (2023)
6. Gabriela Mistral - known for her Nobel winning poetry
7. Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924)
8. Antonio Skarmeta - known for the The Postman (1985)
9. Alejandro Zambra - known for Bonsai (2006)
10. Alia Trabucco Zeran - known for Clean (2022)

FEBRUARY 2026

ANGLO CARIBBEAN



I am not making any political comments here but the classification is all about language.

Authors from Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago,

Basically the West Indian cricket playing nations:

Antigua : Jamaica Kincaid
Bahamas : Robert Antoni
Barbados : Kamau Brathwaite, Austin Clarke, George Lamming, Karen Lord
Dominica : Jean Rhys
Guyana : E.R. Braithwaite, Fred D'Aguiar, David Dabydeen, Sharon Maas
Jamaica : Marlon James, Claudia Rankine, Leone Ross, Linton Kwesi Johnson
Montserrat : E.A. Markham
St. Kitts : Caryl Phillips
St. Lucia : Derek Walcott
Trinidad : C.L.R. James, V.S. Naipaul, Ingrid Persaud, Monique Roffey

MARCH 2026

MEXICO!



Mexican food is close to my favourite cuisine but we will be turning the pages with our tortillas in March.

Ten Reading Options for March

1. Octavio Paz : The Labyrinth of Solitude
2. Carlos Fuentes : The Death of Artemio Cruz
3. Juan Rulfo : Pedro Paramo
4. Laura Esquivel : Like Water for Chocolate
5. Fernanda Melchior : Hurricane Season
6. Sergio Pitol : The Love Parade
7. Yuri Herrera : Season of the Swamp
8. Valeria Luiselli : The Story of My Teeth
9. Sofia Segovia : The Murmur of the Bees
10. Silvia Moreno-Garcia : Mexican Gothic

APRIL 2026

HISPANIC NORTH AMERICANS



US based Hispanic authors and also writers from Puerto Rica and Dominican Republic.

Ten Reading Options for April

1. Oscar Hijuelos : The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
2. Junot Diaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
3. Hernan Diaz - In the Distance
4. Rudolfo Anaya - Bless Me, Ultima
5. Luis Alberto Urrea - Into the Beautiful North
6. Sandra Cisneros - The House on Mango Street
7. Julia Alvarez - In the Time of the Butterflies
8. Angie Cruz - Dominicana
9. Elizabeth Acevedo - The Poet X
10. Xochitl Gonzalez - Olga Dies Dreaming

MAY 2026

BRAZIL!



South America's football loving giant and the most populous Portuguese speaking country.

Ten Reading Options for May:

1. Machado de Assis : The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
2. Clarice Lispector : Near to the Wild Heart
3. Jorge Amado : Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
4. Paul Coelho : The Alchemist
5. Milton Hatoum : The Brothers
6. Ana Paula Maia : Of Cattle and Men
7. Itamar Vieira Junior : Crooked Plow
8. Jeferson Tenorio : The Dark Side of Skin
9. Ana Maria Machado : The History Mystery
10. Carol Bensimon : We All Loved Cowboys

JUNE 2026

NON-FICTION ABOUT THE AMERICAS



This is the only month open to writers not of this region but whose work has brought out something interesting about the places.

Ten Reading Options for June:

1. The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie
2. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
3. Even Silence has an End by Ingrid Betancourt
4. The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
5. The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara
6. Ripped and Torn by Amaranta Wright
7. The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux
8. The Diary of Frida Kahlo by Carlos Fuentes
9. The Lost City of Z by David Grann
10. The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

JULY 2026

CUBA!



Land of sugar, cigars and Fidel we will spend the sunny days of July in Cuba.

Ten Reading Options for July.

1. Jose Marti : Jose Marti Reader
2. Alejo Carpentier : Explosion in a Cathedral
3. Anais Nin : Delta of Venus
4. Guillermo Cabrera Infante : Three Trapped Tigers
5. Reinaldo Arenas : Before Night Falls
6. Leonardo Padura : Havana Blue
7. Zoe Valdes : The Weeping Woman
8. Gabriela Garcia : Of Women and Salt
9. Oscar Hijuelos : Dark Dude
10 Mirta Ojito : Finding Manana

AUGUST 2026

SEPTEMBER 2026

OCTOBER 2026

NOVEMBER 2026

DECEMBER 2026

I'm in!

>15 amanda4242: Pleases me no end!

I'm in for this one and have read Agosin's I Lived on Butterfly Hill.

>3 PaulCranswick: You've mispelt Antonio Skármeta's name.

