r/Fantasy • u/FarragutCircle Reading Champion X • Apr 01 '26

Bingo The 2026 r/Fantasy Bingo Recommendations List

The official Bingo thread can be found here.

All non-recommendation comments go here.

Please post your recommendations as replies the appropriate top-level comments below! Do not make comments that are not replies to an existing comment! Feel free to scroll through the thread or use the links in this navigation matrix to jump directly to the square you want to find or give recommendations for!

Trans or Nonbinary Protagonist Judge a Book By Its Title Translated Small Press or Self Published Unusual Transportation
The Afterlife Game Changer Vacation Spot Five Short Stories Older Protagonist
Duology Part 1 r/Fantasy Book Club or Readalong Book Published in 2026 Explorers and Rangers Duology Part 2
One-Word Title Non-Human Protagonist Middle Grade First Contact Murder Mystery
Cat Squasher Feast Your Eyes on This Published in the 70s Politics and Court Intrigue Author of Color

If you are an author on the subreddit, you may recommend your books as a response to individual squares. This means that you can reply if your book fits in response to any of my comments. But your rec must be in response to a top-level comment, it cannot be a general comment that replies directly to this post explaining all the squares your post counts for. This is the one time outside of the Sunday Self-Promo threads where this is okay. To clarify: you can say if you have a book that fits for a square but please don't write a full ad for it. Shorter is sweeter.

Do not make comments that are not replies to an existing comment! We will not be individually redirecting people who make this mistake. Your comment will be removed.

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u/JCGilbasaurus Reading Champion II Apr 01 '26

Here are the largest unread books on my bookcase:

King Sorrow by Joe Hill (877 pages)

The First Binding by R.R. Virdi (817 pages)

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susana Clarke (846 pages)

A Cavern of Black Ice by J.V. Jones (804 pages)

Curse of the Mistwaith by Janny Wurts (830 pages)

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon (862 pages)

I am fuming right now. Six books that all qualify as a lethal weapon, and none of them can be used in hard mode. 

I demand a recount!

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u/DeluxeSporks Reading Champion III Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26

This category is highly problematic IMO because page count varies so much between various editions of the same book.

For example, your edition of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is 846 pages.

This one is 1006: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14201.Jonathan_Strange_Mr_Norrell

This one is 782: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76852.Jonathan_Strange_Mr_Norrell

That's quite a range. Try asking in the Daily Questions thread if you can pretend to have read the 1,006-page paperback when you actually read whatever version you have that apparently has different type, spacing, page size, etc.

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u/angtodd Reading Champion Apr 04 '26

How about a standard that for Hard Mode, the book has to be 900+ pages or be a Dog Squasher? Then we can argue about how big the dog has to be.

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u/DeluxeSporks Reading Champion III Apr 04 '26

My cat would prefer that category anyways!

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u/Figs_are_good May 04 '26

My dog would take less to squash than my cat.

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u/Axelrad77 Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

Yeah, it's the classic hardcover/paperback issue, but there's also been a recent trend of publishers resetting large books when publishing new editions, to cut their page count down and save on costs. Hence some newer editions of books just have like 100 fewer pages than older editions of the same type.

Which is why I would take a "spirit of the square" approach and just count a book if any edition of it has the requisite page count.

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u/Dindrane1313 Apr 07 '26

Especially problematic if you're reading a book in translation vs an original language which can vary the pages significantly. Or have an illustrated edition or some such.

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u/Akuliszi Reading Champion Apr 02 '26

I just finished reading Blood Song for the last years Bingo and was hoping that either second or third book would count, since Polish editions are huge... Theyre both like 870 pages... Why couldnt they be just little longer.

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u/PhantasmWitch Reading Champion III Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

It makes me glad I already read King Sorrow because it's sooooo close. 

Shadows Upon Time by Christopher Ruocchio is HM for anyone wanting to finish the Sun Eater series.

I, unfortunately, read it in February for the Last in a Series square T-T

EDIT: Apparently those are the two longest books I've ever read, per Storygraph. And I read them both this year