I have a few authors on my TBR that would fit into this challenge so I'll see if I can manage to squeeze them in.

Yeah! Now, to find literature without magical realism--which I abhor! P.S. December--which continent?

>17 avatiakh: And changed his gender in the meantime! I had better go and fix that, Kerry, well spotted.

>18 PawsforThought: Will be great to have you join when you can, Paws.

>19 Tess_W: Yes it doesn't always work for me either, Tess.

Very much looking forward to this challenge, Paul. Thank you for hosting it. I just hope that I can get hold of each of the authors' works here!

>21 alcottacre: Most welcome, Stasia. xx

>3 PaulCranswick: Greatly enjoyed The Savage Detectives a few years ago. Picked up 2666 recently—-something of a doorstop, but this may be the incentive I need to tackle it.

>23 booksaplenty1949: It is funny because I was fixing to read The Savage Detectives!

>3 PaulCranswick: Great idea, Paul. I am going to try to participate. First problem already clear: my library has very few of these authors available. But I do have a few options.

>24 PaulCranswick: My review https://www.librarything.com/work/174272/t/The-Savage-Detectives

>25 EllaTim: Ella it would be great to have you join in where you can.

>26 booksaplenty1949: I am going there to read it now!

My library had Robert Bolano's The Third Reich, so I'm going with that. If I request it now and then renew it, I can read it the last week of Dec/1st week of January and be good! I do have 2666, but I'm not inclined to read it now!

I can recommend Allende's Island Beneath the Sea.

>27 PaulCranswick: The Third Reich was another option for me too.

After skipping out on the 2025 challenge, I think I'll jump on this one. Looks like a good way to spice things up a bit!

>30 ChrisG1: You will be very welcome, Chris.

Thank you for doing this, Paul. This is the lit I read the least.

I may dip into this challenge now and again next year, Paul. I don't have much from these authors on my shelves, but I do have an unread Allende that would work for January. Like most here, I am more unfamiliar with authors from this continent than elsewhere. I don't know how often I'll be able to participate, but I should be able to fit in a few months. Thanks for organizing it!

>7 PaulCranswick: I have a copy of Lispector's Near to the Wild Heart though I am hoping to tackle her short story collection which I only got part way through a few years ago in a failed group read in the category challenge.

Milton Hatoum's The Brothers has a great graphic novel adaption by the Brazilian twin brothers, Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá, Two Brothers. My library has the GN but not the novel.

Also worth seeking out is the Argentine classic scifi GN, The Eternaut. The fate of the creators is a sad story of death and exile. It's been a few years since I visited Buenos Aires but I remember seeing interesting graffiti art from the book on the streets.

>32 Tess_W: Most welcome Tess, it will be a voyage of discovery for me too.

>33 atozgrl: I am a little of that mind too, Irene, but it is about time I papered over those cracks in my reading experience.

>34 avatiakh: My! I would love to visit Buenos Aires, Kerry.

>35 PaulCranswick: I've been there 4 or 5 times and would love to go again. We took our oldest two to Buenos Aires and Brazil for a holiday when my son was about three years old. He spent the next few years telling everyone he was from Brazil.

>7 PaulCranswick: Note that Machado de Assis' The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas has an alternate title, Epitaph of a small winner.

>36 avatiakh: I didn't know that about Bras Cubas, Kerry.

>37 PaulCranswick: I have a copy under the Epitaph title and didn't know either until a couple of hours ago when I visited the author page.

Here's some of my ideas for January's Chilian authors.

Roberto Bolanno
Woes of the True Policeman, 8 hrs, Libby
The Third Reich, 9 hrs, Libby
The Savage Detectives 27 hrs, Libby (This one might be too long, I would really like to read it because it is a 1001 book.

Isabel Allende
The Japanese Lover 8 hrs, Libby
The Soul of a Woman 4 hrs, NF, Libby
Ripper 14 hrs, mystery, Libby
Maya’s Notebook, Libby
Island Beneath the Sea, 18 hrs Libby
Violeta, 12 hrs, Libby
Eva Luna, 12 hrs
My Name is Emilia del Valle
A long Petal of the Sea
The Wind Knows my name

>8 PaulCranswick: I've read at least three of these. I enjoyed both the book and the film of The Motorcycle Diaries.
I've come across my copy of Brazilian Adventure by Peter Fleming (brother of Ian Fleming) who was part of a 1932 expedition to find the fate of Fawcett, similar to Lost City of Z, so maybe I should read both of these.

I'm not sure how often I will actually participate, but I will be following this challenge for insight into authors new to me.